This has been a very interesting thread. I've deliberately kept mention of our startup of the list and only gave it a brief mention at the last Melbourne meetup because I don't want to spam the community, instead we've tried to talk to people one on one at the meetups to let people know what we've been working on.
But from the messages going backwards and forwards in this thread then my post will be somewhat on topic. We're building a freelancing service called "Dragonfly". It's to address some of the issues that came up in this thread: - Lack of transparency from recruiters - The recruiter commission fee - The placement of people by recruiters regardless of skill level. The first and second points are handled in our pricing model. We charge the creative agency / startup / whatever a monthly fee for access to the service. For the freelancer it's free. This means that contact details for freelancers are freely available on the website / weekly email. Secondly, we curate the list by looking at things like Github profiles, previous work, code samples etc. We can help with things like setting your hourly rates etc. Setting hourly rates touches on the second important part of what we built. That is, it's a market place where you compete on skill, not cost. We keep any mention of hourly rates / day rates / project rates etc off the website and between you and the agency which avoids people undercutting each other to try and attract work, which lowers the quality of everyone. We don't have a lot of demand for Ruby/Rails at the moment, it's far more for mobile / front end development / heavy javascript development so the list may not get too much benefit out of it right now, but I'm happy to follow up with any Ruby freelancers and get you onto our books. Likewise any development studios that are looking for freelancers can contact me and I'll arrange for you to get access to the weekly email and website. We're live now but I won't post a link as this has been enough spam. Please contact me via email if you'd like to know more though. Samuel Richardson www.richardson.co.nz | 0405 472 748 On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 2:58 PM, Andrew Stone <[email protected]>wrote: > the 100k quoted was unrelated to your figures ;) >> > > Ok cool, just making sure I wasn't the source. ;) > > <OpinionatedRant> > > For record I have personally seen recruiter margins of 33% ph on contracts > and heard of horror stories of higher. > > My main bugbear is lack of transparency... if you don't know what > something costs then you can't determine its worth very easily or perhaps > at all. > > Of course, this is not like buying a box of oranges! This is a human being > who works with you... after a while you talk and the margin is uncovered > and everyone usually gets pissed off. > > We all want to create better software? recruiter margins won't help... > they can cause unexpected retention problems for starters (usually angst > due to uneven pay rates with those employed directly). > > So I think in most cases the value proposition for recruiters is pretty > weak... very weak if you have a strong network. > > I think Ben made a lot of valid points about the problems of percentage > based commission. That frog creek article is worth a read... It may explain > some of the strange agent behaviour from the larger agencies, and why some > smaller interdependent higher quality recruiters are able to stand out > (Ash, Steve et al.). > > If you are hiring, why not work out what direct recruitment costs? then > spend the remainder on better tools, R&D, a new coffee machine, decent > chairs... an in house recruitment resource? dev time on open source > projects? developer pay? In office Jacuzzi? Huge inflatable Richard > Stallman? TL;DR. ...probably stating the obvious here... > > Ok maybe not the Jacuzzi. ;) > > Your customers and developers will love you for it. > > </OpinionatedRant> > > Over and out, > Stonie. > > P.S: The best bit: When they know you won't use them they _eventually_ > stop calling. it's bliss. ;D > > > * Andrew Stone *+61 (0)412 488 251 > [email protected] | http://drivenlogic.com.au > * > DrivenLogic Pty Ltd | Pragmatic Software Construction * > GPO Box 2746, Sydney, NSW, 2001, Australia > > > > > On 19 July 2012 13:14, David Goodlad <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 19/07/2012, at 11:53 AM, Andrew Stone wrote: >> >> > Guys, earlier in the thread... the 100K quoted was just an example to >> make the percentage maths easy, not indicative of the market... just a >> tactic to avoid wasting brain cycles. :) >> >> … and later in the thread, unless I severely misunderstood Owen's post, >> the 100k quoted was unrelated to your figures ;) >> >> Dave > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group. 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