Hello List, I''m sure I''m not the only one who have seen a steady surge in getting requests for Rails related work. So I few nights ago I had a swift whim and registered railswork.com and started building a pretty simple site for rails-related jobpostings and finding freelancers/consultants. But one of the advantages with Rails being that you can build things faster than you can think them over, I''m starting to think whether this is really such a good idea, what does the rest of the community think of it? Specificly my concerns are that potential employers won''t find it or add jobpostings there. Most of the people who have approached me with potential projects seems to have found me from "all sorts of places". Would having a listing of available consultants/freelancers be a good idea? I could easily see this "section" being crowded compared to the "companies looking for devs" section, which may be a good or bad thing. As you can tell I haven''t really thought this through too well and I''m by no means a "recruiter", but I think it could potentially be a nice thing to have for Rails developers and people looking to use Rails in their projects. The last thing I want to turn it into is a site like scriptlance.com and the like, where the project seems to go to the lowest bidder, essentially I''d just want it to be "the middleman" between a company/person looking to use Rails and the developers. What''s everyones take on things like this? johan -- http://johansorensen.com http://theexciter.com
On 14.6.2005, at 13:11, Johan Sörensen wrote:> > As you can tell I haven''t really thought this through too well and I''m > by no means a "recruiter", but I think it could potentially be a nice > thing to have for Rails developers and people looking to use Rails in > their projects. > The last thing I want to turn it into is a site like scriptlance.com > and the like, where the project seems to go to the lowest bidder, > essentially I''d just want it to be "the middleman" between a > company/person looking to use Rails and the developers. > > What''s everyones take on things like this?Johan, That''s an interesting and very welcome idea. I also agree that making it an auction site (see this entry by Philip Greenspun [1]) is not that great idea. However, connecting prospective clients and developers is essential for an open source community. Rails website already does this to some extent so you should think about what is the primary thing your site brings onto table besides that. Who knows, maybe just having a dedicated job site for Rails gives people contemplating switching to Rails a signal that it is to be taken seriously. //jarkko [1] http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2005/06/13#a8768> > johan > > -- > http://johansorensen.com > http://theexciter.com > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails >-- Jarkko Laine http://jlaine.net http://odesign.fi _______________________________________________ Rails mailing list Rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
I agree that this is a good idea and would encourage you to continue with it. Also I agree that auctions aren''t really the best way to go either. Pelle On 6/14/05, Jarkko Laine <jarkko-k1O+Gnc6WpmsTnJN9+BGXg@public.gmane.org> wrote:> On 14.6.2005, at 13:11, Johan Sörensen wrote: > > > > As you can tell I haven''t really thought this through too well and I''m > > by no means a "recruiter", but I think it could potentially be a nice > > thing to have for Rails developers and people looking to use Rails in > > their projects. > > The last thing I want to turn it into is a site like scriptlance.com > > and the like, where the project seems to go to the lowest bidder, > > essentially I''d just want it to be "the middleman" between a > > company/person looking to use Rails and the developers. > > > > What''s everyones take on things like this? > > Johan, > > That''s an interesting and very welcome idea. I also agree that making > it an auction site (see this entry by Philip Greenspun [1]) is not that > great idea. > > However, connecting prospective clients and developers is essential for > an open source community. Rails website already does this to some > extent so you should think about what is the primary thing your site > brings onto table besides that. Who knows, maybe just having a > dedicated job site for Rails gives people contemplating switching to > Rails a signal that it is to be taken seriously. > > //jarkko > > [1] http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2005/06/13#a8768 > > > > > > johan > > > > -- > > http://johansorensen.com > > http://theexciter.com > > _______________________________________________ > > Rails mailing list > > Rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org > > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails > > > -- > Jarkko Laine > http://jlaine.net > http://odesign.fi > > > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails > > > >-- https://stakeitout.com + Stake out your own micro ventures http://neubia.com + Geek blog http://stakeventures.com + Bootstrapping blog http://SoapBX.com + Get on the box and shout
What would this site provide that I couldn''t get from somewhere else?
What would it provide a recruiter that they couldn''t already get from
HotJobs, Dice, CareerBuilder or Monster?
You''re not going to get the breadth of other job sites, so you might
as well have depth that they can''t match. If I were to build such a
site there are a few things I would want to include:
1. Every site like this needs some form of search engine. I would
build something that would allow the programmer/designer to associate
tags with their resume. For example, you might select "CMS",
"AJAX"
and "Security", but not worry about specific products. This will help
take care of the buzzword matching.
2. Make it easy for a recruiter to view projects this person has been
involved in, this might be mailing list postings, RubyForge or
participation in other ways.
3a. Have a way for community feedback, both on the recruiter and on
the recruited. The community should be able to determine what
recruiters are good and share that information. From my experience
with recruiters the good ones won''t mind this information being out
there, the rest can learn from it.
3b. The community feedback should be searchable as well. I could see
a recruiter searching for a person with specific skills, active in the
community and in good standing with other developers.
4. Obviously some form of alerting to both parties.
5. Get specific with Rails skills; really specific. Make this a site
that is the only logical place to look for individuals working with
Rails. Break apart the functional roles of building a Rails app and
allow those to be searched on.
6. How good are you at designing an interface, if you''re not that good
is there a member of the Rails community that you work really well
with? The recruiter might be looking for a development team; show
them who you have experience working with and can complement your
skills. If you are working as a consultant this would allow the
recruiter to bring in a team that has experience working together (if
that''s what they are looking for).
Are you good at scaling applications? Do you have a specialty
like debugging or performance tuning? How much do you know about
securing an application? There are a lot of different specialties
that a recruiter might not be aware of when looking for someone.
They can already get this information with enough digging; if you make
it easy they will save time and thus money. Which will in turn make
the site more valuable to all parties.
As far as getting people to visit the site; if that is where the
experienced people are and it is easy to research their experience I''m
sure it will get used. Granted the site will have to be promoted.
When I get calls from recruiters I tell them where my most recent
online resume is at. I don''t always know where they got my
information and I want to make sure they have the latest version.
Informing them where to get a copy could also serve as a way to spread
the word about a particular site. "I always keep a current copy of my
resume at railswork.com, would you like me to send a link to ensure
you have the most recent version?"
In short I would build a site that integrates with the other
Rails-related sites, allows programmers/designers/developers to get
granular in describing skills while not requiring recruiters to
understand all the details.
"Your search for xxx returned the following ..., here are additional
matches for people that have experience with similar technology which
did not exactly match your search criteria ..."
"You are viewing the resume of ...
... has worked on the following publicly accessible Rails applications.
... has received the following community feedback.
... has experience working on a team with the following people.
... has the following Rails specialties ...
...anyway, that''s a rough idea of what I would build. I''m
always
available to kick around ideas....I have lots of ideas, just not
enough time to implement them all.
Wayne
On 6/14/05, Johan Sörensen
<johans-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>
wrote:> Hello List,
>
> I''m sure I''m not the only one who have seen a steady
surge in getting
> requests for Rails related work. So I few nights ago I had a swift
> whim and registered railswork.com and started building a pretty simple
> site for rails-related jobpostings and finding
> freelancers/consultants.
>
> But one of the advantages with Rails being that you can build things
> faster than you can think them over, I''m starting to think whether
> this is really such a good idea, what does the rest of the community
> think of it?
>
> Specificly my concerns are that potential employers won''t find it
or
> add jobpostings there. Most of the people who have approached me with
> potential projects seems to have found me from "all sorts of
places".
> Would having a listing of available consultants/freelancers be a good
> idea? I could easily see this "section" being crowded compared to
the
> "companies looking for devs" section, which may be a good or bad
> thing.
>
> As you can tell I haven''t really thought this through too well and
I''m
> by no means a "recruiter", but I think it could potentially be a
nice
> thing to have for Rails developers and people looking to use Rails in
> their projects.
> The last thing I want to turn it into is a site like scriptlance.com
> and the like, where the project seems to go to the lowest bidder,
> essentially I''d just want it to be "the middleman"
between a
> company/person looking to use Rails and the developers.
>
> What''s everyones take on things like this?
>
> johan
>
> --
> http://johansorensen.com
> http://theexciter.com
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>
Wayne and everyone else, Those are all very good suggestions I''ve gotten both here in this thread and off-list and the more I think about it (properly) I think this could be useful, especially if we can get the community to accept it as the place to reference for Rails related work. (as I small sidenote I could also see this being used to produce some decent stats on the amount of people working with it and wanting to work with rails) On 6/14/05, Wayne Pierce <shalofin-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org> wrote:> What would this site provide that I couldn''t get from somewhere else? > What would it provide a recruiter that they couldn''t already get from > HotJobs, Dice, CareerBuilder or Monster? > > You''re not going to get the breadth of other job sites, so you might > as well have depth that they can''t match. If I were to build such a > site there are a few things I would want to include:I think this is probably the most important thing to keep in mind, thanks for reminding me and your suggestions is quite simply wonderful. You''re especially spot on when it comes to the depth, my initial idea was essentially just a searchable listing (which I guess is why I started "having my doubts" and posted here). But if this should be a reasonable alternative to anything else out there it obviously needs to be (very) specific to the Rails community and the specific skills we may possess as individuals, with the best way to find these for any potential recuiters. This is good stuff, keep it coming. It''s making me want to do even more. -johan -- http://johansorensen.com http://theexciter.com