How to attract the best freelance talent and keep them

Do you want to attract and keep the best freelancers for your business? You’ve come to the right place! In this article, I share some foolproof tips for successfully bringing in and retaining the most talented freelancers.

Engaging high-quality freelancers is essential to the success of your projects and the growth of your business. It’s therefore vital to know how to attract the best profiles and keep them committed over the long term.

I’ll cover different strategies and give you advice on building strong relationships with your freelancers, as well as building a reputation as a client of choice in your field.

Why hire a freelancer?

Freelancers offer valuable flexibility, enabling companies to cope with fluctuations in workload and benefit from specialist skills for specific projects. Freelancers often bring a fresh perspective and in-depth expertise in their field, which can contribute to the company’s innovation and growth.

By engaging freelancers, companies can tap into a global talent pool, which allows them to broaden their reach and collaborate with qualified professionals, regardless of their geographical location. This opens up new opportunities for companies to explore new markets and adapt quickly to changing demands.

Freelancers can be a cost-effective way of handling certain tasks and projects. Instead of taking on full-time staff, companies can engage freelancers according to specific needs, which reduces the costs of benefits and the overheads associated with taking on permanent staff. Read our article on the reasons to hire a freelancer rather than sign a permanent contract (CDI).

Build a talent brand that appeals to freelancers

To attract the best freelancers, it’s essential to build an appealing talent brand. Your talent brand is a company’s image and reputation as a place to work, and it plays a central role in how freelancers perceive the company and decide whether to work with it.

To build an appealing talent brand, it’s important to highlight the benefits and opportunities the company offers freelancers, and to take a transparent and honest approach to communication by providing clear information on expectations, objectives and projects, as well as on opportunities for growth and long-term collaboration.

By offering freelancers a positive experience, recognising and rewarding them for their work, and earning positive recommendations from the freelancers you’ve worked with, you can build a better reputation.

By building an appealing talent brand, companies can attract the best freelancers and stand out from the competition.

Nurture your company culture

Company culture is something talent pays very close attention to these days. A company where you feel good is a company you want to stay with. If a freelancer has enjoyed their engagements, their working environment and the company they work for in general, they’ll want to stay on for further engagements.

If you want to attract the best profiles, show them your values, your beliefs and your story. If the talent identifies with what you say, they’ll want to join you and work with you.

So take care of your company’s image and get the right messages across.

Think about how you welcome your freelance talent: don’t treat them like a subcontractor — include them in team meetings and company events.

Offer flexible and attractive working conditions

Flexible and attractive working conditions are essential for attracting and retaining the best freelancers. Freelancers generally value the freedom to work at their own pace, to balance their professional and personal lives, and to choose the projects that best match their skills and interests. That’s the biggest advantage of being a freelancer.

To offer flexible working conditions, it’s ideal to be able to let freelancers work remotely, from home or in a coworking space, according to their preferences. This gives them the freedom to choose the environment that helps them be more productive and creative.

In addition, it’s important to respect freelancers’ working hours and give them a degree of autonomy in managing their projects. Avoid micromanagement and excessive checks, while still providing clear objectives and reasonable deadlines.

As is so often the case, money remains the sinews of war, so it’s important to offer freelancers good pay.

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Set up transparent and open communication

Transparent and open communication is essential for maintaining a strong relationship with freelancers. It allows you to share clear information about expectations, objectives and projects, and to resolve problems or concerns quickly. At digitags, our role is to find the freelancer best suited to your project from our hub of more than 1,500 talents, but also to ensure the project is properly followed up and that communication runs smoothly.

To set up transparent and open communication, it’s important to be accessible and responsive to freelancers’ questions. Setting up clear communication channels, such as a dedicated email address or a messaging platform, can help. I talk about this in our article on tools for collaborating with freelancers.

Praise high-performing freelancers

Recognising and rewarding high-performing freelancers is essential to retaining them and motivating them to give their best. When freelancers feel valued and appreciated, they’re more likely to stay committed and keep delivering good results.

One way to recognise high-performing freelancers is to give them positive and constructive feedback on their work. This can include praise for good results, constructive criticism to help them improve, and opportunities to share their work with the whole company.

Listen

Stay attentive to the wishes and needs of the person you want to bring in. Every personality is different. Don’t hesitate to adapt your approach. If the freelancer in front of you is introverted, let them speak and don’t rush them.

During the interview, the talent needs to feel goodwill and that they’re being listened to. Show them that you understand them. Freelancers’ psychology is very different. Freelancers are entrepreneurs who see themselves as business partners. They don’t want their clients to act like bosses. What they want are interesting engagements, good pay and a stimulating working relationship. Freelancers sell their expertise and expect it to be valued. It’s also important that freelancers are treated as members of the team, to create a positive working climate.

Once you’ve attracted a good freelancer into your teams and you’re happy with their work, you may want to entrust them with further engagements — and so retain them.

Retaining the best freelance talent

Zivile Paulikaite, formerly of Google / LinkedIn and now COO and Head of Sales at Donutz, argues that we work for people, not for the company. “If you feel good with the people, you can feel good anywhere.”

A freelancer working in good conditions, where they feel valued, challenged and listened to by the other team members, will want to stay on for further engagements or recommend your company to their network. Don’t forget that it’s a small world, and a bad reputation spreads fast

At donutz digital, “our freelancers and in-house staff who run campaigns get a bonus system that ultimately encourages them to stay with us and grow their client portfolio”.

Zivile concludes: “you have to be transparent with them — they know how much revenue they bring us and how much they take”.

Through follow-up and closeness to the organisation they work with

Déborah Lévy Bencheton, freelance UX service designer at digitags.io, believes that retention comes down to regular follow-up from the organisation they work with.

At digtags.io, “once we’ve had our first project, we get a message from the digitags team, sometimes even from Hugo, the founder of digitags, asking how it went. We feel valued and we know we’ll be listened to if we have a problem on the engagement”.

It’s important for the talent agent to show their freelancers that they’re looking for projects suited to their needs and wishes.

Through opportunities to meet

According to Deborah, it’s worthwhile “organising in-person events with the other freelancers from the same agency or collective”.

This would let them share their experience and the challenges they face on a given project. It also strengthens everyone’s network, as connections are formed.

Through a long-term outlook within the organisation

When you work as a freelancer, it’s sometimes hard to look ahead and plan for the long term. You may have an engagement that will last 6 months, but you don’t know what you’ll do afterwards. There can be quiet periods when you can’t find any engagements.

If the organisation you work with gives you a long-term outlook by regularly offering you new projects, it allows you to plan ahead and reassures you. You’ll therefore be more inclined to work with that agency or company.

Through constant learning and varied engagements

Being a freelancer is a good way to work on lots of very different projects, which enrich us intellectually and build up our experience year after year

Yannick Podlinski, SEA Team Leader at Donutz digital and coordinator of SEA freelancer selection for dgitgags.io, has always needed to keep learning, and that’s what pushed him to go freelance.

During our interview, he told me he has learnt 10,000 times more since working with donutz digital than when he worked for a big agency. There, he had to apply a certain quality charter, he had fairly limited room for manoeuvre and a narrow range of clients.

“At digitags and donutz, we step out of our comfort zone. Every day, clients ask for very varied things that go beyond the usual scope. For 2 years now, I’ve been learning new things every day and I’ve taken on new responsibilities.”

He adds: “Being a freelancer is also a good way to upskill quickly, because we’re more often left to our own devices. So we acquire new skills and learn to adapt, both in terms of know-how and soft skills. Before, all I could do was Google Ads. Today, I could go out and build an e-commerce business, mastering the entire value chain.”

Retention at digitags and donutz digital

Zivile, Head of Sales and COO of the group, believes the key to retention at digitags.io and donutz digital lies in the fact that “we treat our in-house staff and our freelancers the same way”.

For example, freelancers on long engagements plan rest periods with Donutz right from the start of the engagement. In addition, during the selection phase, donutz genuinely takes into account what the freelancers want and the type of clients they’re looking for, and whether those clients match their values. If some want to work part-time to have more free time, or to work fully remote, that’s possible. “As long as the work gets done, there’s no problem.”

The key is to integrate them fully into the company culture so they feel valued.

Hugo Couturier, co-founder of digitags.io, stresses that when bringing freelancers on board, “our aim is to negotiate as little as possible on the ideal day rate the freelancer expects, to ensure strong commitment to the engagement and avoid any future frustration”.

digitags also relies heavily on support to retain its freelancers. “Our freelancers are supported and briefed by digitags before each engagement, even before meeting the client. We know our freelancers, but we also know our clients — their strengths as well as their little flaws. When we put together freelance teams, we make sure the profiles are compatible.”

digitags isn’t a freelancing platform that simply puts people in touch. The goal is to find the right clients and good engagements for the talent. To do this, “we get to know our freelancers so that the engagements fit what they want. We also work hand in hand with our clients to really understand their company culture. Our aim isn’t to place people for the sake of it.” Properly understanding the freelancer’s plans and the client’s way of working is essential. ” We even go as far as anticipating our clients’ needs by pre-selecting profiles suited to the companies we work with, and keeping them informed of permanent (CDI) opportunities. We position ourselves as an extension of our clients’ HR and operational teams_”_, adds Hugo.

Deborah particularly appreciated having a direct contact from the very first project, without going through the platform. “At digitags, we’re not just a profile — there’s a real personal side. It’s like a little family.”

How and where to find a freelancer?

Freelance platforms are a valuable tool for finding the best talent. They offer a wide range of freelancers in different fields and with different skills, enabling companies to quickly find qualified freelancers for their projects. That’s the case with us at digitags: we have a pool of talent across every digital craft — discover the main freelance roles we offer.

Browse our page on hiring a freelancer for more advice.

Attracting and retaining the best freelancers is a valuable investment. By offering attractive working conditions, transparent and open communication, and rewards and recognition for performance, companies can attract and retain the best independent talent.

By investing in attracting and retaining the best freelancers, companies can benefit from higher-quality work, new ideas and unique perspectives, as well as strong relationships with talented professionals. This contributes to the company’s long-term growth and success.