How I Hire YouTube Editors Who Actually Go Viral

I hire editors by posting several versions of the same job on Upwork at different prices and experience levels, then burning through proposals as fast as I can until I find a diamond in the rough. I go straight to the portfolio links, watch the first 10 seconds, and look for contextual visuals, music that matches the voice, and proof they've worked on channels that get views. When I recorded this, my $40 a video post set to expert was bringing in better editors than my $100 to $200 intermediate posts. Expect to go through about 300 people, talk to 20 to 30, and get around 10 samples.

Why I Put This Much Time Into Hiring

I was going through proposals for an editor for Nutty History, my history channel, and realized I should record it. For a long time I've told people to just go grind it out on Upwork. This is what I actually mean by that.

For context, I threw up six job posts in the last two or three days. Two of them are for a scriptwriter (I found good ones quickly, and three are getting a trial right now). The rest are editor posts.

What I Test on the Job Post

Between posts, all I did was change up the pricing and the experience level, and change the copy just a little bit.

A few things I noticed:

• The experience setting changes who applies. When I started doing expert instead of intermediate, I definitely got a different quality of people.
• Price doesn't always turn into quality. I don't know why the $40 post is working better.
• Simpler posts pull better editors. I made the $40 post a lot simpler, and it seems like the simpler job post attracts a higher quality editor, because they can just apply a lot faster. I will say I'm getting a lot more agencies applying to that one.
• Paying to promote isn't required. I paid to promote one of the posts. I found that when you don't do a promo, it works just as good.

Don't worry too much about the job post itself. I'm being a little experimental. For the basics of the role, start with how to hire YouTube editors.

How I Go Through a Proposal

1. Check how the proposal is written. All I'm looking for is whether they're using AI to write it.
2. Go straight for the links. Be careful when you click links. If you see anything that's a .zip, don't open it. Google Drive or YouTube links are usually fine.
3. Watch the first 10 seconds. I usually just watch the first 10 seconds and then skip through the video real quick.
4. Look for views. I'm very view biased. I like to see that they've gotten views for channels, not just the videos they link.
5. Glance at earnings. One applicant was proposing $20 a video and had made 20 grand, which tells me she probably has a lot of different clients.

Then it's a thumbs up to shortlist or a thumbs down to archive. If the links don't open, I archive. If you can't make sure your own link works, I just ignore it.

Where someone is based is hit or miss for me. Part of it is just different culture, and I do sometimes come across a really good editor from South Asia or Eastern Europe (the best one in this batch is out of Bangladesh).

The Red Flags That Get a Proposal Archived

Great channels, no proof

One applicant linked channels she said she'd worked for, and one of them was a crime channel that's pretty legit, with good packaging and good editing. The problem is I had no proof she was the editor, and the other channels she linked were really basic, cheap editing.

So I messaged her: "Hey, I love the work that you showed me in the channels that you've linked me. Can you link me very specific videos that you've made before in the past? And also, can you show me the timelines of the videos? I want to see what your editing style is."

Stock footage and basic captions

Another editor had applied to both the $200 post and the $40 post. The caption style was really basic, and there was no real b-roll.

If anybody is using stock footage for b-roll, that usually shows they aren't that high quality. You want people who find contextually accurate clips, videos and images.

The same portfolio clip from several people

When you've done Upwork a couple of days in a row, you see weird things. A few different people linked me the same history video as their work. It's a good video visually, but I don't know who the original maker is. Sometimes people link a video that isn't actually theirs. One proposal at $40 a video linked a video from a big channel, and the way the message was written didn't match that level of work. I don't think that one was legit, so I archived it.

Small details that are off

This is me nitpicking, and I am kind of a nitpick. On one portfolio video:

• A thin white font placed where it clips into the background
• An aggressive sound effect paired with that thin font
• Orange text on yellow
• The exact same sound effect two times in a row
• Music that doesn't align with the video

I'd seen three or four things that bug me, so I'm already out.

Small channels, AI voices and edits that miss the script

If the portfolio is small channels with an AI voice, I usually just move on. If you're decent, you shouldn't be posting that on your portfolio.

Another one had a script talking about the Manhattan skyline while the editor cut an intense edit of a castle. That's a misalignment.

Can someone working for small channels be a diamond in the rough? Totally. But usually people who are good won't work on projects that aren't doing well.

What a Good Editor's Work Looks Like

The main thing we're looking for is a diamond in the rough. Here's the one I liked from this batch. He had only done two jobs on his Upwork account.

What I liked in the first 10 to 20 seconds of his video:

• The music matched the pacing of the voice. The narrator is almost whispering, and he matched the music to it really well.
• Everything was contextual. The clips and visuals were exactly what the narrator was talking about. Because it's historical, he pulled historical images of the people.
• On-screen text. He showed interesting things in text on screen.
• Stock footage you can't spot. There was some stock footage in the background, but you can't even tell.

In a second video, he was good with music, tension and emotional clips.

The only issue is he only sent me a couple of videos, and I wanted to see more range. So I messaged him for more examples, and I'm waiting to see if the work is actually his (I'm very skeptical until I see proof). It was better than most of the $300 a video proposals I've gotten.

Why a $40 Editor Can Beat a $300 Editor

Here's what I think usually happens with people like this. They were working for an agency and getting paid $10 or $20 a video. Then they go off and start picking up their own work on the side. They realize that instead of $10 or $20 a video, they can get $40 a video, which to them is a huge amount more.

Compared to a $300 editor, or to the amount of money these videos are going to make us, it's nothing.

The same thing happens with writers. I found a writer who had literally written for a giant YouTube channel on a $50 a script post. I thought that was absolutely insane.

So I'll try $100 to $300, sometimes even $1,000 a script or an edit. And sometimes I just find people who are better on the cheaper job posts.

The Mindset: Hunt for the Person Already Winning

This is one mindset I try to have whenever it comes to finding people. I know there's somebody out there who's working for my competitor channels, already getting 100,000 plus views a video, who probably wants more work or would be willing to work for me if the deal was right.

I might keep some people who are good as a backup on the bench. But I really want somebody who's already batteries included, so I'm not wasting so much time.

For what we pay each role once a channel is running, see how to make $30K a month with a faceless YouTube channel.

How Many People You Have to Go Through

You have to be patient. Sometimes I'll go through 20 people and not find a single one that's good. I probably put in an hour or two last night scrolling through people who applied for the editing and scripting roles.

Scripting is a lot harder to go through, because you have to sit down and read. With scripts, I'm looking at whether they can take really complex subjects and boil them down into something really simple.

With editing, I'm purely looking at visuals. I lead with aesthetics first. If they've got the aesthetics, the rest is usually kind of natural. You can also burn through visuals a lot faster than scripts.

It's a little tedious, for sure. Do it every day for a couple of weeks and you'll have a bench of people you can send any video idea to.

Video Chapters

• 0:00Why I recorded my hiring process
• 0:30Six job posts in three days
• 1:33Testing price and experience level
• 3:10Proposal with great channels and no proof
• 6:45Stock footage and basic captions
• 9:18The diamond in the rough
• 11:23How to spot AI-written proposals
• 12:54Why a $40 editor can beat a $300 editor
• 13:56How long screening takes, scripts vs edits
• 15:00Portfolio red flags and nitpicks
• 18:04AI voices and small channels
• 20:09Hunting for the person already winning
• 21:11Scriptwriter examples
• 22:14How many people to go through

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