by Anne Balke
| Sep 26, 2012
If you are a “techie” yourself, you know all the best places to find other people with technical talent to help you with your projects. But if you’re like most people, the language of the “Web Development and Software World” probably sounds like nonsense to you.
When it comes to writing a classified ad, you may not know whether you need a programmer or a web designer; an IT manager or a network engineer; a software security application or an actual network team – or what each of these people do! Do you need someone who knows PHP, Java, Perl, ASP, CGI or mySQL? Should you go with Ruby or Python?
You simply have a vision and you want someone who can make it happen. But where is the best place to hire technical talent to get the job done?
You may know about job posting sites such as Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com and Indeed.com. But when it comes to hiring technical talent, especially if the project can be handled virtually, these sites are not always the best place to look.
Another problem is that resumes for this type of work don’t always provide an accurate picture of a person’s abilities and how well they know what they say they know.
According to recent articles in Forbes and the Washington post, there is hope on the horizon in the form of a new company called Remarkable Hire (www.remarkablehire.com), scheduled to launch hopefully by the end of 2012.
“Remarkable Hire is essentially a search engine for finding people who actually passionately discuss and gather around technology and design online. The tool crawls sites where such collaboration happens and pulls in search results for each relevant person. Such sites include the likes of GitHub, Hacker News, Stack Overflow, Quora, and Twitter. Remarkable Hire even pulls in niche sites…”
If Remarkable Hire does all it promises to do, it should streamline the hiring process, but until then, here some resources to help find the technical talent you need:
Local “Techie” Hangouts
Meetup Groups
MeetUp Groups are a great place to start – especially if you are having trouble putting into words what you need. Search for meetups targeted to technical people or related to your specific industry. Even if you don’t find the exact person you need, you may find someone who can point you in the right direction.
Universities
Don’t overlook the local college or university campuses for technical talent. Depending upon the scope of your project, you may find someone willing to work at below industry standard rates to help build a portfolio. Call the computer or technology department and ask for recommendations. Ask about local “geek” hangouts, such as coffee shops, too!
BarCamps
BarCamp is an network of user-generated “unconferences” primarily focused around technology and the Web. They are open, workshop-events and are a great place to learn, network and find technical talent in your area. Do a search for “bar camp your state” or “bar camp your town” and see what comes up.
Visit the Online Tech Hangouts
CodeEval (www.codeeval.com)
“CodeEval is a platform used by developers to showcase their skills. Developers can participate in app building competitions and win cash/prizes.” As a potential employer, you submit a “challenge,” with specs related to your project of course, and then you get to evaluate the submissions. This gives you a chance to view live examples of a developer’s work.
GitHub (www.github.com)
GitHub is a web-based hosting service for software development projects that use the Git revision control system. As an employer, you have the ability to view actual projects and codes that have been posted as OpenSource by programmers and developers. Of course, if you don’t have an understanding of code, this may not be the best place for you to start.
Yahoo and Google Groups
Search for groups about topics that involve the skills that you need or your type of project. Look for the people who provide legitimate and valuable comments and answers. Reach out to them. If they can’t help, they may know someone, who knows someone…
Technical Blogs and Journals
If your project is not urgent, take the time to check out some of the technical blogs. Read the comments and subscribe so that you can ask questions of the “experts.” If you have a candidate in mind, ask if they have a blog – or ask what blogs and journals they read.
Facebook, Twitter and Google+
Have a candidate? Ask for their social media sites and you may get some valuable insight on their experience, professionalism and personality.
Online Technical Recruiting Sites
Dice (www.dice.com & https://resources.dice.com)
“Dice is the leading career site for technology and engineering professionals. With a 21-year track record of meeting the ever-changing needs of technology professionals, companies and recruiters, our specialty focus and exposure to highly skilled professional communities enable employers to reach hard-to-find, experienced and qualified technology and engineering candidates.
StartUpHire (www.StartUpHire.com)
“StartUpHire makes it easy to reach that target audience of passive and active professionals with startup experience. Posting jobs is restricted to startup companies as the site attracts a community which is passionate about these careers. Job postings reach a broad network of affiliated sites, and employers can easily add a website careers section using the StartUpHire widget.”
Tech Hire (www.tech-hire.com)
Tech Hire Consulting is a Software Services company committed to provide workforce and consulting Services to customers across industries.
General Freelance Recruiting Sites
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