Update June 2016: Staff.com no longer lets you hire remote staff. Instead, they’ve pivoted to provide time analytics software for the workday.
Staff.com is a remote staffing marketplace based in Las Vegas. Founded in early 2012, they’ve already attracted thousands of qualified employees. The basic premise of Staff.com is that companies should hire the best talent, whether or not that talent is local.
Companies use the Staff.com platform to find qualified workers all around the world, often at significant cost savings.
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Services
There is a wide range of employees, and you’ll find all the typical outsourced work like web design and development, bookkeeping, virtual assistants, research jobs, online marketing, etc.
In a break from other freelance sites (oDesk, Elance, etc), Staff.com focuses solely on full-time, long-term work. It costs employers a dollar to interview a job candidate, and many employees offer a 10-hour test drive (usually at a discounted rate), so you can see how they work before hiring them on full-time.
To avoid clients better suited to contract work, Staff.com looks for employers ready to commit to at least a month of work at a minimum monthly salary in the ballpark of $500. It seems really low, but that’s a realistic wage in the Philippines where many Staff.com workers are based.
Staff.com Review
As an employer, you can post a job of your own and collect applications. Or you can search by job function, expertise, or keywords and browse through the candidates that way. Once accepted into the platform as an employer, you’re assigned a personal recruitment officer and a customer relationship specialist. These dedicated helpers screen potential candidates for you free of charge and present the ones with the best fit for you to interview.
Plans and Pricing
Salaries are public and paid monthly in advance. (Rates depend on the skill level of the employee you’re hiring.)
If your worker doesn’t clock a full 160 hours, you can either get a refund or roll the time over to the next month.
Staff.com uses Time Doctor software to monitor the work of your virtual employee. It gives you an analytical overview of the work that was done so you don’t spend your time poring over screenshots or micro-managing. That way you can see what they’re working on even if you’re hundreds or thousands of miles away.
Staff.com Alternatives
If you’ve ever tried hiring someone through oDesk or one of the other freelance sites, you’re familiar with the “noise” factor. The platforms are extremely crowded and it can be difficult to weed out the wannabes from the rock stars. Staff.com aims to do most of this filtering for you. They don’t accept everyone who applies into their marketplace, and that pickiness translates into more serious and higher caliber candidates on the whole.
They’ve been keeping up a high-quality blog that’s worth following if you’re interested in the world of outsourcing.
Your Turn
Have you worked with Staff.com? If so, please share your experience below.
I was in the market for a senior level web developer and was having a hard time filling the position for a consulting client of mine so I turned to Staff.com to see if they could help.
The turnaround time was not good. It took a week or two to source anyone even worth an interview, and then after a few technical questions — despite a solid profile on paper — it was pretty obvious they weren’t qualified.
It went on like that for a few different candidates, slow sourcing and no one really meeting the technical requirements. After a couple months, we still didn’t anyone that could pass a basic interview, it was pretty frustrating.
To be fair to the Staff.com recruiting team, they worked hard to try and find good people, and sat on a few painful interview calls with me. But the end result was there was no result.
We still had no developer. I think if you’re not looking for senior-level talent, or don’t need someone with specific technical qualifications, Staff.com could be a good fit, but from my experience it didn’t work out.
Was I being too picky? Maybe. Probably. But that’s the thing, if you’re opening the doors to your organization, I think it’s OK to have high standards. I made a hire I wasn’t thrilled with before and it turned out to be a mistake, I should have held out for someone who really impressed me. It’s a big world, I’ve gotta believe that person is out there, somewhere!
Hey Nick,
Have you had any more experiences with staff.com? Are there any other alternatives you have found to OnlineJobs.ph if you want to find your own full time VA from the Philippines? I’m thinking about giving OnlineJobs.ph a try, but always like to have options…
Hi Jonathan,
This comprehensive article lists all the legitimate work from home job sites at the moment:
http://biz30.timedoctor.com/38-legit-filipino-work-from-home-job-sites-that-will-not-scam-you/
These should be your best options if you are looking for alternatives to Staff.com and Onlinejobs.ph.