How to write a brief that attracts good applicants
The quality of the people who apply follows the precision of the brief, not the size of the reward.
The brief is the shortlist
Applicants are not a random sample of everyone who read the post; they are the people who understood it. “Need help with marketing” selects for people willing to guess. “Write three versions of this landing page headline and say which you would test first” selects for people who can do that.
This is the cheapest lever available: the same reward, sent to the same audience, produces a different set of people depending on one paragraph.
Name the deliverable
A deliverable is something that can be handed over and checked — a file, a written answer, a recording of a session, a call at a stated time. If you cannot say what arrives at the end, the task will be judged on impressions, and both sides will feel cheated.
Being specific about form is not restrictive. “Three headline options in a shared document, with a sentence on why each one” leaves the thinking entirely open and fixes only the packaging.
Put the number in the post
A fixed reward in the post does two things: it filters out people who need more, and it removes the negotiation that otherwise starts before anyone has understood the work.
“Negotiable”, and a wide range, attract the same thing — people testing how high you will go. One number, stated once, gets you applicants who are deciding whether the work is interesting rather than whether the price is a mistake.
State the deadline and the time zone
Remote tasks fail at the boundary between calendars more often than at the work itself. Write the due date as an actual date, and say which time zone you answer questions in.
If the task genuinely needs overlap in working hours, say so in the post. Discovering it mid-task is how a two-day job becomes a two-week one.
Say what you will not accept
One line of boundaries prevents most mismatches. If you do not want the work published elsewhere, or a machine-generated submission, or your own copy rewritten and sent back to you, say it before someone spends a day on the wrong thing.
That line also protects the person applying. A brief that names the standard is a brief where a good answer cannot be argued down afterwards.
A template
Fill this in rather than starting from a blank page. It is short on purpose — the parts that matter are the parts that can be checked.
- What I have: one or two sentences on the current state.
- What I need: the deliverable, named, in the form it should be handed over.
- How it will be judged: the standard, stated in advance.
- When I need it: a date, and the time zone I answer questions in.
- What I am offering: one fixed reward for the whole deliverable.
- What I do not want: the boundaries.
What to do with the applications
Answer every applicant once, including the ones you do not pick. It costs a sentence, and it is the difference between someone who applies again and someone who stops reading your posts.
When you choose, say what decided it. Applicants treat that sentence as the real specification, and the next brief you write will attract better people for having said it.
FAQ
How long should a task post be?
Long enough to name the deliverable and the standard, short enough to read in a minute. Most posts are too short rather than too long — what is missing is usually the definition of what gets handed over.
Should I list a reward range?
One number is usually better than a range. A range tells applicants the floor is negotiable and the ceiling is a hope, and it attracts people who negotiate rather than people who read the brief.
How many applicants should I expect for a small task?
Enough to choose from if the brief is specific, and many but unusable if it is not. Precision lowers the number of applications and raises their quality, which is almost always the trade you want.
What if the task turns out to be bigger than I described?
Treat the extra work as a second task at its own reward. Rewriting the scope mid-task makes the first price meaningless and teaches both sides to be vaguer next time.