How would I go about hiring Indian english grads to edit essays on a large scale for a business in Canada?

I鈥檓 a student from Wilfrid Laurier University, in Ontario, Canada. As part of a course I鈥檓 taking I have to write a business plan for a company that provides affordable editing services over the internet. I need to know if it would be reasonable to recruit students studying English at the university level to edit essays and resumes. If you have any suggestions on how I can go about hiring for this it would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks,

Martin

It would be reasonable given the cost difference, but the number of English students who may actually be willing to work may be really low.

Firstly, not every grad student's English is that good. As in good enough to edit essays and professional resumes. You might have to launch a website that has an online editing test to weed out the bad from the good. Secondly, you would have to give publicity for this kind of work or website. That would be difficult considering there are close to 360 universities in India and tens of thousands of colleges. Thirdly, how would the payment rates be? Not every English grad student in India has access to a computer. Internet usage is expensive even to those who have a computer. And college facilities aren't that encouraging either. If the payment terms and rates aren't financially lucrative, not many people would sign up. And how would the payment be made? Electronically? Let us assume PayPal. To be absolutely honest with you, in India we don't know of the MLA format. We haven't even heard about it yet.

Tell you what-If I were in your position, I would start by collecting information about all the colleges and the universities in India that have English programmes and send letters to the Head of Department, Department of English of all the colleges/universities advertising this as a great part-time opportunity, including a flyer/poster and asking him to display it on the department noticeboard. HODs receive letters like this all the time, and they re usually happy to oblige. But considering that there are tens of thousands of colleges and close to 360 universities, the mailing costs associated with such a mammoth publicity effort are not simply worth it, so to speak.

But there are professional editing agencies in India that employ M.A. English graduates and have excellent quality teams to monitor the work output. They aren't too expensive either. Overall, it would work out cheaper to employ a professional editing agency and outsource the work than to waste a lot of money trying to find the right people. With a professional editing agency, everybody gets what they wanted in the first place. Its a win-win situation.