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How Do You Fire an Assistant Who is Unfit for the Job?

firing an employeeFire assistant is part-12 of an interview with Eric, a fellow entrepreneur interested in outsourcing his work to virtual assistants all over the world.

Follow along to learn from our experience on working with VAs!

Click here to read part 11 of this interview – Learn how to setup initial tasks with virtual assistants

Summary:

  • How to not get emotionally involved with your virtual assistant to avoid letting emotions guide your decisions
  • Learn how to fire assistants who do not fit the job title nicely without getting too emotionally attached
  • Learn when is the right time to fire your virtual assistant

Start of the Interview:

Francis
Francis

Because then it gets emotional and then you are not able to, for example, fire that assistant anymore.

anonymous-user-thumb
Eric

Yeah, that’s true. Yeah, you don’t want to go right out at the gate and really just get to know their entire family and take them up for lunch or whatever. Then they’re doing a bad job and then you want to get rid of them and you can’t.

Francis
Francis

I really do believe that also you should be open and upfront with your expectations and how you handle failure. This will take a lot of the misery and anxiety hopefully away from the virtual assistant.

So, for example, you are a very well hard-core employer. Perhaps, that’s your style or anyone’s style and you say, “Okay, you can make one mistake and then it’s over.”

I don’t believe that’s very efficient. But, if you are like that and you cannot change then so be it. You will find perhaps someone who’s able to be holding up these standards for some price.

But then your assistant knows how hard and specific he can work before he delivers anything.

For me, the expectation is you can make lots of mistakes as long as we learn from it. It’s okay. And as long as we talk and we don’t stop talking about it, it’s okay. So, I was never abused in this situation that an assistant made too many mistakes because no assistant is really that inefficient. But, it gives them sort of the possibility to really try out a few things.

anonymous-user-thumb
Eric

Yeah, definitely. Because, I think that you have to really take the time. Like, I know with my VA, I was sort of getting closer upfront and I was noticing some different things that she was lacking on or things that maybe weren’t as up to par as what I expected.

And it may be harder for me to kind of be like, “Okay, let’s re-evaluate our situation.” Well, I was kind of felt like I was obligated to continue to pay her even though it was necessarily something that I should’ve continued to do

Continue reading part 13 – Part-time vs full-time virtual assistants

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Filipino Business Ethics

The Insider View Of A Virtual Assistant From The Philippines

In the years of my experience working as a regular employee, I’ve encountered a lot of faces with different traits and characters.

I know for a fact that I can’t conclude every individual’s attitude since we have our own abilities and capabilities. But, one thing is for sure, I know what I am going to tackle in this post and some may not be about others taste or too harsh, but let’s face it—it’s called reality.

Francis the employer

Filipino as we are

Jomvie - Fulltime Virtual Assistant from the Philippines

Filipinos are known to be very hospitable and accommodating. Yes, we are. Even in our own home, we love to accommodate and gather around over some delicious foods (food is the easiest way to get to your friends and family). We love long talks and a get together after a long week of work.

But, what is it really like to be in our workplace?

What is the true essence of the Filipino’s way to do business?

How do they treat each other?

We all know for a fact that in every workplace, there are competitions may it be healthy or not. And in every success comes with different reactions. As an insider to this delicate topic, I will get you to my workplace.

The worst aspects of Filipino work ethics

We all want a decent and a good paying job. And what if I’ll tell you that mostly one of the better paying job in our country needs an access inside?  And if not, a jealous workmate who will do anything just to pull you down before your promotion?

Here are the top following dirty work ethics that are commonly seen in our workplace.

  • Padrino System “Palakasan” When it comes to work or job referral, “Padrino System” also known in our local dialect as “Palakasan”  is one of the most common, most corrupt, unfair and dirtiest way of getting a job in the government and/or other private industry without the hassle.I am not in the right place to rant this out, but this kind of system is an open secret and I hate this personally. I know I am not alone in this war, and there’s nothing that we can do about it because it has rotten its way up to the top.
  • Crab mentality It’s a metaphor that refers to a basket of crabs. Instead of getting out individually, one will grab and pull each other down.Just like in a workplace setup, if you are highly recommended to get promoted for your good performance, some of your workmate might not like it and will do anything and will try to expose something not good from the past just to prevent you from getting that position.It sounds like an excerpt from a movie, but seriously, it happens in reality, especially in a big company and/or even in small industry.
  • BackstabbingWe all love some chit chat with our friends and most especially in our workplace since we spend most of our time in there. But, we cannot deny that along with that chit chats, it comes along with gossips and/or talking about other peoples’ lives behind their back.I, personally, hate this kind of attitude where you’ll talk about others when you didn’t know personally what they have been through to survive their everyday life.We don’t have the right in any way to belittle someone or somebody and that we should keep our noses to its rightful place and mind our own life and be good at it.
Francis point of view about Filipino Virtual Assistants

Filipinos’ best character traits for doing business

Philippines Fruit BasketFilipinos are creative, fun and extremely optimistic. Coupled with their natural sense for doing business and coming up with ideas on how to make money, this is very refreshing.

Of course, in every con, there comes a pro. I might have fired up a little earlier in our discussion, but behind all those negative traits, there are some good behavior and character that overweighs the bad.

Naturally, Filipinos have the sweet and homey aura that will surely lighten up your day—a true Filipino business ethics. Despite the competitions and teeth grinding behaviors in the workplace, someone will always be there to brighten your day.

Like what I said, I can’t conclude this issue for everyone, but speaking for myself through my experiences, we have the attitude to:

  • “Never give up”
  • “Try and try, until you succeed”
  • “No pain, no gain” / “No guts, no glory”

Personally, I have within me the trait, “To never give up, keep pushing yourself to the limit, and don’t let the obstacles hinder your success.”

Life may be full of strife, but at the end of the day, a true Filipino will always live by these words,

“huwag kang susuko sa pagsubok ng buhay”

(In English, that means “Don’t give up on whatever life may bring”)

Optimism is the key

Philippines poor roadside living people

The busy street of the metro where you’ll see different faces of the small-time vendors along the pathway making a living. These people are commonly known as “one scratch, one peck”, an average percentage of the country’s population.

I lived in a country where poverty rate shoots sky high, where a higher percentage of families sleeping at night without anything in their stomach. But, despite all that demise, you’ll never see them break down and cry for help for the rest of the day.

They will always try and look for something and/or anything to be able to bring something to their family at the end of the day.

Yes, most employees live in a day to day basis, just like a “one scratch, one peck” or in other term “living paycheck to paycheck”.

But, do we stop from there?

Instead, we make it as a strong hold to reach for our goals in life.

That’s why they always say, “Habang may buhay, may pag-asa.”

(In English, “While there is life, there is hope.”)

A Smile Can Mend A Broken Spirit

It’s not always a happy time—there are times that we don’t see the light of the day in our lives (it’s a metaphor). We all go through rough and tough that seems endless, but we never forget to put a smile on our faces.

The best trait that I’ve ever seen most of my entire life is that Filipinos will never let the storm and sadness overcome their lives—they will always get on their feet and stand all throughout the darkest hour.

Just Perception and Life Disposition

We all have that bad and good side, but we should always remember to put them into the right perspective. We have differences and that makes us so unique from each and every one. And no matter what race or color you have, it will always depend on how you see life.

A mall in the Philippines
This is taken inside the mall, where you’ll see different people in all walks of life, doing their own thing. Some will go and buy their basic necessities, others were there to socialize and/or just to cool off their minds (and bodies, as there is air conditioning!).

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Example Job Description for An Ebook Illustrator and Selection Process

Example job description is part-4 of an interview from Stefan from Germany, who lives the Four Hour Work Week lifestyle in Thailand.

Click here to read part 3– How you can use a freelance transcriptionist for other administrative jobs

Summary:

  • You can also invite virtual assistants that have specific skills directly for an interview instead having them apply for your job.
  • It’s a good sign of a candidate if he straight away provides his contact details (e.g. skype name) in the cover letter.
  • Always check for copyright details whenever you use any images on your website.

Start of the Interview:

Francis
Francis:

Okay. So I have made a screenshot of your example job description, Stefan.

Example job description for ebook illustrator
stefan employer interview
Stefan:

Yes.

Francis
Francis:

And we have talked about it before but I can give you feedbacks about your job description if you would like to. But if you have questions first…

stefan employer interview
Stefan:

Let me just explain first what I’m talking about is. Why I wrote it like that and I wasn’t so sure because my experience with outsourcing is limited.

So in the past when I outsourced the jobs, I just wrote the job – what you have to do – in very simple words. So, somebody that is working with me would understand or I would understand it.

And from that, I search for an outsourcer that would have a good profile – a high quality profile that have a good ranking and whatever and that should possibly able to understand what I mean.

Francis
Francis:

Yes.

stefan employer interview
Stefan:

So by writing it very simple and just put it out there. Then I wrote to you that what you think about it and how could I improve it. From that point, I didn’t want to wait so long until you help me out with your expertise.

I just invited a few people that I found on oDesk that I thought were maybe good. I invited them to the job and I got a couple of applications. A lot of them were crap because they’ve just said, “Okay, I accept.”

That was the whole application. But there was one person in particular that wrote me and explained to me what he wanted to do. He would like to have the job and he also sent me his Skype name right away. 

Francis
Francis:

That is a very good sign, by the way. That would be a test I would do if I were interested in finding a good applicant. So he is actually a very interesting candidate. Go on, please.

stefan employer interview
Stefan:

Yeah. I thought that was good right away because I didn’t need to write him back and wait for the message again. So, I just added him on Skype and wrote him.

I wrote him and he was online right away. We chatted a little bit. We exchanged ideas and it was right away a good communication.

We didn’t talk so much right away about the payment and about stuff. We talked about the job and I thought that was also a good sign because a lot of people, most of the time in the past interviews, were like this.

I asked what would you do with this job, what are your idea? …and the person tells me I have experience with that and that and that.

And that is all. It’s just listing the past experience. Not so much like I think that we could do that and we could do that. So I thought that he gave me right away possible solutions for the problem and he listened to my problem in detail. 

Then, it was a good sign that he didn’t talk about payment right away at all. We didn’t talk about payment for he worked for me 2 days already. It wasn’t a full time job. It was a – how do you say?

Francis
Francis:

A part time job.

stefan employer interview
Stefan:

Part time job, yeah. Like maybe 1 hour a day, 2 hours a day, maybe with a fixed price offer. And the next day, he sent me a sample of his ideas – of his work. That was really good. I saw that he has a few ideas and that he really had thought about that stuff. 

Then we discussed it further and further. The biggest problem about the job wasn’t so much the redesigning of the layout.

The biggest problem that is still on the table with our E-book creation is that we have to redesign the pictures that are in the E-book that will be used in the E-book.

Because I can’t produce pictures from scratch, from zero, so I take copyrighted material from Google image search and I just have to make it non-copyright material.  

So, my idea is to just take it and redraw it because if I redraw it, 99% of the copyright problem is gone.

Right? If they are like cartoon styled, totally different style, change the angle of the work and stuff. It’s hand-drawn or something like that. Okay, just some solution. 

Francis
Francis:

We just want to interject here. Since I’m not a lawyer, I cannot give you legal advice. However in your case, I would double or triple check if hand redrawn picture will keep you safe especially if you give the instructions “Please re-draw by hand” and the results is pretty similar. Then you will be in trouble, perhaps.  

stefan employer interview
Stefan:

No, no. The result doesn’t have to be similar. It mustn’t be similar.

Francis
Francis:

It shouldn’t be.

stefan employer interview
Stefan:

No, it mustn’t be similar. It has to be the same information for the human eye, for the reader, but it doesn’t have to be the same. You know what I mean?

A reader has to get the same value from the picture but a Google reverse search engine doesn’t have to find the original image where it came from. Okay?

Because it’s a medical E-book and the human body is not copyrighted, okay?

Francis
Francis:

Yes. I understand.

stefan employer interview
Stefan:

And so writing a vertebra is not copyrighted in any form – you drawing a vertebra. So it just has to be the same value of the information of the picture.

We tried a few examples. We tried to take the original picture. That was the first idea, take the original picture and make a vector graphic from it.

But that was still too similar – way too similar. It looked the same. The arrangement of the picture was basically the same. It was just a different graphic style. 

Google image search is very good to find the original still and that mustn’t be possible. That is the thing that I want from my designer that he draws a picture.

And if I take that picture and put it into image search from Google, I can’t find the original picture where it came from. We have to achieve that.

Francis
Francis:

Okay. So, let me take over the conversation again. I think that is possible. But just for food for thought and as a little sidebar, as you said the human body is not copyrighted; please double check.

And if needed, get an assistant to research that for you. Is it possible that some of the pictures you plan to re-draw could be found in the very similar way in the Creative Commons area in the Wikimedia, in Flickr, in other image source which you can use for commercial reasons for free?

stefan employer interview
Stefan:

No. Not in this quality and especially not in this being so easy to find. There are a lot of different because I don’t know exactly what I’m searching for and if I’m using Google image search to search for.

I have a thousand or many, many pictures that I can choose from. And to search that volume from open sources would take an immense amount of time from my side. More than it would take to use images from a source that I don’t know if copyrighted or not and let them be re-drawn.

That is basically the easiest solution and since we made so much progress in the last days to find a solution to this problem.

I’m confident that this is the way to go because it saves a lot of time from my side. And my time is the most valuable in this whole calculation, you know. 

Francis
Francis:

Understood. So, the possibility of having someone else does the picture research for you, someone potentially cheaper and just as effective.

This possibility aside, I think your job description is rather effective overall. It still has a few flaws.

stefan employer interview
Stefan:

Yes.

Francis
Francis:

I tried to point them out in our mastermind group which we have which is closed so I won’t link to it. But unfortunately, Google plus deleted somehow my comment when I pressed enter and I didn’t want to write it again.

Click here to read part 5 of the interview – How to write a job description

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The Right Outsourcing Ethics in Business

Hire A Virtual Assistant And Have A Good Conscience About It

Treat your workers respectfullyUnderstand the notion of ethics in business when you do learn how to outsource your work to freelancers all over the world. If you understand how to treat your VA the right way, you’ll have lots of success.

Whoever you are working with, wherever that person may live, treat them right

What is common sense for me, personally, sometimes gets ignored by others who are hiring virtual assistants, looking only for cheap work at possibly inhumane conditions.

I am not an encyclopaedia. But I have made real-life experiences with freelance workers from all around the world for many years now.

Outsourcing as a private person or a mini-business is way different than offshoring from a big enterprise. Still, the question: “what is business ethics in outsourcing all about?” is not only a duty towards your virtual co-worker, but also to your conscience.

The definition for business ethics when outsourcing can be boiled down to “treat others as you want yourself to be treated”.

Knowing the basics of Christian ethics in business is especially useful if you work together with virtual assistants from the Philippines. Even without discussing questions of faith here – there are many advantages for your business if you treat your online workers the right way.

Nothing beats the passion and effectiveness of a virtual helper who loves doing what he does for you. True loyalty cannot be bought.

I had the chance of meeting my full-time Virtual Assistant Jomvie in person in the Philippines. With him and other Filipinos, I made a first-hand impression of their manner to do business. If you really want to succeed in hiring Filipinos, you need to understand them well.

This is why I think the the combined view of my VA, Jomvie, and I will be helpful for you to understand Filipino business ethics.

Thinking Globally – Do your best to make outsourcing a win-win to both sides of the globe

The world is becoming more and more global. You can live in the US and hire someone from the Philippines, for example. But there are differences which you need to keep in mind.

Knowing about ethics in international business as an employer or a freelancer is a prerequisite to survive in this global world we now live in.

Attitude as an employer to your assistant

Think of global business ethics, which means that you need to be aware that your business partner lives in a country which is very different from yours. When you have a virtual assistant working for you, you need to know that they have a different…

Attitude as freelancer to your boss

Think Globally

If you work for someone else, you are not only in it for the money. Always think about your business ethics and social responsibility that comes from

  1. the quality of your work
  2. and your work attitude.

If you only work for the quick money and instant gratification, you will fail in the long run. Learn how to do things well in order to live with satisfaction and success far in the future.

Bad business attitudes and lack of respect will hurt your success

Of course, there are many people who treat freelancers badly. Just because they live in a different, often poorer country than the employer does not mean that it’s OK to disrespect a virtual assistant. There are many cases of bad business ethics which can show you what not to do.

The top 3 mistakes for your outsourcing ethics in business you can make are:

  • Lack of communication before, during and at the end of your cooperation. Worst case scenario: an employer firing his assistant without any further notice. Or a freelancer quitting the job without saying a word.
  • Miss commitment- over committing but not delivering at all. This also goes both ways.
  • Disrespect. Treating your employer (or assistant) as if he is stupid will come and bite you in the long run.

Of course, virtual assistants can also sometimes be at fault.

Henry Kravis' famous quotation

My personal take on outsourcing ethically

I started out as a private person trying out outsourcing for private projects only. I only recently started to think of me as a one-person enterprise.

That was also when I had to evaluate if my methods working with virtual assistants stood up to acceptable levels of ethics in business – which I am glad they did.

Honestly, if you spot any ethical issues on this whole website that looks cheesy, fake or slave-labor-ish, rush over and let me know!

Being an employer in Germany, the morals behind all my outsourcing activities were done with German business ethics in mind. There are also bad German working ethics which you should know about.

My code of honor:

There is a strict set of rules I have set firmly into my mind of how I will treat my virtual assistants. I summarize it as my personal business ethics policy and try to live by it.

My virtual assistant from Pakistan as a case study in moral outsourcing

I have worked together with my virtual assistant for more than one year now. He does great work and is very affordable. The importance of ethics in business was clearer than ever to me when I started discussing having a virtual assistant working for me with my friends and met some difficult questions.

Since we share a high level of trust with each other, I profited from his experiences as a freelancer to ask some personal questions. This interview resulted in a thorough business ethics case study, all from the point of view of a virtual assistant from Pakistan.

Stay Tuned about global ethics in business for maximum success for your outsourcing business

I care about my virtual assistants being treated right. Still, it’s important to know what happens to ethics in business around us, especially in such a global world we are living in.

To stay tuned in, we’ll set up a business ethics news section. Head there to read about the newest pieces of information about ethical outsourcing from all around the world.

Timeless, must-read business ethics articles for any outsourcing business and cooperation will stay up as their own discussion pages. I’d love to see an honest, no-holding-back-discussion about the pros and cons of outsourcing going.






Do You Think Outsourcing Is Ethical?

How do you feel about letting someone else work for you?

Do you have strong feelings about outsourcing in general or can you even share your personal experience with a story of what happened when you worked either with a freelancer or with an employer over the internet.

Be part of this page and contribute here!

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Let Us Know What You Think. Elaborate Your Arguments!

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Ethical Issues With Outsourcing to Under-Developed Countries

From The Point Of View Of My Virtual Assistant

Read how my VA thinks about the morality of outsourcing.

As a virtual assistant, I never thought about ethical issues of outsourcing work, perhaps because it is not hurting me enough to think about it. But morally speaking as a freelancer, I am not ashamed working as an online worker.

I don’t think that there are any ethical issues while working as a virtual assistant. In fact, it is in favor of my country because this way, foreign currency reserves of my country increase.

In India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, a high number of people (manpower) have migrated to other richer countries and they sent a lot of money to their families regularly and these foreign remittances play a vital role in their economic stability.

But if I think vice-versa, I think there would be some ethical issues especially when it comes to unemployment and I know US and Europe are also facing some swear unemployment issues.

Outsourcing income is not too attractive

In my country, a very nominal number of people are considering “outsourcing” as their profession. If I look around my surroundings, I only know three people doing outsourced work and I am one of them.

Although they get a good amount of income after the currency conversion rates but still the pay rate in these countries is still more handsome than an outsourced job until you are an expert of your field. I am not saying this by judgment, I am quoting this statement after interviewing various providers from oDesk and getting relevant information from them.

Job insecurity

job-insecurity is a big drawback of outsourcing

Also the “job-insecurity” is a big drawback of this kind of job. This can also be one of outsourcing’s ethical issues from an employer’s point of view. Employers promise regular work by offering a long-term contract, and one morning, when you get up and login to your inbox, you find out that the employer has ended your contract without any notice.

This can break all your dreams about your future and is pretty much similar to being fired from your job and now you will have to struggle to find another job.

Ideally it’s suitable for part-timers or people who prefer working flexible hours until and unless they have some real outstanding skills like latest web designing techniques or are an expert Photoshop designer or a software engineer or programmer etc etc.

Pros and Cons of outsourcing from a VA’s perspective

Pros

  • High currency conversion rates.
  • Learning prospective.
  • Flexible hours.
  • Working without any immediate supervision
  • Get reward for the work we do, we don’t have any hourly job concept (zero percent), we have either paid monthly with no overtime charges or work on daily wages.
  • Over the years, transportation and café charges have been rapidly increased and by working online from home, we can save a lot of money. So our net income is high because our daily expenses are very low.

Cons

  • Job insecurity
  • Tough completion (due to massive increase of newbies everyday who are willing to work on very low rates)
  • Power breakdown and backup issues.
  • Withdrawing their earnings.
  • If the outsourced work has some explicit content including some adult websites, people from this part of the world do not prefer doing such jobs and this can be one of the ethical issues of outsourcing.

Bottom line:

Although I agree that this is a pretty sensitive topic and ethical issues about outsourcing are being discussed in every medium of information, but still I own my words that outsourcing is ethical for both employers and providers.

An employer reduces his production cost by hiring comparative labor and a provider gets  a sufficient amount of money to earn bread for his family.

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Entrepreneur Interview With Stefan Who Lives The 4-Hour-Work-Week In Thailand

Living the Four-Hours-Work-Week lifestyle in ThailandStefan and I did a very interesting entrepreneur interview about outsourcing via Skype. The whole interview was transcribed and put into blog posts so that you can learn from his lessons and my insights about how to become an employer and get better results with your virtual assistants.

Enjoy the interview!

Stefan has had some good results with using transcription software. On the other hand, software will never be as accurate and flexible, as well as fast as human transcription. Read our discussion about voice transcription software vs transcription by a virtual assistant.

You will be surprised how much more effective a human transcriber can be if you do it right.

A view of swimming pool from the Stefan's home in the Thailand
Stefan lives in a house with a big pool. Isn’t it a dream?

If you do decide to hire a transcriptionist, you might think about using this person for all other virtual assistant duties. But that is probably not the wisest decision. No one person can be a do-it-all-for-you assistant – unless you learn how to train them right.
Of course, hiring someone to do transcription for you costs money. On the other hand, the best software for transcription is also not cheap. If you train your transcriptionist right, you can reach a very high transcription speed.

In the third part of this interview we talked about a freelance transcription VA and some general but valuable tips for finding the right fit for you.

Since Stefan wanted to outsource his ebook creation from the cover to the illustrations and even the format of the content, we went through an example job description from him. There are many lessons to be learned from this discussion – you’ll be able to…

  1. Save time
  2. Find a better candidate
  3. Learn about Ebook creation

If you take the time to read this section of the entrepreneur interview closely.

From this specific example, we quickly covered all there is to know about how to write a job description on Odesk.

Knowing these tips, you will quickly see how much time a concise but precise job description saves you as an employer. But you’ll also understand what really motivates a VA to stay with you long term.

View from the tops of the Thailand
Another top view from where Stefan is living his Four-Hour-Work-Week lifestyle

With the strategy of “split testing” the performance of two VA’s against each other in the first week of an assignment, you’ll optimize your hiring results to the maximum.

Depending on what tasks you are looking to outsource, you will need a different type of virtual assistant. Generally, it’s tough to find the do-it-all-person right from the start. It takes a lot of time, effort and money (pay your assistant for his training!) to reach the level of a professional administrative assistant with an affordable rate.

As you “form” your assistant to your needs, there are some sentences you will be most happy to hear from him:

  • I will find a way. 
  • If I don’t know a way, I will research it. 
  • Don’t worry, I’ll figure it out!

What was really interesting to me was that Stefan has, like me, made great experiences with outsourcing to the Philippines. Although his outsourced project was way different and much more crazy than what I usually do 😉

The biggest advantages and the great work ethics found with Filipino VA’s are clearly visible from this part of the interview. As a bonus, you will learn the one downside of working with freelancer from this country – and how to avoid it.

In the end, the interview finishes with more tips about how to improve a job description on my favourite outsourcing service – and more about how to really save time in the hiring process.