Title says it all. Looking to hire a full-time LAMP developer. I'll let them work from home most of the time, but they must be local (within ~50 miles or however far they're willing to drive I guess) so they can come in and work with the rest of the local team as necessary. I haven't hired anyone in years. What would be the best way to find such a person these days??
Best way to hire a local LAMP developer?
- Thread starter dsiomtw
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Are you a developer yourself, and willing to devote hours into training?
If that's the case, university / college bill boards!
If that's the case, university / college bill boards!
Hiring from colleges is all fine and dandy if you're looking for cheap up and coming talent, but are you looking for shit hot talent or someone capable? Your budget determines somewhat where to look.
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List it locally stating you allow telecommuting/remote work with some office time every now and then and you'll have more than plenty of applicants. From there it's just a matter of screening the one that's right for you.
List it locally stating you allow telecommuting/remote work with some office time every now and then and you'll have more than plenty of applicants. From there it's just a matter of screening the one that's right for you.
Definitely looking for a solid coder who knows their way around a LAMP environment. More important is their ability to figure out what they need to figure out, and get shit done. I'm not in a major competitive market so budget/salary shouldn't be an issue. Just curious what others are doing besides posting ads at colleges. I've used a recruiter in the past and that worked out OK. I think I had to pay them 2 months salary. Just curious what the other options are...
Have you seen sites like Find Creative, Design & Tech Jobs | Krop ? There are tons of job board sites like that where you take out an ad essentially.
I'm assuming you're not a developer yourself? Then my best advice is to find a quality developer, and have them test your new hires.
Back in my hiring days, the resumes people sent were only there to spark my initial interest. As long as it was concise, cleanly written, and showed some ambition, then there's a decent chance you'd get a call from me for an interview. I was more concerned about their base intelligence and ambition level, versus their actual education.
At the interview, obviously I took your personality into account, but in all honesty, didn't matter to me. Whether you were a straight up geeky guy in khakis, stoner in baggy jeans, or girl that looks like a hooker, didn't really matter to me. If I liked you, I gave you a 3 part test. Upon completion of the test, you got $500, regardless if I hired you or not. It actually worked out really well, and I ended up with several quality developers out of it.
Call me crazy, but if it's really important to you just pony up and offer a salary, some semblance of security and then canvas the online job search outlets. They'll find you. Obviously more $ the less baby sitting and less training them to think critically to help your company, but the more experienced the more chance you'll get a prima donna that won't take guidance. Plus, as long as you're paying anything more than they made yeterday, that salary builds loyalty out of the gate.
Cool thanks for the replies. I guess the main thing I was wondering is what site(s) are best to post an ad on and/or should I actively go looking for people too? As far as posting, I guess most of the big sites all aggregate each others' listings so it doesn't matter?
The interesting thing is that this was just a little "20% time" side project that has, long story short, turned into a real business. I'm a hack, and I've written 90% of the code so I'm sure they'll spend at least the first month just going through stuff and figuring out what's what. To say I need to find the right person is an understatement lol
Anyone have any tips for me? I'm not a big "business" guy and don't have much experience with hiring or managing employees...
The interesting thing is that this was just a little "20% time" side project that has, long story short, turned into a real business. I'm a hack, and I've written 90% of the code so I'm sure they'll spend at least the first month just going through stuff and figuring out what's what. To say I need to find the right person is an understatement lol
Anyone have any tips for me? I'm not a big "business" guy and don't have much experience with hiring or managing employees...
As for sites to post on: I've had best luck with Indeed, I've found that many technical people prefer it, and the costs are pretty reasonable for posting an ad. You pay per click, I talked to an account rep there on the phone who was helpful in tuning my ad to better match the types of candidates I was looking for.
Do you have any employees now? It sounds like you want an experienced guy who can pick up your project with a "get it done" mentality. Most employees are not used to that, they want more structure and direction. If you haven't managed many people, you may make the mistake of assuming that your employees should already know the "right way" you want things done and be surprised when they go off in a completely different direction or they just waste their time on lots of activity without achieving results.
In short, there is a lot more to it than just finding someone w/ experience and throwing some money at them to get things done.
