Need a Freelancer? Check Out NCs for Hire on Creators

[Eric Suesz]

Need to hire someone to sharpen up your Ning's site design? Looking for someone to help integrate a third-party widget? Have a specific piece of work you think could be handled by a freelancer? Where do you go to find that person?

This week, to help Ning customers find proven freelancers, we'll begin introducing a new member category here on Creators: NCs for Hire. These are Network Creators who regularly take on freelance work and who may be able to help you if you've been looking for a qualified person to take on a project.

We've always had a Certified Partner Directory, which lists firms that can be approached for custom development work. NCs for Hire is a little different, though. It will undoubtedly be more focused on less-involved projects. If you or your organization needs to dig into the Ning API and create an intensely custom site from scratch, those larger Certified Partners may be who you want to approach. For smaller jobs, site redesigns, or specific things you need done, look to the NCs for Hire.

How it works

• Each NC for Hire gets a special badge.  
• All of the NCs for Hire will be listed on their own category page. 
• NCs for Hire will utilize a Text Box on their profile page so potential clients will have an idea of what they can expect if they seek to hire them. 
• NCs for hire will usually list portfolio samples or links to work they've done, testimonials, tips they've created for this community, expertise, contact info — whatever they think is relevant for potential clients. 
• We'll promote NCs for Hire in newsletters, our community digest, here on Creators, on Twitter, Facebook, etc. When someone posts or asks where to find a good freelancer, this will be our go-to list of folks.

NCs for Hire is a way to recognize members of the Ning customer community who have been proven to be available and successful freelancers. The goal is simply to give them a way and a place to advertise their services.

Want to become an NC for Hire?

If you'd like to join this category, we only have a few things we'd ask of you:

• We'd like NCs for Hire to have completed at least three projects for Ning customers as a freelancer. Please send us links to three pieces of work you've done for hire. 
• We'd like NCs for Hire to list the types of services they generally offer — and we encourage them to list types of work they don't do. We just want it to be clear what you do and don't do so folks can get an idea before contacting you. 
• We'd like NCs to provide at least three examples of their work on their profile page by linking to some of their finished projects. If you have approved testimonials from happy customers, even better!

If that sounds good to you, feel free to send me a direct message. If we can add you to the list, we will.

[Deborah Herman]

Need an NC for hire. I need to integrate several sites together and need to distinguish my ning site from another network. Would like to make some changes on the landing page and to make sure I am maximizing the options for the members. Want to add some features. [e-mail]

Not a huge budget!

[JFarrow]

as we all know, no good ning network is EVER finished..

[Chloe Prince]

I just want to share a testimony about my experience of hiring and working with a NING creator to help implement some more advanced functions to our network.

I wanted a photo slider for the top of the site, a landing page for new users to arrive at instead of the default page, and also a new custom footer with links. 

I decided to approach Jen, from JenSocial.com 

She was very professional in all her correspondences and very prompt. She kept me informed at all times and set expectations.

Our project ran over on time, as we entered into some territory of unexpected challenges with NING's quirkiness to play nice with all browsers. Jen .let me know, and I could tell that she had been working very efficiently and diligently to finish on time, but it just wasn't possible to finish as expected due to both of us having some personal things going on.

Its important to understand that, things aren't always cut a dry, and flexibility is needed as well as keeping in mind that there maybe unforeseen issues and costs.

Jen handled this like a pro. She let me know of the additional cost, and we came to an agreement.

She finished the work, uploaded step by step instructions for me to follow on how to work with the new photo slider, and sent me copies of all files for back up.

Jen built a custom landing page for us that has the sign on module built in and made it work, despite the challenges of our site being a private invite only network.  www.TRUessence.org

I'm really happy with her - I hope you all will consider using her - she is awesome!!!

[Jen]

Thank you, Chloe. I'm humbled. Challenge, yeah. But loved working with/for you. =)

[Trish White]

I cannot find the NC's for Hire page - where is it on NING?

This is a wonderful idea 

[Eric Suesz]

You'll find it in the navigation and on the Members page. 

[AnGella]

I think it is a great idea and I look forward to being a part of this next year after we are all settled in with our new baby who is due January 9, 2013.  I would sign up now, but that may not be ideal since I will be taking some maternity leave.  

I'll check out which sites are still around that I have worked on, many seem to have closed.  Aside from that I do have a fairly extensive portfolio of samples I have made for personal Ning pages.  Would a preview page of coding/design done for closed sites be sufficient for the three projects?  You did mention screenshots, but if the site is no longer in service I would have to use a preview page.  

Thanks!

[Teri Whittlinger]

http://creators.ning.com/profile/TeriWhittlinger

I do mainly graphics. This is the link to some of my graphics and website.

http://www.facebook.com/TeridonInc

This is the link to some more graphics and I did the background work for this site

http://unitedtruthseekers.com/group/teridon-inc?xg_source=activity

I did all the graphics for this slideshow as well as organizing the blocks and designing this website.

http://www.wtpnetwork.com/index.php?do=/