Schwan

I’ve placed this thread in Titled Finance because it’s business related for the most part. If mods think otherwise, then do with it as you please.

BACKGROUND

A while back I’ve been asked to participate in a new website project. The idea of the website was to create a place for freelance IT specialists – mostly programmers and artists – to look for projects to participate in. The website’s CMS allows the freelancers to register and create their on-line portfolios. There’s also a set of tools for people who look for the freelancers – they do this through announcements, in which they specify who are they looking for, exactly. An e-mail is sent out to all the users who meet these requirements. There’s a lot of other features there, but that’s the basic idea, so there’s no point to go into further details.

The website is placed in central Europe, on a developing market, so the initiative is fresh.

THE PROBLEM

Throughout the first month of it’s existence the site managed (thanks to my l337 PR skilzzzor) over a thousand members and a nice, steady flow of new users checking in daily. We also launched an information campaign to various IT companies to inform them that they can use this service for free to look for freelance programmers and so on. This is where things go a bit wrong.

The sites management decided to run a contest in order to check the skills of the users. The results – bad. Out of several hundred entries only two were what you might call professional, but still not anything close a paying customer might expect. It turns out that a lot of the people who registered haven’t a clue about either programming or graphics. The second problem came with the kind of announcements we got form the businesses. Instead of looking for freelancers to participate in their projects, companies placed normal job ads.

SOLOUTIONS

They’ve asked me for possible solutions for these two problems. I’m thinking that either they should bend their whole idea of the website more to the user’s liking – if companies want to look for normal employees this way, then let them.

Another solution would be to sign individual contracts with one or two IT companies, so that they would use this site to look for freelancers. But that’s a bit problematic – the people I’ve talked to are not interested in this, because they don’t trust what the people write on the internet, and they prefer, instead, to look for freelancers through people they’ve worked with. And they are right – judging from the contest results, most of the users are incompetent to participate in large IT projects.

A way to solve the incompetence problem would be an introduction of a grading system, like, say, ebay has, where a happy customer would give out a positive or negative comment to a freelancer, after they’ve finished work. Then again this would be problematic to control.

Finally, I’m going to suggest to them to run a campaign directed at various tech school students. I know for a fact that some of the polytechnic student can put professional IT experts to shame with their skills, only that most of the time they have no idea how to look for a job.

THE QUESTION

The question is simple – does the collective knowledge of TFP have any advice?

Merlocke

The idea of running a campaign directed towards students seems to be the most promising solution to find the skill sets you're looking for.

What's the website URL?
I'd like to check it out.

Also - I'd love to take a look at the contest results if you'll share those with me. From the good to the bad to the horrible - I'd just like to see what types of people entered the contest. Maybe it will lead some insight as to what the solution would be.

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-=[ Merlocke ]=-

zenmaster10665

Definitely....is there a website for this already?

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maleficent

I would nix the recruiting tech school students, they aren't going to have real world experience - which most companies would look for in a freelancer.

So the website basically acts as a pimp for freelancers? The company pays the website to find a freelancer? Eventually it's going to start charging, what kind of guarentee do they get that they will get someone competent? Even without charging, what about my time and project time spent on someone who was not competent?

What's your competition outside your targeted area doing? How do they handle and judge the level of competence of people?

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gar1976

If companies want to pay to place ads for full-time positions there, go for it. Maybe have the wanted ads split into two sections, one for full time and one for contract work.

You need to be flexible - if the demand is there for a different kind of website, than supply what is desired.

Schwan

This is exactly what I suggested so far.

Yes, you might say that the website is acting as a pimp. It doesn't charge anything, but once it will become a valid source for experts, it will charge money. I'm sure you can see where the problem is so far. The companies have no guarantees that the freelancers are any good. Originally the problem was supposed to be solved by virtual portfolios, but than anyone can put anything in their online portfolios.

The people at the website have come up with a few solutions, but they're still pondering if it's worth to implement them. One of them would be a point system, assigned to users by the companies, upon completion of the project, not unlike Ebay's positive and negative comments. The other solution, suggested by the users, is to have user-groups, which can apply for projects as a single entity.

Still, the basic problems are not solved, as far as I can see. First of all, companies are not interested in finding freelancers this way, since they can’t be sure about just how good and reliable they are. Heck, even though they hired me to cooperate on this, I decided not to use that site to look for help on my projects, for the precise same reasons.

As far as the competition goes, they're battling thesame problems as we do (to my best knowledge). There are a few sites like ours, and all of them have registered freelancers, mostly in the IT and arts (photo and CGI) departments.

At this point one might ask if there is a point to all this. Well, there is. It's a 40 million citizens country, with it's IT concentrated around two major cities and a lot fine experts scattered all over the place. This is meant as a tool for aiding projects that could be completed without the need to relocate the workers.

maleficent

I think every industry, even off the web has the same problem with people and what they say their experience is. Lying on a resume, or rather, stretching the truth on a resume seems to be commonplace.

When resumes are submitted into headhunters, generally the person is brough in for an interview, or a phone interview, but rarely are their skills tested (I've never fudged a resume, and I've never been tested on what i say I know, so I dont know if I am the exception or the rule)

When a person fills in the "admission form" do they list skillsets, can the questions be asked in such a way that they have to somewhat prove their knowledge? Rather than asking what software apps you know, and have it be a pick list, ask pointed questions in what work ahve you done.. Describe what you've done.

What market are you gearing towards? Web Design? Database?

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Schwan

Yes, people lieing in their Circulum Vitaes is a problem, and testing the candidates on job interviews makes sense... but then again, not always. I guess that it makes sense for programer, economists and jobs like that.

As far as this website goes, it's aimed at two sectors: IT (programming, web design, electronics, but also foreign laguage software translations) and the Ad sector (mostly artists).

rubicon

Visit www.guru.com and check out how they run things.

I've used them a few times to find freelancers. I had great success finding a very competent Java/C++ programmer, below average success with HTML jockies, and no success with network admin.

I've found that most applicants don't read my directions on how to apply for the position. Right there I knock out 95% (no joke) of the people. Others request pay that is outside of my budgeted (and clearly specified) amount. All in all, I've had decent success but not overwhelming. However, I think this problem is consistent with any job applicant and you've seen it firsthand.

I didn't answer your request, per se, but maybe provided some insight for you.

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theFez

im a programmer, sysadmin, and dba for a small ecommerce company.

I have looked at some of the sites that cater to freelancers and usually find that the people posting projects on these sites don't pay nearly enough. Of course with Russian companies billing out at $5/hour for their programmers it's hard to compete.

i do some freelance work, mostly SEO and security consulting, but all of it comes from word of mouth and personal relationships.

the hard part to getting experienced professionals to join your site is getting them to think they can make money at it.

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Merlocke

I've just started my own consulting company - but also a software company.
I suppose I may give that contest concept of yours a shot - see how it pans out in North America.

I've been invited to teach classes at large Business Intelligence functions - so that's mainly how I push my information out there. I also get large sites to feature my demos in their featured example pages to get more hits. Perhaps that might be a way for you to find more talent yourself.

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