Hiring Freelance Web Developers?
8 questions to ask a candidate during an interview
Posted on 02-18-2019, Read Time: Min
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Interviewing freelance web developers can be a unique experience. If you’re unfamiliar with vetting, interviewing, and onboarding freelance web developers, it can feel like an entirely alien and arcane practice.
Interviewing freelance web developers isn’t as difficult as it may seem, however. With a strong set of effective interview questions, it’s much easier to make the correct hiring decision.
Start interviewing freelance web developers today with these essential interview questions:
1. Why do you choose to freelance your web development skills?
Freelancers aren’t tied down to a single company. Web developers for hire use their skills to acquire multiple clients, taking responsibility for maintaining their income, paying their insurance, and taking their own holidays.
Freelancing is a perfectly valid mode of employment and many freelancers are proud of the way they make their living. Gain more insight into the freelancer candidate by asking how and why they decided to become a freelance web developer.
Freelancing is a perfectly valid mode of employment and many freelancers are proud of the way they make their living. Gain more insight into the freelancer candidate by asking how and why they decided to become a freelance web developer.
2. How long have you been freelancing as a web developer?
This is a crucial question because it’s important to gauge the amount of experience a web developer has as a freelancer.
This is a separate question from how many years of experience a candidate has with web development skills. While a candidate might have several years of experience as a web developer, they may be novice freelancers.
This is a separate question from how many years of experience a candidate has with web development skills. While a candidate might have several years of experience as a web developer, they may be novice freelancers.
3. How many years of experience do you have with web programming languages?
Web developers should be familiar with web programming languages like HTML, CSS, PHP, and JavaScript. They may have expertise in certain languages like server-side languages such as Python or Perl, libraries like Angularjs, or frameworks like Bootstrap.
4. Can you show me some live websites or a portfolio?
The best way to assess a web developer’s skill is to take a look at their portfolio. Completed projects are the best indicator of a web developer’s ability. Live websites are especially helpful as you’ll be able to directly interact with the finished product.
5. Do you have a GitHub account? Are you familiar with source control?
In terms of working with a team, source control is absolutely vital. Team members need to be able to make changes to the code, push them, and pull changes made by others. Without experience with Git, it will be nearly impossible for freelance web developers to collaborate with others.
6. Do you have experience working with project management software?
Collaboration is important for web developers. They need to coordinate with designers and developers on a daily or weekly basis in order to meet important project milestones.
Project management software like Trello, Kanbanize, and Jira allow teammates to collaborate via the cloud, meaning remote and freelance web developers can easily communicate, turn in deliverables, and meet project goals through the software.
Project management software like Trello, Kanbanize, and Jira allow teammates to collaborate via the cloud, meaning remote and freelance web developers can easily communicate, turn in deliverables, and meet project goals through the software.
7. How would you describe your communication strategy?
Communication is key. Web development projects rely on effective communication. Without clear and concise communication, web development projects fall apart. Freelance web developers need to have strong written and verbal communication skills and they must also possess a few strategies in order to communicate in an effective, courteous, and friendly way.
8. What’s something you’ve learned from a past mistake?
Web developers need to be great problem solvers. Without creative problem-solving ability, it will be difficult for the freelancer web developer to deal with inevitable roadblocks, hiccups, and missteps.
A great show of both problem-solving ability and resiliency is resolving, adapting, and learning from a past mistake.
A great show of both problem-solving ability and resiliency is resolving, adapting, and learning from a past mistake.
Conclusion
To hire freelance web developers, you need to know what questions to ask them during the interview process. While it may seem difficult to gauge the dedication, skill, and personality of a freelance web developer, it’s actually quite simple. You just need to ask the right questions.
It’s essential to ask freelance web developers about their experience:
It’s essential to ask freelance web developers about their experience:
- How long have they been freelancers?
- How many years have they programmed in HTML, CSS, and PHP?
- Are they able to communicate effectively with co-workers?
- Do they understand how to collaborate using project management software and source control platforms?
In addition, it’s important to ask about some intangible skills, such as problem-solving. Ask them questions like:
- Why do you choose to freelance?
- What have you learned from past mistakes?
- Do you have a portfolio I can go through?
- Are there any live websites I can interact with?
Author Bio
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Ellie Martin is co-founder of |
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