Okay, let me walk you through what I did when I was looking into this ‘free past performance’ thing. It wasn’t exactly straightforward, let me tell ya.
Starting Point: The Need
So, I had this small project I needed help with. Nothing huge, just some fiddly work I didn’t have the time or, frankly, the specific skill for. I got a name, someone supposedly good and affordable. But you know how it is, affordable sometimes means… well, you get what you pay for. I wanted to check their track record, their past performance, without shelling out cash for some background check service or premium platform. I thought, “There must be a free way to do this.”
The Digging Process
First thing I did? Hit the usual search engines. Typed in the name, the service they offered, variations of that. Found a basic profile page here and there, maybe an old portfolio site. Looked okay, but mostly stuff they put up. Not exactly independent verification, right?
Then I thought, social media. Checked the big professional network site, found them. Again, looked polished, but it’s all self-curated. I tried searching for mentions of them by other people. That was way harder. Found a couple of random mentions, but nothing about actual work quality or reliability. It was like panning for gold and finding mostly mud.
Next up, forums. I remembered a couple of online communities related to the kind of work I needed done. Spent a good hour or two searching through old threads. Used their name, username if I could find it. Found a few posts by them asking questions years ago. Found maybe one comment from someone else saying “Yeah, they helped me once, was okay.” And another vague post that might have been a complaint, but it wasn’t clear. Still nothing solid to base a decision on.
- Searched general web
- Checked professional social networks
- Scoured relevant online forums
- Looked for free review aggregators (mostly found business listings, not individuals)
I specifically looked for any free review sites. Most sites that aggregate reviews are either for established businesses, or the really detailed platforms cost money to access the good stuff. The free ones? Barely any info on smaller freelancers or individuals.
What I Found (or Didn’t)
After several hours spread over a couple of days, honestly? I didn’t find much concrete, reliable, free past performance data. It’s scattered all over the place, if it even exists. You get bits and pieces, maybe an old comment here, a self-made profile there. Nothing you could confidently call a performance record.
It took a lot of my time. Time I could have spent on something else. And in the end, I still didn’t have a clear picture. The ‘free’ route was proving costly in terms of effort and yielded very little peace of mind.
The Outcome
So, what did I do? I ended up giving the person a very small, low-risk test task first. Figured it was the only practical way to gauge their actual current ability and reliability without relying on patchy, hard-to-find ‘past performance’ info. It worked out okay in my case, luckily. But the whole exercise showed me that getting solid, trustworthy past performance info for free, especially on individuals or very small outfits, is a real grind. Sometimes, paying a small fee on a dedicated platform might actually save you time and headache. But hey, I wanted to see if the free way was possible. Now I know.
