[BNM] Freelance Web and Flash Programmers Needed

[Tristan Roddis]

Coming slightly late to the party, could I just say:

1) This application form has historically been used for both permanent and freelance recruitment - hence all the questions about sick days, criminal record etc. I agree that this is overkill for freelancers and have suggested that we have two separate forms from now on.

2) Don't get too hung up on the skills matrix. As Mat mentioned, this is really only used a rough preliminary guide, and we will always read it in conjunction with your CV, sample sites, and any other supporting information you feel like supplying. For promising candidates, we will always follow this up with at least a telephone chat, and ideally a face-to-face meeting when a suitable job becomes available.

3) Some observations about the skills rating: a) we find it mainly useful for some of the more obscure technologies we use ("OMG, we have a WebObjects project - is there *anyone* who knows it?") b) I'd agree with Paul's observation that people rate themselves differently, and I've found that it often tends to be juniors that rate themselves highly, whereas more experienced people are more humble. Go figure. c) As a follow-on to this, comparing these self-assesments with sample sites/CVs makes judgement a lot easier: if someone rated themselves as expert in Javascript, but the only eveidence is a bit of form validation, then we are likely to be a lot more skeptical of e.g. their self-professed excellence in XSLT/PHP/whathaveyou.

-T.

On Mon, Mar 03, 2008 at 12:23:04PM +0100, Hendrik Mans wrote:
> On 1 Mar 2008, at 20:01, Paul Silver wrote:
> 
> > To be fair, if you look at what they do, e.g.
> > http://www.cogapp.com/home/web-development.html , the list of  
> > technology
> > on the form is almost exactly the same as what they've done for  
> > clients.
> > I imagine they're not asking for Ruby, just like they're not asking  
> > for
> > ColdFusion, because it's not something they really deal with.
> 
> 
> Sorry for the late reply -- was travelling.
> 
> I agree with what you're saying. However, what bothered me about the  
> form wasn't the mere absence of Ruby et al (or the sick days etc.  
> questions), but how -- in my eyes -- it simply doesn't *work* as a  
> "guide for the first stage" (quoting Mat).
> 
> The biggest offender IMO is how "zero skill" equals to "never heard of  
> it", which of course makes you select the next better option for all  
> the stuff you have heard of, but never worked with. Of course I've  
> heard of ActionScript 2 (and 3! :b). On any other form I'd rate myself  
> as "no skill whatsoever". Add to that how a skills roster like that is  
> easily diluted by different people simply applying different standards  
> (what has been discussed here previously).
> 
> Of course it's incredibly hard (or even impossible) to translate a  
> person's skills into a numerical system, and I've seen far, far worse  
> attempts than Cogapp's form (for example, a company once wanted to  
> know why I thought my HTML skills were a "9" and not an "8" -- srsly!)
> 
> The sick days, unspent convictions etc. stuff remains, of course,  
> quite ludicrous.
> 
> Hendrik
> 
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-- 
tristan at roddis.org                              http://www.roddis.org
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