High Performance Hiring Method

Why Hiring Is So Hard (and Why It Doesn't Have to Be)

Natasha opened by acknowledging that hiring is one of the most dreaded tasks for agency founders. Common pain points she named: Ghosting from contractors mid-project Bad or inconsistent work quality Poor communication Bad estimates that blow project budgets Culture fit problems A general sense of it being a "total guessing game"

Her position is that this experience is the result of an unstructured approach to hiring, not an inevitability of working with freelancers or contractors. The antidote is a repeatable, rigorous system applied before the first dollar changes hands.

The 10-Step High Performance Hiring Method: Overview

Natasha structured her presentation around a named 10-step framework. The steps are: Where to find great people Know what you are looking for Write a crystal clear job description Filter your applicants fast Screen with DMs Video calls for culture fit Three-strike system Deeper dive technical review Hiring non-negotiables and trial period Onboarding She acknowledged she was moving quickly through the material and encouraged attendees to access her paid course for deeper treatment of each step.

Step 1: Where to Find Great People

Natasha identified two main sourcing channels she recommends: Freelancer portals are her top choice, with Upwork cited as her primary platform. The reason she favours these is transparency: you can see verified reviews, earnings history, job success scores, and rate ranges before you ever contact a person. There is no taking anyone's word for anything. Everything is in plain sight.

She also noted Freelancer.com as an alternative, and acknowledged there are many such platforms. The principles she describes apply to any of them.

Referrals from colleagues are her second recommended channel. She highlighted a creative variant: if you only need someone part-time and a colleague has someone part-time, you can explore a job-share arrangement. If a VA is looking for more hours, that mutual benefit can work well.

Avoid resume-only hires. This was her one strong caution. A resume tells you almost nothing verifiable. You are taking the applicant's word for their experience and relying on 1.

reference checks that are notoriously unreliable. Platforms like Upwork, by contrast, give you verified review histories and earnings that cannot be fabricated.

Her entire presentation used Upwork as the working example, though she was clear the method translates to any hiring context.

Step 2: Know What You Are Looking For

This step was framed as the most critical and most overlooked. Natasha described a common pattern among agency founders: they recognise they need help, post something vague, get a flood of applicants, and then struggle to make a good decision because they were never clear on what "good" looked like to begin with.

Her framework for getting clear breaks into three categories: Technical skills. Even if you are not a technical person yourself, you need to define what technical capabilities the role requires. If you are a social media marketer or a copywriter or a web designer, you still need to specify the hard skills the person must have.

Non-technical skills. This includes communication style, personality type, and culture fit.

How do they operate? How do they communicate? What kind of work environment do they thrive in?

Your personal non-negotiables. These are the deal-breakers specific to you and your business: time zone and overlap requirements, availability windows, work style preferences.

For Natasha, time zone is a hard filter. Because she works 9 to 2 and has three children, she will not work outside of those hours, and she is strict about requiring people who can overlap with that schedule.

The framing she used for this step: when hiring, you are looking for a very specific thing and then you go and find it. You are not broadcasting a vague posting and then deciding from whatever comes in. You decide first, then search.

If you are a social media marketer or a copywriter or a web designer, you still need to specify the hard skills the person must have.

Step 3: Write a Crystal Clear Job Description

Once you know what you want, you write a job description that reflects that clarity precisely.

Natasha noted that AI tools make this significantly easier now and encourages using them.

Elements of a strong job description she listed: Your name at the bottom. This serves a filtering purpose later (explained in Step 4).

Clear budget or rate range. If you want someone at $25 to $45 per hour, say so. If it is $80 per hour, say so. This filters out mismatch before any time is wasted.

Hard skills listed explicitly. Not "web stuff" or "coding." Specific skills: Shopify, React, Liquid, Figma, etc.

Soft skills and culture expectations.

Location and time zone requirements.

Ongoing versus project-based. State clearly whether this is a long-term engagement or a one-off project so the right people self-select.

The magic question. A specific instruction or question buried somewhere in the body of the posting. Anyone who misses it was not reading carefully.

She contrasted a bad job post with a strong one. The bad post she described: "Developer needed," no rate mentioned, no hours, vague skills, addressed to "Whom it may concern."

The strong post: "Shopify Developer, Liquid React, $35 to $45 depending on experience,"

specific technical requirements, time zone stated, and the magic question embedded in the body.

Her observation on this: professionals will look at an unprofessional job posting and assume they are dealing with an unprofessional client. They will ignore it. How you post is itself a signal about how you operate.

The magic question in detail. The idea is to insert a specific, seemingly odd request into the job description, such as "Please start your application with your favourite flavour of ice cream." Only applicants who read the full posting will know to do this. Anyone who does not answer it gets filtered out immediately, regardless of their credentials. This tests attention to detail, the single most valuable and testable trait at this stage of the process.

Once you know what you want, you write a job description that reflects that clarity precisely.

Step 4: Filter Your Applicants Fast

After the posting goes live, applications arrive quickly, sometimes in the hundreds within 24 hours. Natasha described this volume as a source of paralysis for many agency owners. Her filtering process cuts through it in layers.

Filter 1: Location and time zone. Go through the list and immediately decline anyone who is outside an acceptable time zone. On Upwork, declining an applicant does not send them a rejection notice. They simply do not hear back. This is not cruel; it is efficient.

Filter 2: Preference filters. Apply any remaining personal criteria. Natasha mentioned that as a female-founded agency, she often specifically wants to hire women, so she filters by gender. She also cuts anyone who is priced too far above or below her range.

Filter 3: Success score. On Upwork, this is a visible metric. Natasha's current threshold is 95% or higher, with at least $10,000 in total earnings on the platform. She was candid that earlier in her career she was willing to take on newer developers and help train them. She no longer does this. She wants experienced professionals who will not require cleanup work.

Her reasoning: a more expensive hourly rate is cheaper than fixing a mess.

Filter 4: The magic question. Did they answer it? If not, delete.

Filter 5: Did they use your name? She puts her name at the bottom of the job posting. If someone opens their application with "Dear Hiring Manager" or "Hello There" rather than using her name, she reads it as a signal that they are sending a generic, copy-paste application and are not actually engaging with her as a specific person. She acknowledged this is a preference rather than an absolute rule, but it matters to her because personalisation and genuine connection are important to how she works.

After running through these filters, a pool of 100 applicants might narrow to 10. That is when the next phase begins.

Step 5: Screen with DMs

With roughly 10 finalists, Natasha uses a direct message test before getting on any calls.

The message is deliberately simple: something like, "Hey Alex, thanks for your proposal. I'd love to hear your questions about my project posting."

What she is evaluating at this stage: Critical thinking. Do they have genuine, thoughtful questions about the project? Or do they just say "ready to start"?

Attention to detail. Are their questions informed by what was in the posting?

Genuine interest. Does it feel like they actually want to do this specific work?

Responsiveness and speed. How quickly do they reply, and does the speed feel appropriate?

Written English skills. At the communication level she needs, written clarity matters.

The contrast she described: someone who replies "No questions, I'm ready to start. When can we begin?" versus someone who writes back with two or three thoughtful questions about the specifics of the project. The latter signals that this person is engaged, reading carefully, and thinking ahead. The former signals a contractor who is focused on volume and will say yes to anything.

After the DM exchange, she further narrows the pool. Perhaps three come back with good responses.

Step 6: Video Calls for Culture Fit

The remaining candidates, typically a small number, get a short video call. She estimated around 20 minutes via Upwork's built-in video system.

What she is assessing on the call: Wi-Fi quality. If the connection is shaky just for a video call, that is a red flag for a remote working relationship.

Communication and professionalism. She shared an anecdote about a call where a candidate was smoking a cigarette throughout. That ended the conversation.

Team fit. Does she actually like this person? Does she get a good feeling about working with them?

Spoken English. She specifically noted that some people write English fluently but cannot speak it. Both matter for her team's communication style.

She was clear about the sequencing: liking someone is the last filter, not the first. They have to pass through all the prior stages before personal rapport becomes a deciding factor.

Step 7: The Three-Strike System

After the video call, Natasha explicitly introduces the three-strike system to the candidate.

She named it as a key tool for agency owners who are afraid of firing people, which she described as a common and costly problem.

The system works as follows: Strike one: If a problem occurs, she addresses it directly. She names what happened, connects it to the expectation that was set, and confirms the expectation going forward.

Strike two: If the same problem recurs, she addresses it again, this time making clear that a third instance will end the relationship.

Strike three: The relationship ends. The message is professional, direct, and pre-prepared.

Something like: "Alex, we've talked about this twice. I want to thank you for your time, but I'm going to end the contract here."

The purpose of introducing this system upfront is to remove ambiguity and reduce the emotional charge of eventual termination. The contractor already knows the rules. The firing, if it happens, is not a surprise. It is not personal. It is the agreed-upon consequence of a named pattern. This is how she described de-stressing both the termination itself and the lead-up to it.

She emphasised that many agency owners keep bad people around because firing feels uncomfortable. This system is designed to make it feel administrative rather than confrontational.

Step 8: Deeper Dive Technical Review

Even with good Upwork metrics, Natasha wants to verify that a candidate can work to her specific standard. The deeper dive technical review is about confirming fit for her context specifically, not just general competence.

She did not elaborate on the mechanics of this step in detail during the session, instead moving quickly due to time. The core principle: credentials and ratings are a proxy for quality, but your standard may differ from whoever else gave them those ratings. Confirm before you commit.

Step 9: Hiring Non-Negotiables and Trial Period

When the pool has been narrowed to two finalists, Natasha's approach is to hire both and put them both on a test project. This head-to-head evaluation surfaces real differences in: Communication style Quality of work How they respond to feedback Team fit in practice The formal hiring call (separate from the culture-fit video call) covers: Answers to any remaining questions from the candidate Reiteration of the agency's non-negotiables Explanation of the three-strike system (formally, in writing or structured conversation) Confirmation of available hours and time zone overlap The 30-day trial period terms Financial terms and billing cycle Booking the onboarding call The trial period is a 30-day window during which both parties are evaluating the relationship. This protects both sides and gives the contractor a clear timeframe for demonstrating their fit.

Step 10: Onboarding

Natasha was emphatic about onboarding because she identified it as the step most likely to be skipped or handled carelessly. Her observation: agency owners frequently blame freelancers for bad work, but when she asks how well the owner set things up, the answer often reveals a chaotic or absent onboarding process.

Her direct statement: "Amazing people cannot succeed in a broken system."

Before the onboarding call:

• Prepare a clear agenda
• Gather all login credentials and system access needed
• Have the first task ready to go, with clear deliverables During the onboarding call:
• Introduce the new person to their project manager or team lead
• Explain the team structure
• Walk through all tools and systems in use
• Review non-negotiables and the three-strike system one more time
• Assign the first task with a clear deadline and all support materials After the onboarding call:
• Stay available and responsive
• Keep in touch proactively
• Answer questions promptly
• Support the person through their first period on the team The common failure mode she described: hiring someone, dumping a task on them, and then ghosting them while expecting great results. People need to know what winning looks like, and it is the agency owner's job to make that visible.

On Upwork Platform Use and Off-Platform Hiring

During the Q&A, an attendee asked whether long-term contractors should stay on Upwork or be moved off the platform. Natasha acknowledged this is a legally grey area. Technically, Upwork's terms require that relationships formed on the platform continue to be paid through the platform. Moving someone off can result in penalties if Upwork detects it.

She noted that contractors often ask to move off-platform because Upwork's fees are significant. Her position was that this is a judgment call each agency owner has to make for themselves, and she declined to give a definitive recommendation either way. She characterised it as "really up to your discretion."

The Magic Question: Community Discussion

The session included a lively exchange in the live chat about variations on the magic question concept. Examples shared: Natasha's own example: "What is your favourite flavour of ice cream?"

From attendee Blake: "If you were to jump into a bowl of jello, what colour jello would you jump into?"

From attendee Richard: ask applicants to begin their reply with the word "apple"

From host Stephanie: include a middle name field in the application but instruct applicants to put "lemon" as their middle name, inspired by the character Liz Lemon from 30 Rock The consensus was that the specific question matters less than the mechanism: any instruction buried in the body of a posting that only attentive readers will catch. Some attendees preferred instructions that produce a specific, visible word at the top of an email subject line, because it allows for immediate, easy sorting and deletion.

On Reviewing Active Job Count

Attendee Blake also noted in chat that he looks at how many active jobs a contractor currently has in progress. Natasha agreed entirely. If someone has 20 concurrent jobs, they are operating more like a pseudo-agency doing volume work than a dedicated professional.

That is not the kind of engagement she wants or builds her team around.

The Course Offer

Natasha closed by promoting a self-paced course called "How to Find, Interview, and Hire Excellent Virtual Contractors on Upwork." Course contents include: 10 video modules Interview questions cheat sheet Contractor onboarding checklist Three-strike email templates Scripts, resources, and tools A 50% discount was offered to Web Agency Summit attendees using the code or link shared in the live chat during the session.

About the speaker Natasha Golinsky On-Purpose Projects

Natasha Golinsky runs On-Purpose Projects and specialises in helping agency owners hire more effectively, using evidence-based screening rather than resumes alone.