Hiring Writers Is Easy-Peasy

And if it’s not, you’re doing it wrong

A little while ago I read an article by an author on Medium who shall remain nameless. He complained of how difficult it was to hire writers and the hoops he had to jump through to attract and retain qualified talent.

Needless to say, the piece revealed what many freelance writers will already suspect. The author paid excruciatingly low rates and required extensive, unpaid “writing tests.” Unsurprisingly, he found few candidates and fewer still who stuck around.

Hiring writers is like hiring anyone else. Meet our (very reasonable) expectations and treat us well and you’ll have a surfeit of excellent writers beating down your door wanting to work with you. Exploit and mistreat us and…well, let’s just say the people knocking at your door won’t exactly be the best and brightest.

First things first…

There are a ton of people complaining about the “labor shortage” right now. Employers who would otherwise be able to pick, choose, and set the terms of the employment engagement are now forced to compete — and compete hard— for qualified talent.

And, instead of competing, many companies are throwing up their hands and wondering why no one wants to come work for their shitty wages and inadequate benefit packages.

Do you know what labor does when the shoe is on the other foot? We retrain, educate ourselves, and find other ways to sweeten the employment offer. And it’s about damn time employers found a way to improve what they’re pitching.

As a company or individual in the market for writing talent, you have one job. Put together an offer that attracts at least one qualified candidate willing to take on the role. If you can’t do that, get out of the market. Or at least stop complaining about the people you’re lowballing.

There are hundreds of thousands of qualified English writers around the world willing to work with and for you. If the price is right.

Still want to hire? Here’s a quick, crash course in what freelance writers are keeping an eye on when you put your “Now Hiring” sign.

A living wage

I’ve noticed that many people new to hiring writers dramatically underestimate what skilled professionals are typically paid. While it varies dramatically, it’s not unusual for qualified freelance writers to earn well over $100,000 per year. The most credentialed and experienced of us make even more than that.

Writing is a skill in (relatively) short supply and we know it. So we’re not going to let fly on the keyboard for less than what we’re worth.

To put it even more bluntly:

No, $0.02 per word is not a living wage. Neither is a promise of “exposure” or “experience” in exchange for our hard work.

Even comparatively inexperienced writers deserve to be paid at a level that allows them to support themselves without enduring crushing, unsustainable workloads. Anything less is counterproductive, for both the writer and the employer.

A respectful hiring process

I’ve written in the past about the widespread practice of demanding free work from professionals during the hiring and onboarding process:

No, I Won’t Write A Free “Test” Article

In case you don’t feel like reading it, the title pretty much sums it up. The vast majority of qualified writers won’t provide you with free work as part of the interview process.

Experienced writers have portfolios you can use to size up their bona fides. They also have Zoom accounts and email addresses you can use to interact with them to help suss out their soft skills, and references to check out their claims of greatness.

Don’t ask us for free shit. Professionals don’t do free. That’s why they call us professionals.

The necessary tools

Contrary to popular belief, writers need more than just a laptop and a power outlet to do our work. We will need information about your company’s clients and customers, reasonable access to information about what your company sells and how it sells it, and clear indicators of success or failure, among other things.

In short, we need to be connected enough to your company and its clients to understand how best to communicate whatever it is you’re trying to get us to communicate. We need to understand how you’ll be measuring our results and judging our work. We need reasonably prompt feedback about the work product we create.

Like any other contractor or employee, we want to deliver on our promises to you. The best way that you can make sure that happens, is to give us the tools we need to succeed.

A great start…

If you can offer a freelance writer the things I’ve mentioned above, you’ll be miles ahead of 98% of clients seeking help with writing tasks. You’ll also find it extremely easy to find eager, qualified candidates to fill copy and content writing roles in your firm.

Of course, you can choose to plow ahead without offering one or more of the aforementioned things. Let me know how that goes…

Hiring Writers Is Easy-Peasy was originally published in The Writing Cooperative on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.