Elance Survey Reveals Majority of Small
Businesses Prefer Hiring Online vs. In-Person
Shift to Online Hiring Seen to Enhance Competitiveness and Profitability for 87% of Small Businesses
June 23, 2010 09:03 AM Eastern Daylight Time
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--Elance, the online talent marketplace, announced
today the results of a new survey on small business hiring practices. The survey included Elance’s small to medium-
sized business customers across the U.S. and reveals that businesses are increasingly distributing project work to
online contractors as part of their growth strategies. Survey results show that the majority of businesses (64%) prefer
online hiring versus the traditional model of hiring onsite. These businesses not only prefer the online model, but 87%
view it as a critical business strategy to enhance profitability and competitiveness.
“The majority of businesses report that while they are not adding many new employees onsite, they are opting to hire
and distribute work to online teams as a core strategy to help them do more with less. Elance provides these
businesses with a full featured online workplace that enhances their ability to hire and manage talent and get work
done,” said Ellen Pack, vice president of marketing at Elance.
Key findings from the survey:
l Online hiring outpaces offline hiring: 86% have hired online in the past twelve months, while 32% have hired
onsite employees in the same period.
l Online hiring is here to stay: 64% of businesses will use a hybrid model of online hiring and traditional onsite
hiring as the economy improves.
l Quality trumps cost in online hiring: the top factor businesses consider when hiring online is feedback from
previous projects; work samples ranked second, with pay rate coming in third.
Preference for Online Hiring
Businesses are turning to online talent as an innovative way to grow without increasing overhead. Eighty-seven
percent of businesses identified cost-effectiveness as an impor