Best Place to find employee

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EagleMDB

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 8, 2009
Messages
227
I am starting a new company, and I have a need for both a web developer as well as graphic designer, but to start only as contract or per job work. Does anyone know the best solution for this?


Thanks,
 
Where are you located?

Are you open to having remote employees who are in the US?
 
I am open to remote employees, I would actually prefer that for now, Currently we are in Colorado.
 
You've probably thought about this already, but I'd really try to tap your friend/acquaintance/peers pool as much as possible, because it's so much easier to vet candidates.

Alternatively, you could look into a contracting agency?
 
I will not use a contracting agency, as a general rule. Their vetting process seems as a general rule to be very very bad.

The problem with my peer/friend pool is most of them i would not want working for me. but that is a good idea, I will keep that in mind.
 
The contracting agency will just provide the general pool of contractors; you would interview and vet any potential employees yourself.
 
teh_chem said:
The contracting agency will just provide the general pool of contractors; you would interview and vet any potential employees yourself.
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You are right, but, I expect a high quality canidate, and most of those firms do not seem to find high enough quality canidates for me to interview.
 
I don't know about where you are, but here in the Raleigh area there are tons of tech Meetup groups... PHP groups, C# groups, JavaScript groups... great ways to meet new folks...
 
Elance.com and oDesk.com normally get the job done.

You can spend the time or the money to get someone that works great... you decide :)
 
ToddW2 said:
Elance.com and oDesk.com normally get the job done.

You can spend the time or the money to get someone that works great... you decide :)
Click to expand...

I think long term I want an employee that I can expand with more versed a single job.
 
The problem you'll come across is that good developers are hard to find, they rely on their network rather than recruiters, plus it's easy to find bad ones as they bounce from job to job trying to find work. Good one's also know their market value and often won't even bother for smaller jobs.

If there's any startup community in your area, I'd say checkout some of the startup events. I live in London and despite there being a huge talent pool, there's just as many (if not more) companies trying to grab the best.

If your website isn't anything ground breaking then just go with a local web design shop or designer, they should do a pretty good job and you'll save huge amount of time in the process.
 
Wiseguy2001 said:
The problem you'll come across is that good developers are hard to find, they rely on their network rather than recruiters, plus it's easy to find bad ones as they bounce from job to job trying to find work. Good one's also know their market value and often won't even bother for smaller jobs.

If there's any startup community in your area, I'd say checkout some of the startup events. I live in London and despite there being a huge talent pool, there's just as many (if not more) companies trying to grab the best.

If your website isn't anything ground breaking then just go with a local web design shop or designer, they should do a pretty good job and you'll save huge amount of time in the process.
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I need to get into that community. I really need someone smart, that can grow into a full time job as the business grows. I might look at some of the colleges around there has to be someone smart looking for a job. That I can afford.
 
I second Elance, had good work for one of my customers through there
 
EagleMDB said:
You are right, but, I expect a high quality canidate, and most of those firms do not seem to find high enough quality canidates for me to interview.
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Define high quality candidate. I am just curious because what I see happening a lot is that people want high quality candidate but offer the shittiest pay.

High quality candidates are already employed and have literally no incentive to join your startup.
 
Thuleman said:
Define high quality candidate. I am just curious because what I see happening a lot is that people want high quality candidate but offer the shittiest pay.

High quality candidates are already employed and have literally no incentive to join your startup.
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I define a high quality canidate as someone who will complete the task they have been assigned with a high level of performance.

I am more than willing to pay the market rate or above for the right person, but they must be the "right" person.
 
If you don't already know someone who fits your requirements then a staffing agency is your best bet rather than taking it to elance or some other online site where there is zero entry barrier for prospective employees.

Some staffing agencies may be meh, but there are bound to be many exceptional ones in metropolitan areas. It will take some local networking to find out which ones those are, but it will be worth it because those agencies have access to the kind of talent you want.

People on elance are on there because they are not professionals and have no other means to land a contract. Those who are actually good at what they do are flush with work already and simply have no need to post on elance.

Staffing agencies will have access to a large pool of people who may be between contracts, may be employed but willing to take on additional work, etc. etc., it's IMHO misguided to dismiss the work those companies do outright.
 
Thuleman said:
If you don't already know someone who fits your requirements then a staffing agency is your best bet rather than taking it to elance or some other online site where there is zero entry barrier for prospective employees.

Some staffing agencies may be meh, but there are bound to be many exceptional ones in metropolitan areas. It will take some local networking to find out which ones those are, but it will be worth it because those agencies have access to the kind of talent you want.

People on elance are on there because they are not professionals and have no other means to land a contract. Those who are actually good at what they do are flush with work already and simply have no need to post on elance.

Staffing agencies will have access to a large pool of people who may be between contracts, may be employed but willing to take on additional work, etc. etc., it's IMHO misguided to dismiss the work those companies do outright.
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Having numerous friends that work in staffing agencies and others that go through them I can say this is not always the case.

Their experience with hiring and placement, and others I know who get hired and placed makes me think of those types of employees as a unique group of people... It seems more often than not they don't like commitment, they like to hop from job to job, they need a staffing agency because no employer wants to hire them full time because of some reason or another. They don't go on elance/etc because they have no self drive, no self motivation, and their self worth is not that high because they don't understand what companies value. I've never used elance for "my company" to get work, but I'm thinking about adding profiles on the popular sites like elance, and charging standard rates... if I get extra work great, if not no big deal because we get most of ours from referrals and stay busy with long-term clients anyway. Discrediting these sites as sources of clients (or employment) is a mistake.

Is this the case 100% of the time... no, it's not. But saying a staffing agency will fix / handle all your problems isn't exactly true.

Elance and staffing agencies alike have their pros and cons. As someone hiring you need to know what to look for, and how to figure out if the person you're interviewing / trialing will work in the long run or not, or even if they want to stay around for the long run.
 
One issue with the elance, etc. stuff is that it's riddled w/ $2 / hr Indians and so anybody who is serious probably isn't going to be wasting too much time on those places. It's pretty much a race to the bottom with that stuff and you get what you pay for.

Craigslist can be a good alternative because there may be some people that are only interested in looking locally.

However, yes, it's true... if you want a high quality candidate, you need to offer high quality pay. And to that end, I'm available btw.
 
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