How to Hire for Data Entry?

[animalstyle]

Its about time to re-invest this bankroll back into my business. I've got a second project that I've started, but it's not getting the attention it needs to grow. I have to remove myself as the bottleneck.

This will be my first step out into the darkness of paying for work. Until now I've done everything on my entire operation myself.

I need to find someone to do data entry for me. I need to create product pages on an ongoing basis. I'd feed a list of products and have a specific set of requirements for each one (grab images, descriptions, prices etc.)

Where should I start looking to hire for this?

How separated would you keep the person doing the data work from a range of give them an editor user account on my wordpress install to having them email the data and do the entry myself or an import?

 

[Ryuzaki]

I hired someone for something similar once. It was on oDesk I believe. I nice college aged Filipino girl. She did several huge jobs for me, required no oversight, was on time, communicated well, etc.

But I filtered through a lot of applicants to find her.

I had her fill out a CSV and grab images, resize them, and rename them, and dump them in a folder. I used the CSV with a column per piece of data and a column for the image file name, and did a mass upload to Wordpress.

Why does she need Editor role permissions? Seems like Author would get it done.

But yeah you could set up a separate install and let her build it out there and then export it in XML form and simply import it on the main install.

 

[animalstyle]

Thanks @Ryuzaki that makes perfect sense and is exactly what I need. Ill be going the CSV route for sure.

Can I ask how you paid? Per item, hourly? What works best for this type of thing?

 

[Ryuzaki]

I paid per job, estimated a total and went with it. It wasn't a ton so I didn't care to negotiate but it was sizable for her and her currency.

 

[contract]

Welcome to the wonders of digital employees.

Here's what I've learned over the years:

- There is NO loyalty. These workers come and go. (Regardless of how much you pay them or how well you treat them.) None of them will be as motivated as you are...

- Bonuses make them lazy. I've had someone go missing after giving them an $xxx bonus. Even paying them reasonably well doesn't do it either. After they have earned enough to pay their rent or they end up getting more hours at their day job, they vanish.

- Be RUTHLESS about meeting deadlines. It starts from being late 1 day, then being late a week, then an entire month. Be CRYSTAL clear on when the project is to be done. As fucked up as it may feel at first: If a project is past the deadline and you want to finish it yourself or give it to someone else; Tell them their NOT getting paid. It doesn't matter if they are 50% or even 90% done. It's their fault, not yours. They will drag shit on and waste your time.

- US and overseas workers are all the same. IGNORE the pay rates. You have to sort through a lot of shitty people on both sides. You'd think college students in the US would be great or even better workers, but they are often lazier than the overseas people.

- Expect to churn through these workers about every 3-6 months. Most end up quitting within the first month or on the first/second project.

- Don't worry about their background/work history. If you are willing to take on your project and get it done that's all that matters.

- You can weed out 99% of the losers by giving them a sample project. Tell you to do roughly 5 min of work. If it comes back as quality work, they get the job. If they aren't willing to do a quick sample and prove their can follow basic instructions, then abandon them and move on.

- I keep things separate... I can have my content team enter articles into WP, but I still do it myself manually. When you're churning through people, it's a bit of an annoyance to keep track of who/what permissions to remove. If the bulk of the time for the job is entering things into WP, well, then yeah, you'd want to give them permissions and strip them down as much as possible.

- To hire people, just search, "virtual assistant" and go on those networking sites like oDesk or w/e. When you message them, ASK FOR SKYPE. Don't use their shitty email system. If they don't have skype, don't work with them. (There's the reddit for hire area, but out of the 30 people I hired, every single one quit. Yet, they are were super desperate for work...)

- You'll prob go through 40 people to find 1. Then repeat the process 3-6 mo from now.

 

[Concept]

Welcome to the wonders of digital employees.

Here's what I've learned over the years:

- There is NO loyalty. These workers come and go. (Regardless of how much you pay them or how well you treat them.) None of them will be as motivated as you are...

- Bonuses make them lazy. I've had someone go missing after giving them an $xxx bonus. Even paying them reasonably well doesn't do it either. After they have earned enough to pay their rent or they end up getting more hours at their day job, they vanish.

- Be RUTHLESS about meeting deadlines. It starts from being late 1 day, then being late a week, then an entire month. Be CRYSTAL clear on when the project is to be done. As fucked up as it may feel at first: If a project is past the deadline and you want to finish it yourself or give it to someone else; Tell them their NOT getting paid. It doesn't matter if they are 50% or even 90% done. It's their fault, not yours. They will drag shit on and waste your time.

- US and overseas workers are all the same. IGNORE the pay rates. You have to sort through a lot of shitty people on both sides. You'd think college students in the US would be great or even better workers, but they are often lazier than the overseas people.

- Expect to churn through these workers about every 3-6 months. Most end up quitting within the first month or on the first/second project.

- Don't worry about their background/work history. If you are willing to take on your project and get it done that's all that matters.

- You can weed out 99% of the losers by giving them a sample project. Tell you to do roughly 5 min of work. If it comes back as quality work, they get the job. If they aren't willing to do a quick sample and prove their can follow basic instructions, then abandon them and move on.

- I keep things separate... I can have my content team enter articles into WP, but I still do it myself manually. When you're churning through people, it's a bit of an annoyance to keep track of who/what permissions to remove. If the bulk of the time for the job is entering things into WP, well, then yeah, you'd want to give them permissions and strip them down as much as possible.

- To hire people, just search, "virtual assistant" and go on those networking sites like oDesk or w/e. When you message them, ASK FOR SKYPE. Don't use their shitty email system. If they don't have skype, don't work with them. (There's the reddit for hire area, but out of the 30 people I hired, every single one quit. Yet, they are were super desperate for work...)

- You'll prob go through 40 people to find 1. Then repeat the process 3-6 mo from now.

@contract were these full-time employees or freelancers that you had doing regular work for you over time? Also what was the type of work you had these people doing?

My experience has been very different to yours, however all my overseas employees had been hired on full time contracts. We were their sole income and our approach was very different to yours.

When I was a marketing manager our company outsourced a lot of stuff to Nepalese employees. We built the same structure as we did with our Aussie employees. The job was their full-time work, not just side work. We were very stringent with our hiring processes and our drop off rate was very low. During my time there, I only ever had 1 employee quit under the 1-year mark. I personally had a team of 8, but our Nepalese team was about 24 and growing (I still keep in touch with my old boss and the Nepalese team is 80 strong now).

Also the type of work we were employing our Nepalese staff for were ranged and required experience. Often we were hiring well-educated people and made sure the work they did was engaging. My director was incredibly focussed on a balance of amazing company culture, both in Australia and Nepal, with a constant drive to succeed and improve performance. This mix of employment structure and excellent company culture meant that the people we hired stayed on and produced better and better work over time.

My business partner/mentor has something similar with his digital businesses. He has over 24 full-time employees from all over the world with little turnover of employees.

To try and bring it back to @animalstyle 's original post, if you are hiring freelancers, then yes I expect your experience will be similar to @contract 's. However, if you are looking to create a business that lasts the distance, with long-term employees, then building employment structures and opportunities, like what I briefly mentioned above, will be key.

Something to consider in the future.

 

[animalstyle]

Thanks @contract and @Concept. Right now I am in the freelance boat - I am not at a place where I am ready to hire anyone full time - although this could stem into that, and is something I would be happy to do as I am in this for the long haul.

Right now I could use that 3-6 months of help just to get this work off my plate, build the foundation for the site and start marketing it.

All very helpful and very appreciated - thank you.

 

[coredev]

@contract were these full-time employees or freelancers that you had doing regular work for you over time? Also what was the type of work you had these people doing?

My experience has been very different to yours, however all my overseas employees had been hired on full time contracts. We were their sole income and our approach was very different to yours.

When I was a marketing manager our company outsourced a lot of stuff to Nepalese employees. We built the same structure as we did with our Aussie employees. The job was their full-time work, not just side work. We were very stringent with our hiring processes and our drop off rate was very low. During my time there, I only ever had 1 employee quit under the 1-year mark. I personally had a team of 8, but our Nepalese team was about 24 and growing (I still keep in touch with my old boss and the Nepalese team is 80 strong now).

Also the type of work we were employing our Nepalese staff for were ranged and required experience. Often we were hiring well-educated people and made sure the work they did was engaging. My director was incredibly focussed on a balance of amazing company culture, both in Australia and Nepal, with a constant drive to succeed and improve performance. This mix of employment structure and excellent company culture meant that the people we hired stayed on and produced better and better work over time.

My business partner/mentor has something similar with his digital businesses. He has over 24 full-time employees from all over the world with little turnover of employees.

To try and bring it back to @animalstyle 's original post, if you are hiring freelancers, then yes I expect your experience will be similar to @contract 's. However, if you are looking to create a business that lasts the distance, with long-term employees, then building employment structures and opportunities, like what I briefly mentioned above, will be key.

Something to consider in the future.

I agree with this. There's a big difference between a freelancer vs a full-time employee.

When you are the sole income source for an employee - they take the work seriously.

I will ask for their input on tasks. I think it helps bridge the gap between boss and employee.

I make them feel like their work matters, tell them good job when they do good work, and generally try to motivate them.

I once had an employee who worked for me for 1 year ask for me a loan. I said no. She called me heartless and quit. As far as I was concerned, she was going to quit if i gave her the loan or not. I feel she had no intention of paying it back.

My current employee has been with me over 4 years now and hasn't missed 1 day of work. I don't know what I would do without her.

 

[contract]

Freelancers, grunt work...

Yeah I agree with the full-time employee bit, they are far more loyal and vastly different.

Of course, you don't even have to pay them well... You can hook them with a "free" company cell phone, car, etc. Then when they want to quit, well they can't. They'll have no phone, no car, and no money to pay rent. (Assuming they live paycheck to paycheck like 90% of Americans)

 

[Inhibition]

I'm starting to slowly learn how unreliable freelancers are, it's become a game of do everything myself until you're making enough to hire people full time. Not bothering till than.

 

[blackwar85]

I'm starting to slowly learn how unreliable freelancers are, it's become a game of do everything myself until you're making enough to hire people full time. Not bothering till than.

Yeah, fortunately the threshold for hiring people full-time nowadays is not that high anymore. I have had great luck with Filipinos: https://www.onlinejobs.ph/, http://www.easyoutsource.com/.

I am pretty sure you can get someone full-time for $300 a month or even less. Of course, they will not have any specific skillsets, but for grunt/boring work they are perfect + they can pick up new things and learn really fast.

Why I bring up specifically Filipinos? This article explains it very well: https://www.onlinejobs.ph/blog/philippines-cultural-differences-make-outsourcing-easier.

Of course, you need to identify the good ones first. Giving test tasks, first 2 weeks trial period ( paid ), setting up right expectations etc.