Candidate Requirements

Once the candidate has proven they can pass the threshold challenge, it is wise to follow the steps below to verify their account on Upwork.

Note: Verified Accounts on Upwork can be falsified, do not take the verification as a sign of account validity.

• Language Proficiency
  • Do not hire anyone who has difficulty communicating in English. One of the best ways to check this is with conversation latency and throughput. High latency and low throughput are bad signs.
• Availability
  • We want “full-time" developers. Anything less and you won't be able to trust them to “live in your team's problems". They'll just keep visiting them and progress will be slow. Ensure 30 hrs minimum per week. 40 is nice, but even well paid lawyers will struggle to average 40 hrs/wk (2k/ year) billable hours.
  • Often candidates think they can do 30+ hours in addition to another job or school commitments. You want undivided attention and you do not want to deal with their quick burnout even if they manage to pull off 70-80 hour weeks. Be sure to ask questions so they are not incentivized to hide this from you.
• Rate
  • Since the rate is clear in the job post, treat any negotiation as failure to pay attention and a waste of time. If you get a higher rate in a proposal just modify it back down -- most accept. Your rates can be lower since you provide long term, steady income.
• Agencies
  • Don't work with agencies, they have incentives that don't align with yours and will generally lower your quality / speed to extract $.
• Time Tracking
  • Upwork’s auto time tracking provides protection and certain guarantees to you. Applicants may ask for manual tracking which will forfeit those protections. Additionally, knowing that their screen is being recorded will disincentivize them from billing you for personal time.
• View Upwork Profile
  • Does the candidate own a consulting agency?
  • Does the candidate have the necessary qualifications?
  • Is the candidates profile verified?
• View candidate's GitHub account ( Provided with link to first challenge )
  • Is their account new?
  • Do they lack activity?
  • Do they have fake repositories or only forked repositories?
  • Do they link to any social media accounts on their profile?
  • How active is the account?
• Look up candidate on LinkedIn
• Google candidate’s name and look for the following:
  • Does the candidate work for or run a consulting agency?
  • Anything that looks suspicious; this is up to the reviewer’s discretion
• Video Chat
  • Set up a video chat after confirming their availability and interest for the position. This is an extra precaution that has been extremely useful in the past to weed out fake profiles. If they are unable to attend a video call, they will unfortunately not be considered for the role.

Note: During our experiences working with remote talent, we have created a document with common phrases we use during the vetting process: Vetting Script