Personnel crisis or how we were looking for a programmer

Prehistory

I work in a web studio located in the South of our vast Motherland. In parallel with the work of the studio, we launched 2 startups and, accordingly, we started to lack hands. We decided to take 2 programmers so that the guys (or girls) work in pairs.
The work is interesting, the team is good. The office is warm, cozy. For being late, no one scolds anyone. We just work with the whole team, do really good services and enjoy the work. Well, the salary for our city is far above average - 40-50 thousand rubles in hand.

How to search

Yes, very simple. Placed a vacancy on all possible recruiting sites, including, of course hh.ru and hantim.ru. They wrote the announcement in detail, described the working conditions, what should be done and what salary we are ready to pay for it. Asked to make a summary of the work portfolio.

And then it began ...

The first response came from the hunthim. Below is a quote from the letter textually:
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How much do you offer?

Everything. Neither "Hello" or "My name is Vasily Petrov." I'm not even talking about the fact that we would like to look at examples of completed work, find out the age of a person where he worked or worked. And in the end, this guy or girl.
"But still, people are different," I thought, maybe a person just can't communicate. Therefore, I responded to the letter, asked to send resumes and links to work. We corresponded for 4 days, I could not figure out the age of the young man, but at least I knew that he was a guy and saw several of his works. In order not to spend more time on correspondence, I invited the candidate for an interview, to which he unfortunately did not appear ...

Subsequent feedback is also not pleased. I know that IT specialists are very nervous and angry when unknowing people call all IT people with the common word “programmer” or even worse, “programmer”. Well, everyone knows the situation:

Son, I have a broken iron here, you are a computer programmer, you understand all these things. Can you fix it? ..

I exaggerate, of course, but still ...

So, we are to blame. About 10 responses from system administrators, service engineers, technicians and even web designers came to the vacancy of the “Web-programmer” ...
I always think that people need to be given a chance. Maybe a person works as a sysadmin, and at night he learns PHP. No, on the request to send examples of completed work, the answer was almost the same for everyone:

“I don’t have completed projects yet, but I want to change my specialization and am ready to learn.”

Well, for 40,000 rubles a month, why not learn something? And at least one would say that he is ready to work for less money until he reaches the necessary qualifications. No, the salary and conditions suit everyone. And the fact that you need to give something in return, somehow in the head of such "programmers" does not fit.

Try to put yourself in the employer's place. Why should I pay a full-fledged salary for the fact that the specialist does not bring any profit, but is trained? And after training, he will leave to work for freelancing, and what should I learn the next one at my own expense? And who will work and develop the project?

I myself once started, and I understand that if you are at the start of a career and so far you don’t have any idea about yourself, you need to think not about salary, but about experience. In this case, the price (salary) is set by the employer. And when there is enough practice, you can independently determine the value of your labor.

There were also such candidates who stated with complete confidence: “I am a web-programmer”, but in fact ... oh ...
Here is one of the most vivid examples. The person calls to find out the details of the job, after a few questions, he says: “Oh, so you are not working on the bitrix. I only work with Bitrix and am not going to teach anything else. ” And this person calls himself a "programmer"?

And finally, another candidate who hit me to the depths of my soul. Young man, 17 years old. Indicated, ready to work, but with one condition:

I can work only in the afternoon or remotely.

The expected salary level is 40,000 rubles. Well, I think maybe I got a young genius . A person wants to work, well, in the afternoon, so in the second. The main thing is to complete the tasks. I asked him to send a portfolio of works to assess the qualifications. The answer was:

No tasks have been implemented by me yet, but I can complete the test task.

Well, how? How can a person claim that he knows jquery or php and not have any examples of implementation? It's the same as if an illustrator came to me saying that he can make beautiful illustrations, but he hasn’t yet drawn anything. How can you be able to do something in absentia, if you have never tried it? Moreover, to ask for a good salary and a flexible schedule.

Interview

Meanwhile, we continued to search. Among other responses, there were 6 that really deserved attention, and we scheduled an interview.
Turnout for interview was high: 5 out of 6. After communicating with the candidates, it turned out that only one meets our expectations and has the appropriate qualifications. It was decided to take one programmer for now and continue searching.

Cooperation

On Monday, a new specialist came to work. We dedicated it to work in particular, placed it in jobs, provided us with a workplace, put it up to date. At the end of the working day they asked if everything was pleasant, maybe there are some questions / problems.
Well, you understand what I'm doing ... yes, yes, on Wednesday afternoon, the programmer said that we have, well, just super cool. As the team is good, and the work is interesting. But ... He was offered a vacancy at the previous place of work, where both the salary is more and he will work remotely.
I was struck by one phrase that he dropped:

If you are ready to raise my salary, I will stay.

I'm ready. And I regularly raise salaries to employees every six months. But in order for me to raise my salary, I have to make sure that you are worth it. And how can I raise the salary of a person who has worked for 2.5 days? What will the rest of the company employees say who have been waiting for their first promotion for half a year? This is at least dishonest.

Conclusion

I do not lose hope, but I am increasingly convinced that there is practically no chance of finding a good specialist. The trend of the market is now such that programmers are increasingly going into freelancing. And this greatly affects the quality of the products produced. And even more it affects the qualifications of specialists . Because most often a person who has gone into freelancing has to take orders of the same type. Because this is what he can do. This is what he can do quickly and get his money. If you take something new, you have to study, and therefore spend more time , and therefore earn less money . Of course, you can ask for a higher fee, however, freelancing is a price dumping and more often, preference is given in favor of low cost. And even worse, no one can appreciate your work. To say that here it was possible to make it simpler and more elegant, and here it is worthwhile to use a different method, as this will increase productivity.

Work in the company is not only salary and communication with people, it is an opportunity for professional growth. It is professional, because you solve not the tasks that you choose, but those that you have to solve. And yet there is a partner or a mentor with whom you can discuss the problem and find the best solution.

What's next?

A crisis. Not only personnel, but also professional. I really hope that someone will find out in this article themselves and understand that work is not for money. Work is professional growth. Work is a big part of our life. Work to enjoy, be proud, show off. You need to poke a finger at the monitor and say: “See! I did this, see how it works! ”