Finding top talent might feel like an impossible task during the creative shortage, but it doesn’t have to be.

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Working with freelancers can be a great way to get the expertise you need without committing to a full-time employee, but it’s becoming harder to find the right fit for businesses during the creative shortage. Here’s a few things to consider if you’re looking to build your own network of trusted freelancers.

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Finding reliable freelancers

Being able to rely on a freelancer’s ability to produce good work to deadlines is important, but being limited to one or two regulars can throw a spanner in the works when they’re away on other projects. Investing time into building a larger pool to draw from can come in handy in these situations.

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Word of mouth is a powerful tool and a good place to start. Ask the freelancers that you already have a relationship with whether they might know anyone else that they’d recommend for your project. Similarly, ask your colleagues about their own contacts. Maybe they’ve worked with someone previously that has gone freelance, or they have their own network that they can reach out to.

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If you’re looking for a creative, portfolios are useful tools to gauge their skillset and whether they would be a good fit for your project. However, note that a portfolio usually won’t tell you how long the outputs took to create, or if they were completed individually or as part of a team.

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Going through a freelancer website has its advantages too, especially because you’ll be able to see the reviews that others have left. If the freelancer has their own website, there’s also a good chance that they’ll have client testimonials on there. The more evidence they have showing the quality of their work, the more likely they’ll be a good fit for you.

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Don’t forget to expand your search and look beyond traditional channels. Check social media, professional networking sites, and consider hiring from different parts of the world.

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Building trust while working remotely

How can you build trust with freelancers when you have little to no face-to-face time?

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Start small and traditional. Once you’ve found a freelancer, host a quick thirty-minute video call to get a feel for who they are and how they work. This’ll be another opportunity to gauge their skill level, and gives you a chance to brief them on the project and set any expectations early on.

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After you’ve agreed to work together, you can get them started with smaller tasks that won’t be catastrophic if things go wrong. Remember though: you should allow them as much independence as is reasonably possible within the demands of your project, giving them time and freedom to produce their best work.

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If you’re short of time, scheduling regular check-ins can be a good way to make sure that the brief is fully understood – especially at the start of the project. This way, any communication issues can be caught sooner rather than later.

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What to do when you’re let down by a freelancer

Despite all of the planning you’ve done, some things will inevitably go wrong. If the problem is fixable, such as a misunderstanding of the brief, your best bet is to work through it with your freelancer and allow them to sort it out.

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However, there are times when the problem might not be fixed as easily. Maybe the freelancer is unable to deliver to the agreed deadlines, or their skills are a poor match for the project. This is another moment where being able to fall back on a network of freelancers will be useful. Tapping into a community of trusted creatives for their expertise can help to get your project back on track, with no damage done to your company reputation.

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Building a network will take time, and requires you to keep an eye out for new freelancers to work with.

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Some businesses use agencies, some freelancers, others their own in-house agencies to get their content done. While they can all be great ways to ensure your creative content is delivered – we reckon we’ve developed a better one.

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The great resignation, quiet quitting, skills shortages, in-housing nightmares… all phrases that have become increasingly common when talking about the workplace. There’s no denying that hybrid ways of working have changed the business landscape – and now, more than ever, businesses are looking at ways to optimise how they create content. But what is the best way to get great content?

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The traditional options

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Agencies

External agencies bring an outside perspective, and the potential to see creative and marketing opportunities that may have otherwise been missed. However, they’re also known for working in pretty rigid models and working in silo to your internal teams with account managers blocking access – missing possibilities for collaboration.

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In-house teams

With your delivery team in-house you can realise the benefits of having your content created by a team who are already experts in your company and its culture, as well as having more creative and financial control over outputs. However, sometimes being part of the furniture can mean resource is not put to good use, creativity can get stale and the breadth of experience within the team can be limited.

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Freelancers

Using freelance resource can be ideal for plugging some skills gaps, but they don’t come with out their own issues. Freelancers often don’t tend to, or want to, work as a part of a collaborative team, which can make managing wider projects where freelancers are involved more difficult. Plus there are added admin implications such as IR35 compliance and general management of disparate freelancers.

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Recruiters

Recruiters can be a good option to help you find the resource you need for a particular project – but that’s kind of all they do. They aren’t content specialists, they focus on individuals rather than teams and don’t manage the people they put in your teams – so if it doesn’t work out you’re back to square one.

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The Ah Um option

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We’ve taken the best bits of in-house teams, freelancers, external agencies and recruiters and designed a way of creating content that delivers everything you need, in the most flexible, efficient way possible.

How do we do this? We build, embed and run the creative teams you need for your projects directly within your business, for the time you need them. So you can…

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• Get flexibility – onboard and stand down teams on a project-by-project basis, a bit like how an in-house team would work

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• Access top talent – get the benefits of an external agency in terms of having the best, most enthusiastic writers, strategists and creatives making content for you

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• Keep costs on track – our model means you can actually resource your teams efficiently without the overheads of recruiters, full-time staff or using freelancers

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• Realise top-level outputs – embedding a creative team for a particular project means you can achieve the outputs you need without letting other internal projects slip, and without increasing headcount, and long-term costs

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• Mitigate risk – increase the creative capabilities of your existing teams without taking on additional risk or admin – we’ll deal with any personnel absence/changes/issues so you don’t have to

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So, you could say we’re like an external agency in structure and experience, but we deliver more like an integrated, in-house team. Our teams take the time to get really involved in your project, understanding the nitty gritty of your product and business, no matter how technical and work with you to get it right, while bringing the fresh eyes and outside perspective needed to make your comms and content strategy fresh, accessible and exciting for your audience.

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Take a sneak peek behind the scenes at Ah Um and get to know what Charley, our creative designer, gets up to day-to-day.

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A typical day on client work 💪

At Ah Um we focus on understanding our clients before creating their content, so a typical morning for me might include reviewing some brand guidelines and messaging documents. When those don’t exist, I’ll use tools like colour-picking software which help me grab a palette from their existing website!

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If we’re working with clients using the embedded team model, we will also join in on the client’s standups and meetings to ensure we’re working efficiently as part of their team.

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For video and animation based projects, I’ll make a moodboard containing imagery, fonts, tone of voice and any other information which sets the client apart from its competitors. Once this is done I start the sketching phase. Check out our brainstorming article for the specifics! Then I’ll spend the afternoon working closely with the other project members, and help to create a pitch deck for us to showcase our ideas to the client.

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A typical day with no client work 💡

On a day with no client biz I’ll work on designs, videos and animations for our social media channels.

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I also make sure to spend time on my personal development, which includes good old chats with the boss about my ambitions, enrolling on courses to help me hone my skills, and watching the BEST youtube tutorials (thank you Ben Marriott).

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Courses and development 🔧

One of my goals has been to improve my motion design and animation skills, so I have used my yearly training budget to take part in Ben Marriott’s Master Motion Design course. It was incredible! I’m obsessed with his tutorials and this course was just an entire new level of detail. I learned sooo many useful techniques and workflow tricks that can be applied to every project for a smoother overall process and improved end product. We covered loads of animation styles and took a deep dive into the technical bits of after effects (my favourite thing to nerd out about).

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This year I’d love to look into hand-drawn animation courses as liquid motion and morphing would be super cool techniques to integrate into my work.

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Work-life balance 🌳

I really enjoy being creative and I spend most of my free time doing things like design, film and music, so having a full time job in the area I enjoy the most makes me really happy. However, when working from home I sometimes use up all my creativity at work and have none left to use on my hobbies, and vice versa! I’ve found that going into the office once or twice a week helps me have that separation between work and life, and even if it’s been a super intense working day, I still feel like I can spend time on my hobbies at home.

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