The great global market created by the Internet has become a catalyst for connecting thousands of businesses with hundreds of thousands of workers around the planet. It is quite common today to find writers who have clients in their own country as well as Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and even Russia, depending on the job involved. However, for businesses, working with overseas writers can be just as risky as trusting a foreign contact to set up a production facility – there’s no reasonable way to guarantee that what’s paid for up front will happen absent being physically present. Fortunately, there are ways around this problem.
When a writer is needed but represents an unknown commodity, businesses are best served by hiring writers through third party facilitating services. Often, these services have vetted their writers and confirmed their ability to provide consistent quality work in specific categories of production. This allows the business to relax and know that generally the production will occur as expected and the services can worry about disciplining a bad writer.
However, there are times when a business needs a specific talent and can’t just throw a job to a hiring pool, not knowing which writer will end up with the task. This often happens when a quick deadline is involved and the job is sensitive. Companies that have already built a portfolio of writers they can rely on through direct orders avoid this problem, knowing their contact will provide consistent response. That said, in any case of urgency, the business should always withhold payment until full satisfaction is realized on the job. This gives the writer an incentive to perform correctly, and it protects the business financially.
Translation of documents by foreign writers can be especially tricky because the business that needs the work often doesn’t know the target language itself. So a level of trust is required in the writer to put a translated document together correctly. This risk can be alleviated with the use a third party unrelated to the writer who can check the work and confirm it was done as required. This approach may add a bit more cost to the job, but it can save a business from serious embarrassments using the wrong phrasing, wording and context in a document.
Businesses should also be very clear and specific about what they want from a writer, whether domestic or overseas. The more detail that can be provided on a job, the better the writer will be able to produce the desired document. Particularly where language can be an issue, providing clear directions with examples can be extremely helpful, avoiding mistakes later on. Some of the best relationships with hiring writers overseas involve regular communication, working out issues before they become big problems. Writers overseas are just like writers at home – they are very good at what they do, but they are not psychics.
So when your business is hiring overseas help, maybe due to lower cost or specific research needs in a given country, remember to plan ahead, only pay for what’s delivered, and be clear about what your business needs.
Tom L is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments.
