How to hire a programmer with eyes closed

Finding a good programmer is a big problem. During our life, we hired about 50 programmers based on interviews and only interviews. A rare case was a success. The problems started from where you did not expect them.

• One did not wash and stank so that the room did not go. I threatened to put a hood and deduct it from my salary; it helped for one shower, not more.
• Another drank drunkenly and lied that he poisoned himself with the belly of salmon.
• And all, almost all delays.

Each of those we hired seemed like a great professional. And only experience showed how erroneous the first impression was. Like in marriage: it is worth living together, as you know, what exactly are you furious about.

Search for candidates

I found another programmer like this: I selected a few responses to HeadHunter.ru and asked them to see what they would do. Here is what I wrote:

Thanks for taking the time. Here I will describe the first task that you encounter. The objectives of this text are as follows.

• For you to understand whether you are interested in the following.
• For me to understand how you understand the task formulated by me and how much time you plan to spend on it. The results of the trial period largely depend on how well you meet this deadline.

What do you need from you
Teamwork is first and foremost communication. We want to test our communication. Please briefly describe the task in your own words so that I know that you understood me correctly.



In order not to come out as in the picture, try to formulate questions on the implementation in the format of solutions: “This is how I understand it. Otherwise, if it’s still that way, it will take two more days. ” Or: “About this nothing is said, but I would have done this and that”.

Prepare a time estimate and break into stages no more than three days each.

All of this came via email at ivan [at] visualpharm.com .
Thank you very much!

Probation

I received three good answers. I informed all three that they were taken for a trial period; their work is paid from now on. I prepared a very good task and distributed the same to all three. I told them that their task is to complete the task as cheaply as possible , and the price is made up of:

• Programmer salaries
• My time I spend on correspondence (based on $ 100 per hour)
• The time of contractors that the programmer hires - I pay for their services at the rates that you call.

For everyone, I started projects in the BaseCamp system - a small project management system. In the future, I deleted two projects, and one is still in use. This is what Sergey’s system looks like after months of work.

BaseCamp Sergey

Chronology of work	Task lists - what we use the most	The messages we use, when you need something tell or arrange brainstorm

results

All programmers agreed and started working. I needed discipline to take into account every minute spent on a programmer. I put the MiniBooks timing program on the iPhone, which allows you to work with several timers simultaneously, and always, before you start reading the letter from the programmer, the timer started, even if the letter was monosyllabic and the response took 40 seconds.

In short, the results are as follows:

• Ivan spent three days and did nothing, receiving a calculation of $ 290
• Irina is missing
• Sergey surpassed all expectations and passed a trial period.

Here are my timers: Ivan's timer has already been deleted: they have already settled and bowed.

Timers in MiniBooks

Ivan: 30-dollar work for $ 1454.55

He brought the brain to me at the stage before the trial period. The culmination was the question “who pays a bank transfer?” With the issue price of 12 rubles, I understood that we were going in the wrong direction. I decided to do the layout myself and by the end of three days we had a layout, the readiness of which I estimate at 20%. I wrote him the following sad letter:

Ivan,
Unfortunately, on this we will have to stop our cooperation. This is nothing personal; Please try to take this decision as one hundred percent business situation, as our attempt to count money. Money is not considered by those who are not going to pay, but we pay and are obliged to count them.

Our results are such that we spent $ 290.91 on your salary, you spent 0.3 hours of my time (another $ 30), for a total of $ 320, and for this money we received, let's say, not much. At the same time, I am aware that the layout is not your profile, but you could give the layout to someone else, and for $ 300 you would get a fully crafted website, where you would only have to add functionality.

For comparison, your colleague has done everything the first day and finishes screwing up the search functionality. Also, we received an estimate of 20,000 rubles for the entire naoplatu dressing project, even from a very expensive programmer with a salary of $ 5,000, for which our project is a part-time job. I do not say that they are better, but they are more suitable for us for our tasks.

In any case, if you took the situation in an adult manner and with understanding, we would like to behave just as nobly and pay you money, which should: $ 290.91. Please provide bank account details or Yandex.Money; other systems are possible, maybe just give us time in this case.

$ 290.91 is a huge amount for such work. If we had completed the remaining 80% at the same pace, we would spend $ 1,454.55 excluding my time or $ 1600 with mine. For comparison: the layout of one page costs 20-30 dollars for freelancers.

$ 290.91 + 12 rubles to transfer - these were all my recruiting costs paid in cash, not time. Recruiters would ask for three salaries - more than an order of magnitude.

Irina: how to hang a project for 22 days

Irina was initially laconic, just nodded: I'll do everything. Showed great recommendations. I did not want to continue freelancing; We considered our company (then VisualPharm , now Icons8 ) as an opportunity to get away from freelancing and get a stable job. There was a prospect of getting an employee who silently does his job without distracting me over nothing.

Then Irina disappeared. I contacted her, and she said that she couldn’t give up her freelance tails on time, and asked for a time limit. And then it disappeared again.

From the moment when I began to look for a programmer until the moment when I stopped waiting for Irina, 22 days passed. If I only considered her candidacy, we would have suspended the project for 22 days.

Sergey: everything was started for him

Three days later I wrote the following message to Sergey:

Delight! Sergey, cool!

Please test the functionality yourself (so that everything is pressed and working, including the search), after that we will start testing ourselves.

In three days Sergey spent 8 minutes 51 seconds of my time, but did more than was described in the assignment. He still works with us.

So I hired a programmer with eyes closed, like Themis. I did not know anything about him. Even the city learned only when he sent me bank details for the transfer of the first salary.

Afterword

Analyzing the correspondence of that time, I came across a companion letter:

Sergey is a little confused, too direct. The rest is interesting.

Now it is difficult to understand what he had under the “directness”, but one thing is clear: on the basis of subjective sensations, the best programmer would drop out first. But this is exactly the way most companies hire! Most not to say everything except some. I hope you are with us.