Nonsense. Competent developers gets multiple offers a week from serious clients that don't waste their time.
Python coder plz
- Thread starter Vadym
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Nonsense. Competent developers gets multiple offers a week from serious clients that don't waste their time.
fuck that, good luck finding someone who will work 40 hours for free, trial or not.
I would just outsource a non-critical part of the project and see how they do. Worst case, you don't use the code.
As the owner of a useless business degree myself I faced the very same problem initially myself. The beauty of outsourcing is you can outsource all of it. I hired a guy to write my job posts, filter questions, interview and do trials. Told him the one condition was the nobody from his country could be hired in case he knew them and it was a conflict of interest... whole thing turned out beautifully and hardly cost me anything.
It's pretty well known on there that hours, hourly wage rate and feedback rating are very poor indicators of quality. I judge strictly on cover letter, interview and trial. Past feedback is only useful for weeding out poor applicants, nothing more. Also, as others have mentioned, a 40hr free trial!? I can't imagine many professionals would go for that. Odesk do have the 2wk money back guaranteed function on some applications, though personally I've yet to have to use it
Wow, so much hate. I think some of you misunderstand what I wrote. I as for 40 hours where I am free to walk away without paying them, not that I'm asking for it for free. It is simply a safety blanket to walk away in case they cant do the work. I cut them typically within 20 hours.
Should they take the job if they can't do the work? Should I have to pay you if it's clear you can't handle the work when you told me you could? I've never treated anyone unfairly under the system. I find that asking for your money back if they cant handle the work to be ineffective. This is not for just like shitty projects that take a day, this is for projects that are going to be multi-week to multi-month type deals. On long term projects, me myself, I have done similar things. It is not at all uncommon in business to do the work then bill for it.
Do you have big projects with sizable budgets? Then the answer is maybe.
I've done it at least twice in the past. I have no problem guaranteeing the first week of work on a large project. By large project I mean something that is likely to be at least a few months of work.
Firstly it's a great marketing tactic. Secondly I am supremely confident in my skills. When I say I can do it, I can do it. I want the customer to be comfortable and happy with me and my work. So it's really very little risk IMHO. I personally just think of it as "good business".
However unless you are paid up front every job, there is always going to be some kind of risk. That's just business.
As for the leaving talent on the table. Yes, I'm sure that is the case. I don't see a way around it.
As I mentioned it's not "free" simply a time I can walk away without paying. If they get through the 40 hours and I'm happy, they are payed their time.
Well you're wrong. Not only have I, but I've had other developers I've hired do that.
Haters gonna hate. Rather than say "no professional" would consider that, just say that YOU wouldn't ever consider that. The truth is many of these people on these sites are not TRUE professionals, nor good business people.
By no means would someone be holding a gun to your head to do it, so you can always say "no".
I don't get it. Every single (really good) coder/programmer/developer that I know is so busy (there's an almost infinite amount of work "out there" right now) that there's no way they'd even bother reading one of those "job offers" to the end, let alone agree to your terms. That's all I'm saying.
You are right, there are many people that would tell me to get fucked. That's fair. I think a few years ago, I would have said the same thing.
However not everyone who is a dev (or many other jobs) do it strictly for the money. People do jobs for very different reasons.
There are the people that just want to grind out a living as easily as possible. Those people if they have been in the business for an amount of time will know there is easier low hanging fruit. You are indeed right, if you want the work, and you are good, and you don't care what it is, there is almost an unlimited supply. Those people will tell me to get fucked. These are the same people that enjoy punching the clock. I think that is self evident in society as a whole. Some times you have to do it too, there is no shame in it.
There are people that do work because they actually enjoy it, and treat it as more of an art. I actually had hired a guy from Brazil once that was good at what he did, but he would only work like 20 hours a week. I tried to throw more money at him to work more hours every week. His response was that it would destroy his love for what he did. Fair enough.
There are people that want to be part of something. People will work for less money and go through more hoops the more they want to be part of it. Consider getting a job at a major tech firm. You will be barraged with interviews likely, maybe have to move, and probably many other things. Yet people still do it.
There are people that are in it for the challenge. Much like the last one, but less about being part of it as just doing cool new things that will push the limits of their knowledge. Provide the challenge and they will raise to it.
In saying all of that I had a much longer rant. However I think I make my point with the former. We aren't all in it for the same thing.
Do what everyone else does. You don't have any small projects, or can't break larger projects down into 2 - 5 hour components? Just shit work at first -- quick library with "these" methods that integrates with "this" API, or a form with this Javascript functionality, and once validated, executes this method, etc.
As they continue to prove themselves, you continue taking it up a notch for them until you reach their upper boundary. Within a few months, if they're any good, they have root access to various servers, and are taking on real responsibility.
Coming from the other side, as a long time developer who's recently acquired available time for some side freelance work, it's a royal pain in the arse to get work without having connections. I've done some, but it's dried up.
You can't compete with those $5/hour developer sites, and on places like Craigslist in my area people are just hiring full-time or full-time contract. I know there's people out there looking for quality freelance devs, I just need a way to actually find them.
You can't compete with those $5/hour developer sites, and on places like Craigslist in my area people are just hiring full-time or full-time contract. I know there's people out there looking for quality freelance devs, I just need a way to actually find them.
Networking and having many "happy clients" (lol) helps to get high value gigs. That said it's very easy to land $20-$30 /hour projects on both oDesk and Elance. That's a pretty good start IMO (unless you already have a big network). But you have to be better than average.
Well.. let me rephrase it
I think having people work for nothing is highly unethical.
Screening people and occasionally paying for even bad performance is cost of business.
Especially as in development work, there are other factors - such as bad requirements or subpar communication by the employer that affect performace.
(Writing specs is hard...shitty specs do not mean the dev is bad)
So.. what to do instead?
-Yay, let's move forward
a) Take a long, good look at your spec documents and learn how to improve them. Do the same to your overall communication with coders.
b) Think of better screening procedures.
- Pre-employment - Better task description, better interview questions to weed out dunces.
- Testing - Make the first task a representative difficulty, but something that should not take too long (and keeping the cost down). 2-5 hours at most.
All that said,
I love the fact that you are oblivious to the sweet irony of your statement that this strategy works and gets you good coders - in a thread where you are begging for coders.
::emp::
I think having people work for nothing is highly unethical.
Screening people and occasionally paying for even bad performance is cost of business.
Especially as in development work, there are other factors - such as bad requirements or subpar communication by the employer that affect performace.
(Writing specs is hard...shitty specs do not mean the dev is bad)
So.. what to do instead?
-Yay, let's move forward
a) Take a long, good look at your spec documents and learn how to improve them. Do the same to your overall communication with coders.
b) Think of better screening procedures.
- Pre-employment - Better task description, better interview questions to weed out dunces.
- Testing - Make the first task a representative difficulty, but something that should not take too long (and keeping the cost down). 2-5 hours at most.
All that said,
I love the fact that you are oblivious to the sweet irony of your statement that this strategy works and gets you good coders - in a thread where you are begging for coders.
::emp::
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Rather than starting new thread - I'll just bump this.
I need a PHP programmer for a Wordpress plugin that'll be a little extensive. PM me or leave a message here and I'll PM you.
I put up a freelancer.com for this - but the few non-Pakis that bid and I tried to interview did not understand the concept because they're used to redesigning wordpress sites for a living. So Wickedfire is last resort for a competent PHP person again.
I need a PHP programmer for a Wordpress plugin that'll be a little extensive. PM me or leave a message here and I'll PM you.
I put up a freelancer.com for this - but the few non-Pakis that bid and I tried to interview did not understand the concept because they're used to redesigning wordpress sites for a living. So Wickedfire is last resort for a competent PHP person again.
Heh. If you find someone who will agree to the "work 40 hours for free" terms, you know with 100% certainty that they are an idiot right there and then.
Edit: oh. old thread. never mind.
Edit: oh. old thread. never mind.
This is simply not true. It might take that guy a little longer, but if he is really willing to put the time in for free, you know right then and there you truly have a special candidate. Hire him and pay him well
Edit: Fizz buzz FTW!
Yeah because you really want to hire every dipshit that can write FizzBuzz... which only tests logic and no other areas of programming.
If you can get to a city once a month I can't recommend local "meetup" groups enough.
They exist for every dev topic from game dev, javascript, RESTful, Ruby, Python, VR, hacking, etc. whatever you want to get into, and most importantly, a lot of people who go to those groups work somewhere that will be hiring at some point near you. Like: Seattle API Meetup (Seattle, WA) - Meetup
I haven't applied for a job in more than 3 years and my pay has tripled from people I met at one group and I've only gone a couple times a year.
The company I recently left for twice the pay asked me to name a price to do work for them on the side, preferring a per project price much higher than what they used to pay me, saying they want me to have incentive to fulfill it now that I'm making six figures elsewhere.
Can't recommend local meetups enough....