Why I Hired a Certain Independent Contractor for Data Entry

I just hired an independent contractor for content development on one of my sites. I posted a telecommuting job listing on wahm.com and had an overwhelming response within a few hours. Since so many people are looking for a way to work from home, applying for any job is extremely competitive.

What not to do

Even though the job was posted on a casual website geared towards mothers, I did not expect responses to be casual. I received queries from people with master's degrees in english, so the standard was set very high from the beginning. I requested that a resume not be sent, and instead a 50 word review of any tangible product be sent. One requirement outlined in the job posting was excellent spelling and grammar. These are actual instances that I received that caused me to immediately delete the email application:

• applicant used letters in lieu of words, like "u wash it"


• applicant used an ampersand (&) instead of the word and


• misspellings - about 50% of the applications I received had words misspelled!


• poor grammar - again, about half of the applications used incorrect grammar


• demanding language: one applicant wrote "after you reviewed my resume please call me at ***-**** to discuss my qualifications. Now, I am certain that this applicant read that this line should be included in cover letters when job seeking. I've come across this advice myself in the past, however, the applicant should have paid attention to the job posting that stated "all communication will be via email." She should also have found a less demanding way to make this request, and at the very least, she should have corrected 'after you reviewed' to 'after you have reviewed'.


• capitalization and apostrophes: several applicants wrote i instead of I, and a couple did not use apostrophes in the case of contractions (simple mistakes, but why should I consider a person who does this when I have 20 applicants whose review was flawless?)


• sending a resume - I said no resume, and I did not want to see a resume.


• sending an email just to ask if the position was still open


• colorful e-mail backgrounds or big yellow smiley signatures (unprofessional)


• I didn't delete out of hand for this, but I did not like when a woman sent me an email from an email address that had only her husband's name on it. This implied to me that the woman was not online enough or savvy enough to have her own email.
  

What *to* do

• 
  The woman I ended up hiring went to the homepage of the site the posting was on and looked around. She made a comment in her email about her experience with the subject of the site (this put here right on top of the pile - she was the only one who did this). Her spelling and grammar were perfect. Her email was professional without being formal.


• 
  Two people included small, high-quality pictures with their reviews. These both caught my eye.

Everyone who emailed exactly what I asked for with no mistakes got put in a save file for future consideration. Unfortunately, this was only about 10 applications out of 60 or 70 received in 36 hours.