Thu 14 Dec 2006
An Open Letter to Job Board Advertisers
Posted by Jonathan under culture, headware, software[41] Comments
“I’m continually surprised that more companies aren’t willing to consider telecommuters, especially on the job board. My feeling is that you can’t trust the person you’re hiring to get the job done without being under your thumb, you’re probably not hiring the right person.†-From the Signal vs. Noise archives
Fact: I’m expecting my second child at the end of the month. My wife is happy at her job and our family is nearby.
Fact: Less than five people in Columbia, SC have ever heard the term Ruby on Rails. (OK, that’s not necessarily a fact, but it sure seems like one.)
Fact: There’s an amazing series of tubes that can connect me in realtime with pretty much anyone on the planet, anytime. Shoot, I even got me a cell phone and a Starbucks just around the corner.
Conclusion: A guy like me, with ten years’ experience building web applications for startups, on just about every platform that’s ever been buzzworthy, should be able to find someone to pay me to work remotely.
Wrong.
I’ve responded to ten or fifteen posts on the 37 Signals Job Board. The typical reply to my resume goes something like this:
“The resume looks great. Can we do a phone interview?”
“Hmm, 803, what area code is that?”
“So are you looking to relocate to (metro area X), or just anywhere?”
“You aren’t able to relocate? Well, thanks for your time.”
Rails is the best platform I’ve ever built a web application on. It’s the only one that I look forward to using. Before I spent quality time with it, I was ready to give up software development for good. I don’t want to use .NET or Visual Basic again, and I couldn’t work half as efficiently if I did. (Imagine seeing a job posting that read “Designer wanted. Must be proficient with MS Paint.”) Unfortunately, those are the only local job openings.
Relocation isn’t an option for me right now. A year from now, that may change, but that’s hardly the point.
37 Signals is a group of fairly smart and influential guys, half of whom are scattered around the globe. It’s their job board you’re advertising on. If telecommuting works for them, give me one good reason why it won’t work for your company.
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Here, Here! I couldn’t agree more! I’m having the exact same luck with the 37Signals and RubyNow boards. I’m in Ohio, not exactly a Rails hub and getting someone to just video conference with me is a chore… yet they all mention the MacBook Pros they’re using…
I don’t know what difference it makes if you can get ahold of someone at the times you expect to and they can get the job done better than a local candidate, why does it matter that you’re not there in the office everyday? Ah. thanks for letting me vent. Great post!
Hmm, I applied for an XHTML gig on authentic jobs (as in cameronmoll – authentic boredom) and I got the first one I went for. Oh yeah, i’m one continent and 8 hours ahead of them!
The communications bandwidth you get by having a group of people working in the same room is quite a bit higher than you get via videoconferencing, which is again higher than telephone, which is again higher than on-line chat, which is again higher than e-mail. For some situations, such as tightly knit programming teams doing extreme programming (where spontaneous short meetings break out many times per day), that loss of communications bandwith translates directly into a loss of productivity.
For example, just a few moments ago I overheard a couple of guys just down the table talking about a particular issue they’d encountered, which I’d already seen and solved. I told them about this, they quickly tweaked up my solution to work for their case as well, and went on with life. That would never have happened if I were sitting home alone with a chat window open.
I’m not saying all jobs are like this, or even that all programming teams are like this, but there are situations where having everyone physically together is a lot more productive.
As the owner of the at least one of those quotes (and probably the impetus for this post), I’ll go ahead and provide some of our reasoning:
1) There are other candidates that are just as good, if not better, that are either local or willing to relocate.
Never underestimate the value of face time.
2) I won’t hire anybody that I’ve never met. Flying somebody in for an interview is expensive and annoying to arrange. Somebody would have to be really damn good to warrant it, and while your resume is good, it isn’t “damn good.”
3) While I, personally, don’t mind a telecommuter, other people in the company do. Since this position was to develop our ERP system, you really need to talk to the accounting, quality and manufacturing people face-to-face. That’s their shortcoming, nothing else.
4) All of our servers are in-house, and we don’t have any sys admins. Part of this position is helping to manage those servers (particularly when I’m out of town), which occasionally requires physical intervention. Someone who only telecommutes would not be able to fulfill this, so they are instantly less attractive.
5) There isn’t an effective web-based alternative to the white board.
6) I hate talking on the phone.
7) We’re a startup, and we’re forming this team from scratch- this position is the first non-me person in the team. Maybe if it were person #4 or 5, it would be viable.
I recently relocated away from my work, moving some 400 miles away from the office. Although this is certainly not the same thing as being newly employed off-site. And I’m not working for a start-up. I have found there are some benefits of not working on-site with the rest of the team:
I get more real work done. I agree the face-to-face meetings are very important but there is a fairly big grey area between productive mind sharing and the usual office quarrel. I get none of this but timewise I think I gain working time by not participating in any of those.
I have to think more about how my co-workers will experience the work I do since I won’t be in the office to explain it for them, this means that my code, my test cases, anything will have to be much better (not more) documented and clear. This does take more time but I’m still gaining time because of #1.
Responsibilities become much more well-defined when someone is working off-site. Probably because of #1
One problem I can see (which may be more applicable to larger organisations) is that networking with co-workers become more important if you don’t meet everyday. For me this is a minor problem as I worked on-site for many years before moving (and it is an multinational company so actually most people are in other locations anyway).
Being a web professional, I tend to wonder about the same issue along exactly the same lines as the author. Yet Mr. Peterson’s comment makes it clear once again: resumes should be sent out relentlessly. Maybe, just maybe, one of them will lead to the Dream Job. (Oh, I am expecting my second child by the end of the month, too.)
keep the search going, man!
i know how you feel and have been there before.
it takes a while but some companies are becoming a lot more cool about stuff like this.
[...] Imagine seeing a job posting that read “Designer wanted. Must be proficient with MS Paint.†[...]
I’m convinced there are really good reasons against telecommuting in a lot of situations, it’s just that they’re rarely the reasons (and situations) why it’s refused.
This can go to ridiculous lengths: I had a customer once who refused to let me work from my home in the same city (< 10km distance(!)) even though they had spotty internet conn for a month after a move and my duties involved caring for a production system on another continent.
At home, I had more quiet, a better equipped office and most important reliable inet conn.
They obviously didn’t trust me to get work done in a quieter and all-around better office away from their control, yet they trusted me with all their data (as in, root).
I left them to go back to school, and couldn’t be happier. I think that in the end companies like that are dysfunctional and you don’t want to work there anyway. OTOH, I know that’s easier to say for a young single than for a father of two (congrats!).
“I hate talking on the phone”
That kinda shows the personality of someone who does not accept this kind of employee.
I work at home, with no disadvantage whatsoever:
- I do not take the daily traffic jams;
- I do not waste 2 hours of my day moving from one place to another;
- I do not need to follow this irrational dress code of working places;
- I have a window, a comfortable chair on my working place;
- I have the liberty to work at my own time and pace;
- I do what I am supposed to do.
And considering that my paycheck is 1/100 of the project cost to the client, I think only a close-fisted person would assume “flying somebody in for an interview” expensive. And the same logic can be applied to the others “benefits”.
Erik, thanks for responding. It’s not you, it’s everyone. You guys just happened to be the straw.
I think the typical point-by-point comment debate is nitpicky and a waste of time, so I’ll just mention a couple of things:
I agree that, all other things being equal, local beats remote. I have no problem with that. Some jobs (management or HR for example) would be next to impossible to do from a distance.
I wouldn’t presume to say I’m the best candidate you’ll ever get your hands on, but I pretty much nailed your requirements — at least enough to merit some “I wonder if this could work out” conversation. If you were considering telecommuters, then at least I’m relatively nearby. Columbia to Atlanta is well within driving distance. No plane tickets necessary. Like I mentioned before, we had an Atlanta contractor at a previous job — in fact, he contributed a good chunk of architecture — and things ran smoothly.
What bothers me is mostly this: if a job board advertiser isn’t considering remote applicants, they should make that clear in the ad. Some of the posts say “work here or anywhere”, but very few of them say “must be local”.
Fair point if that’s true.
That’s bullshit. Why won’t you hire someone you’ve never met? And how expensive and annoying to arrange is flying someone out to interview in comparison with them uprooting their entire life just because you “don’t like talking on the phone”? Also, don’t trash folks’ CVs in public when they are making a broad statement about the state of the job market.
What do paralinguistics offer you in that situation? I don’t know the specifics of the job but I regularly spec out applications with programmers over iChat AV, and then iron out details over email. Not being able to gesticulate quite as wildly as possible doesn’t stop us from working effectively.
This is the second good point you make.
Perhaps not, but I’ve never used a whiteboard, and I hardly think this is grounds not to hire someone to telecommute :p “We would hire you, but, um, there’s no good whiteboard app out there”. BTW, Writeboard is pretty pretty pretty good.
Just rofl.
Third and final good point. 3/8 ain’t bad.
Never underestimate the power of bullshit rhetoric.
just drop the word “Ruby” and this article is right on.
i.e. it applies to most IT jobs
“Nitpicky and a waste of time” but since someone else wants to do it…
Sorry
Re: Spike
2– “Expensive” doesn’t refer to airfare and hotels. It is man hours, and the cost of my distraction and the HR manager’s distraction that relates to setting it all up and executing it. I’m an insanely busy person, and with clinical trials starting next week, every hour of time now is worth significantly more than normal. Therefore, I’m pretty averse to things that suck up time. Also, I didn’t trash his resume at all- I said it was good. How is that “trashing”?
6 &
I really do hate talking on the phone. I have mild asperger’s and I rely quite heavily on visual cues when talking to a person. As a result, I also gesture quite a bit. Quite simply, face-to-face communication is significantly higher bandwidth, especially for me.
Re: Jonathan- You’re assuming the opposite. We’d already considered the telecommuter option and denied it for most of the reasons already listed. If we were open to telecommuters we would have said “Atlanta or anywhere” on the listing. I think that sending the resume anyways is actually a little bit rude.
By Joel Spolsky, on September 07, 2006
And that’s the gremlin. There’s an expectation gap here.
I’m a pretty good representative of the typical 37 Signals job board reader. I expect companies who advertise there to be fairly simpatico with their business philosophies. I expect ads that don’t accept telecommuters to be the exception, not the rule. So if I don’t see “must be local”, I don’t assume it.
I emailed the post text to 37 Signals, with the suggestion that they add a “remote ok” flag to the posts to eliminate confusion and time wastage on both ends.
Erik,
Um, why then would you be spending time posting blog comments?
It takes me all of 10 minutes to call my travel company and schedule a flight. Maybe another 5 minutes to setup a meeting. This is hardly something that sap’s one energy.
Posting on a blog is leisure time. Dealing with a travel agent and scheduling meetings is not.
I think one poster summed it up – “For some situations, such as tightly knit programming teams doing extreme programming (where spontaneous short meetings break out many times per day), that loss of communications bandwith translates directly into a loss of productivity.”
For some people, ‘meetings spontaneously breaking out’ is akin to hearing the sound of their own imminent, violent death – the idea of being a ‘herd animal’ is unthinkable.
The question is really, are you a dependent, interdependant or independant person?
Figure that out and then find a suitable organization.
Hmm, Erik — this is the first “non-[you]” position you’re hiring for, but you talk about both your time and your “HR Manager’s” time being taken up arranging trips. This doesn’t add up…
That’s a pretty interesting post. I know where you’re coming from. I grew up in SC, halfway between Myrtle Beach and Charleston. I wanted to work in IT and the opportunity down there is very limited so I moved to DC. Now I do work remotely from Fort Wayne (as a ColdFusion developer). Fort Wayne is about twice the size of Columbia. When I moved around here last year, only 2 others have even heard of Rails (they were hardcore Python programmers), since then, there is at least four of us working on personal projects with Rails.
From what I have experienced it is pretty hard to find RoR developers who are local to most major metropolitan areas. Wouldn’t having someone re-locating to your city create some of the same problems about talking on the phone, flying them out etc.?
It seems to me the micro-management types are the ones who are afraid to hire remote workers. It is probably scary realizing the closest thing to a shoulder to look over is someone’s webcam.
For the ones who believe remote workers will not be as productive. There is this program that records code commits, and even who the person is that is committing. It even lets you browse around and see who is doing what whenever you want. It is amazing this “technology” and “computer” stuff we have now that lets you work remotely.
I have been to sooooo many unproductive pissing matches(meetings) that were nothing more than a waste of my short time on earth. If you have a good talented team, it doesn’t matter where they work, they will produce great things. Get over it!
I’ve worked remotely 60% of my 10 year programming career. In my opinion, although you can work just fine remotely, there isn’t any comparison to working in a good development environment in the same room with the other developers on your team. The ability to jump up on the whiteboard and describe a design you are thinking of in 30 seconds is hard to reproduce in software over the internet.
As a developer, especially one in the USA, I would think about that fact that if someone can get by just fine with a developer two states away, they can get by just fine with a developer in India or Romania at 1/10th the cost.
There are many advantages to working in person, and it adds a lot of value to me as a developer; value that a lot of companies are willing to pay for.
[...] I love working for myself. I also love working from home. I hope that never changes. A commenter on Stark Raving Calm put it better than I could: [...]
[...] stark raving calm » An Open Letter to Job Board Advertisers [...]
Let’s see a Ruby on Rails weblog. I can’t think of one person in Columbia SC with a Ruby on Rails blog. Radiant is making headway. and Mephisto is a fully funtioning blogging engine.
So ditch wordpress and start spreading the Ruby on Rails message.
I personally know more than 5 people in Columbia SC who have heard of Ruby on Rails.
blog.ccxp.org is running on typo. It’s pretty niche but there you have it.
footnote:
As of the 1st of Feb. GMK and Associates on Main St. Columbia SC will have a Ruby on Rails Website. I am in the process of testing now. Unfortunately it also includes mad amounts of Flash content(that comes from not working solo). Also, I am in the process of negotiating another contract for a local company to provide them with a Ruby on Rails web application. So, hang in there, work as a Ruby programmer is becoming more prevelant, even in Columbia.
sorry to post so much, but will you delete this comment and the previous one? I’ve been outvoted in favor of bloated html and javascript after putting my heart and soul into this application.
Lack of understanding and fear of new applications has hinderd my progress. So, maybe Columbia isn’t the place to be for a Ruby programmer, but I love it here anyway.
If you can’t find someone local who’ll pay you to build one, either build something yourself or work for someone from out of town. I’m now doing some contracting for an outfit in Chicago, where they know a thing or two about Rails.
Well, Columbia is moving up in the world of Ruby on Rails. I have released a beta version of a real estate search in the columbia area written entirely in Ruby on Rails. The Leo Windham Agency is offering an online search of residential real estate listings in the Columbia South Carolina area. It may be several more weeks before the application is complete, but is now fully functional. This application also offers agents the ability to log in and create their own profile pages with their listings displayed. Also the application provides syndication for agents to google housing via an XML feed.
I am about 300 hours into it so far and expect to put another 300 into it before it is all said and done. This is a one man operation. Please have a look and provide me with some feedback and suggestions on how it can be improved. I would love to hear more about your position with the company in Chicago. It is good to see web developers in Columbia South Carolina on the cutting edge. You can visit the real estate search at mls.leowindham.com or go to the main site and listen to some great music as well. Free podcasts and live streaming beach, boogie and blues music. LeoWindham.com. I do apologize if this seems like a shameless advertisement, but as a columbia native I wanted to reach out and share my work with another Columbia resident who enjoys Ruby on Rails Development. Thanks
and as far as a Ruby on Rails blog, I have one here..
command line junkie weblog
Haven’t had the time to do much with it yet, but will be updating as soon as I am done with this project..
The quality of management is strained. With centralized larger companies, finding a job in your area becomes even more challenging. The problem with the entire employee/job search process are the participants. (This may be one case where the government could ensure more fairness, etc.) There is networking (codeword for “Do you know someone I know?” – a perpetuation of racism, sexism, xenophobia, etc.), there is “local candidates” (I will not pay to interview a distant candidate, cheap company, etc.), and there is “Do you know this module of this software?” – since I have no clue what it is and have no ability or patience to teach you anything. A sad commentary on 9/11.
Check the 37signals blog now…
Do you mean their job opening? Very cool, but I’m currently working for another Chicago-based Rails shop and quite happy. I’ll have to talk to the boss about those 4-day work weeks though.
I was actually talking about this:
http://jobs.37signals.com/jobs/2403
and we do have 4 day work weeks among other things
I too am a Ruby/Rails developer in Columbia. The job scene here in this field is abyssmal.
[...] So, what I’m saying is that in the modern times of Internet and fast telecommunication channels we could improve our productivity and quality of life by leaving our offices. People could work from anywhere they would like: their homes, libraries, coffee shops or even summer cottages – actually they could be living anywhere around the globe! This idea is not new, but I think now could be the time to start putting it to practice. [...]
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