One of the questions I get asked the most is how we find good talent.. or better yet where.
It kind of depends on what your looking for.
If you are looking for talent specific people like graphics or programing those are a lot harder to find then if you are looking for a general book keeper. For the purpose to keep them separate in this post I will refer to graphics and programing help as “skilled talent”.
Skilled Talented specific people that you want on your team are not currently out of work. They are not combing the classifieds looking for a job. The people you want ot build your business around are not found on Elance or rent-a-coder. There is a reason these people are out of work.
So where do you find these people and approach them?
In my case I found skilled talent on forums or on IRC. David was the first programmer I hired who actually worked out… and worked out really well (enough that he is now a partner in the company). I had actually known him and many other talented people from a IRC channel since the mid 90′s. One day I was bitching about how I was never going to hire another remote worker again and he messaged me and said he was pretty good and would like a shot at whatever I needed done. He also said money was not a issue he just wanted to show me what he could do.
That is another thing you will find with talented skilled people. A lot of times you will find they are not motivated by money as much as being a part of something bigger AND being able to make a difference.
I am getting a little bit off track here but really the best place I have found people is just to hang around forums and irc chat rooms around the topic they care about. Some of the most talented programmers in the world are on efnet IRC.
I have not had to hire any new skilled talent lately but if I had to tomorrow I think twitter would be an amazing tool to find people. I would search for my location for people talking about keywords I was interested in. For instance if I was looking for a PHP programmer I could just search for people in nebraska talking about PHP. EASY! From there I could establish a dialog on twitter or try to find the person on linked-in or facebook or wherever.
For skilled positions I dont give a rats ass about college. I want someone with experience.
But what about a person to run your office? What about someone to run your PPC campaigns?
This is actually one of the few times where living in Nebraska has its advantages. I like to hire younger people from VERY rural areas who have just graduated college or still in college.
Why rural areas? Well people from rural areas farm… and farm families bust their asses as soon as they can walk. They get up at the ass crack of dawn and work until the sun goes down. They all help out and they have a work ethic that is unreal. They are also very trustworthy.
I can teach many things to people coming into our company. 2 things I can’t teach that are invaluable are work ethic and honesty.
The reason I like to get people before they enter the “work world” is because once they do they get THAT mindset and that is not who we are looking for. I want people who LIVE for this company. I want people I can text at 11pm a question and they text me back. I want people who are constantly thinking of ways to improve what we are doing.
Once people are in the “work world” to long they get accustomed to that 9-5 mentality of “this is what I do and its all I do” and at 5pm I go home and don’t think about work until 9am the next day.
We don’t want those people… we don’t want employees… we want partners in our business.
Everyone here is on track to become a partner in the company.
Well that is how we do it and my views on it. Hopefully it helps. Feel free to throw your tips on how you find great people to work for you.
About the author...
Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2416 posts on ShoeMoney.com.
Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.
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{ 52 comments… read them below or add one }
There are alot of good virtual assistants out there. I found a Great one searching on Face Book.
Finding people to work via Twitter sounds great but credibility is also an issue.
In those cases someone with a nice feedback on Elance or Freelancer might be a better option.
Twitter is really great for finding employees / contract labor. I’ve farmed out Thesis work, found PHP programmers, and subcontracted AdWords work when I’m not taking new clients myself (which is most of the time)
If you’re starting out, and want to be one of those people mentioned in the post who are not currently out of work and always in demand, then you want to go frequent forums and places where others like you hang out. You will learn things yourself, and as you participate, people will start to trust your own skills and consider you when they need something done (my last five or six AdWords clients came directly from WebmasterWorld.com)
Great Post, I love how twitter & facebook is helping people find jobs too.
Great insight, esp. about farm work. And that money is not the only motivator. I’m one of those people, but in reality, desire to make a difference doesn’t pay the bills.
O.K. This is my favorite post you had made all year. This will make me sound like a total dumbass but,
A. I’ve never come across anything like EFnet, and looking on it seeing 59,000 peoople currently connected, and most of them are probably tech guys? crap!
B. The searching twitter thing. Sounds so simple, yet it hadn’t occurred to me to find people into a certain thing at a certain moment in a certain area.
Very nice,
dk
It’s likely the person you need to connect with is no more than 2 degrees of separation from you (assuming you have a decent network). Pretty unlikely that you’ll need to reach out to a complete stranger for most anything anymore.
Hey Jeremy, your post couldn’t be more timely since I have been spending the last few days pulling my hair out trying to find 3 more sales reps.
I have been trying to cherry pick the best from other companies that I do trade shows with, nothing better than watching your competitors staff try to sell an inferior product. Do they sell the hype or try to showcase the benefits?
Totally agree on the rural aspect, but since I am a farmboy and entrepreneur I can definitely relate. If only I could clone myself.
Been using twitter as you also high lighted, but also trolling Linked In .
Also found a good source is asking my current clients if they know any sales reps that they respect and enjoy dealing with.
They know which reps are good people selling crappy products, and would do well selling for someone else.
Hope to see you at Pubcon next month
It is still possible to find good people on RAC and such sites. I was still working full time when I posted my availability, I am building a team now and leaving work. I did not bid on RAC to get just one project, but mostly to establish long-term relationships. I think the key for looking for programmers on freelance websites is to see how many projects they work on simultaniously, availability by phone, and ofcourse past experience.
Being a young web developer myself (ages at 15) I completely agree that young, fresh talent is a very good area to look in if you have a few extra resources and time to introduce unexperienced people to business, but expecting brilliant talent. Young people are not to be underestimated!
I wish I had a portfolio to show you guys to show ‘young’ talent, but I currently haven’t got it finished, but if you click my name you can see a website I recently made for an ICT course. I was miffed when they said I couldn’t use php, though.
Speaking from the devlopment side of things… When you are looking for a programming partner make sure the you have all your requirements lined up before asking for a bid. Sloppy project requirements can lead to an inaccurate bid.
If you need PHP Mysql Apache Linux help please do let me know.
-Tom
Hey Jeremy,
I hear a lot of people are hiring virtual workers from places like the Phillipines and Malaysia recently for very cheap. What do you think about this practice and do you think you’d get value-for-money?
I get calls from these people and it just pisses me off totally. When I answer the phone and the person on the other end can’t speak English well enough to be understood I get a bad impression. Look, if you are going to hire people to call americans then does it make sense to see first if an English speaking person can even understand them? When I have to say “what” and I get the same gibberish question I can not even hope to understand I just hang up.
Sorry about the past posts…
Now this is some good stuff here…The guy/gal tha thinks about their work even after work…
You’ve got to realize to think like that after work, you WOULD have to be APART of the the company…Your name would be in the company, owner, blah blah blah or else you won’t get them into the correct mindset like them thinking this is “mine” not “that dumbass rich boss thats using me” kind of mode,,,
Gotta love the internet.
Great points Jeremy, I have always found that people with the right attitude and basic skills, can be trained to do the job. I have hired a bunch of those Nebraska farm kids over the last 30 years, knowing how to get the job done when the hay is on the ground and the rain is coming translates very well to the business world of commitments and dead lines. Over the last couple of years I hired a new sales force for the western US and some of the most successful people that I have, are those that had little or know experience in sales. They did have the skills, they were passionate, could talk to complete strangers, and had the energy to keep getting back up when knocked down.
I followed a blog on and off for 8months+ and found out the writer was from my city and finally approached him to do some work for me.
He turned out to exceed my expectations. We are now meeting this week in person to talk about additional work and local lead generation programs that you have posted about before.
I don’t know his schooling but his work ethic and abilities for the internet space are exactly what I need.
Good Post
I have been using Elance for more then 2 years and I keep using the same suppliers because they are doing a phenomenal job.
I know someone who has been RAVING about using Odesk to find suitable people to work on his projects. I have not tried it myself, but he seems to have had pretty good results.
oDesk is the best for finding people. I disagree with Jeremy about not finding talented people for skilled positions.. the way to find them is to
1. know how to properly post a job and
2. know how to sort through all the applicants and find the right people.
If you stress for the applicants to include
1. a unique skill or experience that makes them qualified to do a good job on your project.
2. ask them to give an outline of specifically what technology they will use and the techniques they will use to get your project done.
With these pieces of information you can usually tell which people are qualified by the quality of their answers. You don’t have to be a super technical person yourself to pick out which people have the best sounding answer, and 90% of the time you will pick a quality applicant.
You want your employees to be ready to discuss work matters at 11pm. You want them to be thinking about growing your business. You kind of do not respect their privacy then. Unless you made them shareholders of the company – then it is a different story.
But I get the feeling you did not…
I really like your blog and i respect your work. I’ll be a frequent visitor.
Your comment …. that “Skilled Talented specific people that you want on your team are not currently out of work” …. is unkind and untrue in this economy.
There are a LOT of skilled and talented people looking HARD for jobs.
Sheri
I disagree strongly. Even in this economy if you are skilled and have a good work ethic you can’t be out of work. period.
I get contacted several times a day for people LOOKING to hire skilled talented recommended people.
I know a lot of very capable people who are out of work right now. Shit happens. Not everyone has the contacts to QUICKLY find employment.
That said, I do agree that most of the people you’d be looking to hire for skilled labor will currently be employed or running their own business.
I have used eLance quite a bit and like it for content but development might not be such a good category for them.
I am also looking at GetFriday for some VA services this month.
The problem with hiring people is you don’t really know how well they are going to fit in until they are employed for 3 months+.
There are great programmers on rentacoder. Not everyone is good at finding jobs for themselves person-to-person and sites like these are a great help.
I’ve found great designers by going to ‘free template’ sites and contacting the designers directly.
I agree that the best people care about the work first and the money second. But that also means you need to take good care of them so they don’t feel taken advantage of.
Basically you have to support everyone that works for you with their own plans as well, otherwise they’ll move on. Not everyone wants to be an employee forever, or grow someone else’s business without growing their own.
I’ve had excellent results hiring VA’s, PHP programmers, and writers at Odesk. Also on Wickedfire. Had bad luck trying to find vbulletin experts with Getafreelancer and on VB forums. I might give IRC and Twitter a shot, but right now Odesk and WF are my go-to resources.
it is difficult to find good help. Ive used craigslist a lot. Usually when I have posted on craigslist I have gotten a ton of resumes.I also like forums – I have got some good freelance people from forums
Very interesting and amusing subject. I read with great pleasure.
It is some different kinda skill to hunt for “the real deal” here. Anyways, I love to place higher value on attitude. I want to see the people who wanna go places & encourage to grow with us.
It’s truly a crux of all as it ain’t gonna be one man job to create significance.
I used getafreelancer and found unreliable. I asked a programmer to create me a software, I thought he did but he just hacked another site and sold it to me. Disgusting!
It is really hard to find out people for our work. I think freelancing sites like oDesk, Elance, GAF, Problogger, digital point forum are some nice place for getting people for our work.
I am still experimenting with that in Nigeria. Few months ago, I called a few of my friends and we send invitation to my school mates who I considered potential partners. It was like a party and I let them know the mission and vision of the company I was about to setup. Well it was not all that successful. but less than 2% of the people I invited were interested and were already active partners. Some are still skeptical. But the problem is that most of them are not techcentric. Thus I still have much job of teaching most of them what to do.
But I think with time the problem of human capital will be solved and I will be faced with training the team.
Hiring talent and retaining them to your company is really a tough thing, specially when everything is open and fast.
You declare what you are looking for but you did not disclose what you will provide them in lieu of their hard and dedicated work.
Just grab them when they are raw so that you can mould them according to your choice.
A wet mud is really easy to give shape but a hard mud … naahh … never.
Hey Mate, I’ve read a couple of posts on your blog and I love your style.
You’ve got a broad rural base to choose from in Nebraska!
(I can poke fun….I’m originally from a farm in IL, and agree with your work ethic/honesty comments.)
A lot of programmers also hang around freenode ( irc.freenode.net ).
They focus on open source software, and there are lots of developers there. Great people in general hang out there.
I do a trial and error thing. See try and then keep them long if they worth the position.
Odesk is also a good place to find best human resource and there admin panel is really great.
I’m the in the process of bringing on some interns for my new project. So far, the best responses came from a internships.com.
I agree with several points: honest and work ethic can’t be taught. Before my husband and I started our own companies, we found that we always cared more about our companies than our bosses. Not caring about money first is another key ingredient: we always talk about how much more fun our work would be if only we didn’t have to get paid!
When I’ve hired contract help, I’ve always tested them out with a small paid project, after a quick review of their porfolio. Usually, I can tell from that one interaction if things will work out. It’s faster and more efficient than a bunch of talk.
As far as texting at 11pm… I do believe in work/life balance, because let’s face it, there’s more to life than work.
This is definitely one of the best newsletters so far. I’ve found my ship for the last year or so, bought a house, bought a car… but now I’m working hard to diversify, to leverage my current position.
I love your drive, your ability to team-build, and your honest advice. Your ShoemoneyX course was great, even for a guy like me who feels “experienced.”
Please keep sharing your advice… I think I owe you one. Probably more than one of those $2,000 course price-tags
We have used Odesk but the problem I find is that they only work on a per project basis.
Few talented people is equal to many untalented one. I am also searching for few and going to try in forums.
Shoe, one problem is that skilled talented people looking for jobs is that – if they are fortunate enought to get invited to an interview and be considered – they often find they are beat for the job in question by someone who is even more skilled and talented (ie, vastly overqualified people are increasingly doing much more mundane jobs due to the decreasing work available). AND, often employers will exploit or abuse this situation in various ways.
One problem with mainstream job sites is that they are so flooded with huge quantities of applications from applicants that for a recruiter or recruiting company to even take notice of the contents of an applicants detailed submissions it is low odds perhaps akin to a lottery. But does anyone have experience of finding an applicant, or being found by a recuriter, through the skilled person’s own basic website?
the real problem is you don’t know about someone until you work with them for 2-4 months.
This is very insightful, this has always been a difficult task no matter how do you it.
I agree with you about recruiting strategy. It all depends on what you seek. Also, people rely too much on tools and less on their own intellect to find talent.
I actually followed a similar principle when recruiting for a firm a few years ago. It was a place that had these great secretaries, but not one them had made an effort to learn MS Office suite programs, let alone anything else. We’d just recruited top-tier talent who were accustomed to a certain level of creativity and knowledge that these ladies couldn’t meet. So, all 10 had to be replaced. I recruited fresh-out-of-college types from varied backgrounds. The main thread? All hungry to learn and to prove themselves.
Beyond that, I look at what people have done with themselves. So, like you, I don’t care too much about college. However, I don’t mind if someone is older. It all depends on what they’ve done. I’ve had people come in with lovely resumes who just plodded along, and the resumes are 1-2 pages long. Others come in having done so much that 3 pages aren’t enough. Hmmm…. That shows me drive and initiative. I myself wore so many hats at my last 3 jobs that no one believed it until they saw the references. In the end, for me it come down to: What are you willing to do? I don’t want the one who is satisfied with what people give; I want the one who helps to shape his/her own future.
It doesn’t really matter where and how you get people to work. It just the constant and smooth communication within parties spice up the job. Many buyers from certain outsourcing websites like elance, and odesk, need a little bit “education” themselves when it comes to dealing with workers.
Sometimes is a matter of luck.
You can find talent in the most unsuspicious places. Even a degree is not a guarantee.