Where and how do I find???

Nuevolution

Hello Fellow SUNNIES,As I continue to expand and grow, I am facing a serious problem. I can`t find reliable employees!What am I doing wrong? Is it me or I just can`t find the right candidates? Let me give you an example of what Im writing about.As you know Im a web developer/Designer in the Southern California Area. For the past three years the company has been growing rapidly. So I decided to rent an office and hire some people. About a month ago, I was looking for someone with basic html, and general coding experience to help me with a few projects. After interviewing a few people; I came across a good resume "so I thought". On her resume, she seemed like she knew what she was talking about. She talked the web design lingo so I said "You`re hired" DAY 1. Didn`t know how to create a new site in "dreamweaver studio", her excuse: I use a different version of Dreameaver... But Dreamweaver`s ftp hasn`t changed in the last 6 releases.... DAY 2. Didn`t know how to create roll-over buttons or a navigation bar. So I had to do it myself. She took the project into her own hands and changed the navigation bar to something that looked my 2 year old daughter could do.DAY 3. Collapsed a customers web site, because she didn`t have knowledge of css or extended html.DAY 4. Requests if I can change her projects because she doesn`t work with templates nor anything she doesn`t develop. So I had her start on a new project. She didn`t even know how to start a layout. DAY 5. "You are fired" <---Trump style After putting an add on the news paper for more than 2 weeks... My question is where can I find reliable people?? I don`t want to outsource to "Maleek" In INDIA or BORIS in RUSSIA... I want to find talented people here in the US. I believe in Keeping jobs in  America. Where do I start? I went to Monster but their Price is too high for searching their database. Does anyone know where I can post free ads or if not free at least 100 bucks per posting.. and please do not tell me craigslist or myspace.com. I think Start Up Nation needs an Employment posting too.Nuevolution2007-3-5 3:2:16

GrillCharmer

Maybe go to the Department Head at Mt. Sierra College and ask him for names / references of some of the most promising students in the program.  Graduating students are usually good, hungry, full of fresh ideas, and hopefully they will have learned something w/i the past 4 years.   

Nuevolution

NHG,I understand what you are saying about getting overloaded with fake resumes. The funny thing about my situation is. I can`t find someone reliable. NIKOLE, I tried hiring out of state two things that I don`t like are time difference and reliability. I need to be able to meet with them at any given time. So do theses people work directly for you or are they working for you per project base? I hate working per project because they mostly ask for half down and they do not deliver when they say they will.
What I am looking for is: Direct Hire W2 employees that can come into the office and work. I am looking for a receptionist, Layout person and developer. So it`s a tough situation that I am in. Currently we have the capacity to output 4 projects per month. But as we continue to grow we need to expand and start hiring. I will look into Mt. Sierra. or Art Institute. That was going to be my next approach, perhaps Devry University I know they have a good CIS program.

Nuevolution

Well see I`ve gone that route where I pay per project and dishing out 50 percent down and 50 percent when it`s completed. Here is what I was running into: The designer/developer was also running his own business he was taking in money and projects [more than what he can handle] when I would call him and ask him how the project was going he would tell me I wasn`t of high priority. THAT REALLY PISSED ME OFF... Mind you I was paying him about 1500.00 per project and with half down and living in Mississippi,  $750.00 I guess goes a long way. It came down to where I lost 1 customer because he couldn`t deliver on time. The project was supposed to be finished on 7/01/2006 it wasn`t completed till October 18th 2006.<--- company reputation is my main concern! After getting into it with him, his way of looking at business is sometimes you win some sometimes you loose some" My approach is "I`m not here to loose".... Not a client or a project. So to make things easier on myselfI`ve decided to hire full time.I`ve noticed that It`s much profitable if you hire someone and pay them per week than per project.Plus, I need the control I need to be able to monitor the projects and make changes before any of the projects go further. It takes longer to make corrections later down the road than addressing all issues as you go. Not only that, but it`s time I start putting more effort in formalizing the business; what I mean by formalizing means operate during business hours: 8:00 to 5:00 pm. Not odd hours of the day. As for you having to take care of a baby, Congratulations! I was in the same boat as you 1 year ago. Now they are both in day care so it makes things much easier. I found myself working from 4:00 pm till 3:00 am every day. But even that gets old fast.

Nuevolution

Yeah I hear you on not accepting resumes or inquiries from other wanna be business owners. Let me give you an example of a posting that I recieved about 2 days ago... "ITCN Corporation is willing to take on any project of any magnitude at reasonable rates"So I responded to the So called ITCN Corporation and requested that they simply send me their Corporate ID and state of Incorporation so I can check with their State to see if they were a legit company. I got a respond back from the guy that he was a sole proprietor not a corporation and that he didn`t feel comfortable doing business with my company. As if he was going to be selected. As for having a job description I do have one and I`ve described what I am looking for the problem with that is they modify their resume to fit the job description so what I`ve done now is created my own basic html test that they have to take before they goto phase 2 if they pass with an 85 or above they move up the ladder.  The test has questions such as: 1. What is the purpose of a meta tag? 2. Show example of how you would use a div tag in a web site.3. Creat a css rule for the following tag <a>Show the following: Active, hover, visitedSimple questions... I developed a page of 100... They do get harder  at about question number 15. I added some php, asp, and most of all coldfusion. If they don`t know how to use the cfmodule tag... they are in trouble... I hope this will help me eliminate the newbies from the good coders

bgates

Edgar,I would suggest with your next hire you provide some sort of testing to prove the candidate`s ability, which isn`t uncommon in larger firms.  Just make sure it isn`t a take home test .My website is strictly for small business job openings like yours and if you put the promo code sb100 your job posting will only be $75 for 30 days, plus our team will do resume matching for you, post your job on several other major job boards for free.  http://www.jobkite.com/employers.asp</A>There`s also some really great resources to help you with growing your company on the hiring side.  Good Luck!Bailey

StevenCerri

Hello Nuevolution

Wow... you`ve gotten a lot of adivce so far. Mine is going to be very
different however, First I`ll say I`ve been hiring software developers (and
firing some of them) for much of my career... which has been a long
career. So let`s be clear right up front. We are all trying to find good
people... and they can be found.

The way my advice is going to differ from the other posting is that the
first step in find good people ... starts with you, not with the person you
are going to hire. Someone said get a good job description; I agree but
I`d go farther. In web design there are some very clear indicators as to
whether people can do the job or not. Put togehter a test, and exam if
you will, that will determine if the potential hire can do the work. During
the interview process it is perfectly reasonable to sit the candidate in
front of a computer and say, "Here is a typical website that represents our
product for our customer. Would you please modify the buttons, change
the css to handle newsletter signups on every page and create a
secondary css to represent Google adwords landing pages. Take as much
time as you like. I`ll just hang out here while you do it. if you have any
questions, just ask. Here are some hard copy representations of what the
pages should look like when you are done."

Then just sit back, watch, listen, answer questions if necessary, and when
the hour is up (don`t make it more work than an hour) you`ll know if you
have a good candidate or not. That is the first step. Without this you are
guessing how good people will be. And I must tell you, without these
kinds of processes in place it is really a guess. It is pretty much
impossible to tell if a person has the requisite capabitlity by resume and
interview. In fact, in the past as director of engineering, I would have
three or four of my program managers interview an important candidate,
and even then we were accurate about 75% of the time. So take heart.
This is a tough process, but the test I talked about above is a good first
step in increasing the odds.

Second, you are just going to have to sift through a lot of candidates.
The more specific you are in your add, however, the fewer people you`ll
have to interview. My suggestion is to first make your add very, very
specific. Make it so most people who can`t do 95% of what you want
done, won`t even send a resume (some who can`t will still send you one...
can`t keep them away). If you don`t find the right person there, then
expand the add a little by removing some of the requirements. Keep
doing this until you find someone. And as you do this process of opening
up the requirments, you`ll get really clear as to how many people are out
there who can do your job. My sense right now is that you are doing this
in too much of loose way.

Also, someone on this list suggested college students. In needed a Linux
expert programmer a couple of years ago, and I needed one fast. I called
and emailed the math and computer science departments of the local
University of California campus. I asked for gradutate students only.
(They are more serious and have more time to commite). I got two
possible candidates. I had the programmers who were going to work with
them interview them, they picked one and the guy turned out to be a
genius and a life-saver for our project.

So... final suggestion. Don`t dispare. Stick with it. Know that the best
approach is to tighten up your end of the process and tighten up your
adds and just work through it and adjust as you learn more about your
specific market in your specific local.

I hope this helps.

Steven Cerri