Alternative sources of Perl programmers
Rick Deller
rick at eligo.co.uk
Tue May 14 12:04:50 BST 2013
I'm actually giving a talk at the MK PM tech meet Up on Monday , so it interesting hearing people's thoughts
Kindest regards
Rick Deller
Perl Specialist Recruitment Consultant
DL: 0208 944 4187 / Mob: 0772 984 595 / SW: 0208 944 4180 / F: 0208 946 6299
Barry House, 20/22 Worple Road, Wimbledon, London, SW19 4DH
rick at eligo.co.uk| www.eligo.co.uk | https://twitter.com/PerlRick
Proud to be a Sponsor of The Perl QA Hackathon 2013
Proud to be a Sponsor of YAPC::2013
Proud Sponsors of The London Perl Workshop 2012
"Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail"
CLIENT NOTICE - By accepting details of, interviewing or engaging an applicant introduced by us in the position offered or any other position, the client is agreeing to be bound by our standard Terms of Business unless otherwise agreed in writing.
DISCLAIMER NOTICE - The information contained in this e-mail and any attachments is confidential. It is intended only for the named addressee(s) and may not be disclosed to anyone else without the consent of Eligo Recruitment Ltd. If you are not the named addressee you must not use, disclose, distribute, copy, print or rely on the contents of the e-mail and should destroy it immediately.
Eligo Recruitment Ltd has taken every reasonable precaution to ensure that any attachment to this e-mail is free of all known viruses. However, Eligo Recruitment Ltd cannot accept liability for any damage sustained as a result of viruses and would advise that you carry out your own virus scanning.
-----Original Message-----
From: london.pm-bounces at london.pm.org [mailto:london.pm-bounces at london.pm.org] On Behalf Of london.pm-request at london.pm.org
Sent: 14 May 2013 12:00
To: london.pm at london.pm.org
Subject: london.pm Digest, Vol 91, Issue 13
Send london.pm mailing list submissions to
london.pm at london.pm.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
http://london.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/london.pm
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
london.pm-request at london.pm.org
You can reach the person managing the list at
london.pm-owner at london.pm.org
When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of london.pm digest..."
Today's Topics:
1. Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers (James Laver)
2. Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers (Gareth Kirwan)
3. Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers (Lyle)
4. Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers (Richard Foley)
5. Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers (Mark Stringer)
6. Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers (Aaron Trevena)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Tue, 14 May 2013 07:48:43 +0100
From: James Laver <james.laver at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers
To: "London.pm Perl M[ou]ngers" <london.pm at london.pm.org>
Message-ID: <C2889B02-6E90-4DDF-B1DB-3CBA04C27D95 at gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
On 13 May 2013, at 23:27, Kieren Diment <diment at gmail.com> wrote:
> The management challenges for telecommute jobs are different to those for on site. But it does increase the pool of potential candidates a lot. Does anyone have any useful experience about managing mixed on-site/offsite staff?
I managed such a team once. The hard part is time zones, but luckily they all agreed to keep UK time (they were pretty nocturnal anyway).
Pick a lightweight ticketing system (I'm currently a huge trello fan) so everything is visible to everyone. Assign tickets yourself and don't standup, actually have a chat for a few minutes on IM with each team member individually and see if they need some help with things. And make yourself available in case it happens during the day.
Then the usual thing with in office staff goes - different people respond well to different management styles. One worked great if you outlined things and left them to it. Another worked brilliant if you broke things down massively and kept checking up.
Honestly, it's no harder to manage than in-office staff. And I wouldn't hesitate to do it again.
James
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Tue, 14 May 2013 08:08:40 +0100
From: Gareth Kirwan <gbjk at thermeon.com>
Subject: Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers
To: "London.pm Perl M[ou]ngers" <london.pm at london.pm.org>
Message-ID: <5191E2F8.4010602 at thermeon.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
On 13-05-13 10:48 PM, Mark Fowler wrote:
> On Monday, May 13, 2013, Duncan Garland wrote:
>> We're advertising for a Perl programmer again, and once again we are
>> struggling.
> The question I ask anyone who has problems hiring for any IT position
> is "have you considered telecommute?"
We've had a mix of teleworkers and onsite staff, going back over the past decade.
Last year I started to consider the issues of hiring good programmers locally, and concluded that there isn't really a choice.
So we embraced teleworking completely when hiring new programmers recently.
It's made a world of difference.
The CVs from agents trickled in. I would have thought that meant that the perl programmers weren't out there.
But the response to our jobs.perl.org advert was enormous, and very good quality indeed.
I'm still open to anything through agents, because if I find "the right candidate" then I wouldn't care where they came from.
I'd suggest opening yourself up to telecommuting.
Make sure you actually hire for it as a skill, though. Assuming "You're a good dev, you can work from home, surely?" can be disastrous.
Watch for signs of demotivation, and ensure that there's some "telecommuting best practices" available.
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Mon, 13 May 2013 23:18:45 +0100
From: Lyle <webmaster at cosmicperl.com>
Subject: Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers
To: london.pm at london.pm.org
Message-ID: <519166C5.9070502 at cosmicperl.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
On 13/05/2013 22:48, Mark Fowler wrote:
> On Monday, May 13, 2013, Duncan Garland wrote:
>
> We're advertising for a Perl programmer again, and once again we are
>> struggling.
>
> The question I ask anyone who has problems hiring for any IT position
> is "have you considered telecommute?"
Have you considered training graduates? I hear there are a lot of them out of work. I see a lot of Perl jobs wanting and expecting nothing less than very experienced Perl programmers. If there aren't enough companies willing to give fresh programmers the experience, how are they supposed to get there?
If you cut the roots off an apple tree, don't expect to harvest many apples.
Lyle
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Tue, 14 May 2013 09:34:13 +0200
From: Richard Foley <richard.foley at rfi.net>
Subject: Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers
To: "London.pm Perl M[ou]ngers" <london.pm at london.pm.org>
Message-ID: <20130514073413.GG8227 at thpad>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
One thing to bear in mind is that remote-working does NOT suit everybody.
It's not about lounging around watching TV or mowing the lawn. It is about being able to organize your day so ALL your jobs get done, without having the hassle of the commute. On the negative side, some people find having their work at home means they are unable to separate their work/private time, others miss the colleague contact. It's not all roses.
On the plus side, being able to mow the lawn in the time you used to commute is a bonus. Working in a (presumably) comfortable environment is nice. Having more time to be around your kids, if you have a young family, is a plus too. Having a dedicated work room/office space where you can shut the door, if only metaphorically, is almost essential for separating work and play though.
And of course, as Dilbert found out after 4 days of remote-working, if you go to work naked nobody cares ;)
--
Ciao
Richard Foley
http://www.rfi.net/books.html
On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 08:08:40AM +0100, Gareth Kirwan wrote:
>
> On 13-05-13 10:48 PM, Mark Fowler wrote:
> >On Monday, May 13, 2013, Duncan Garland wrote:
> >>We're advertising for a Perl programmer again, and once again we are
> >>struggling.
> >The question I ask anyone who has problems hiring for any IT position
> >is "have you considered telecommute?"
>
> We've had a mix of teleworkers and onsite staff, going back over the
> past decade.
> Last year I started to consider the issues of hiring good programmers
> locally, and concluded that there isn't really a choice.
> So we embraced teleworking completely when hiring new programmers recently.
>
> It's made a world of difference.
> The CVs from agents trickled in. I would have thought that meant that
> the perl programmers weren't out there.
> But the response to our jobs.perl.org advert was enormous, and very
> good quality indeed.
> I'm still open to anything through agents, because if I find "the
> right candidate" then I wouldn't care where they came from.
>
> I'd suggest opening yourself up to telecommuting.
> Make sure you actually hire for it as a skill, though. Assuming
> "You're a good dev, you can work from home, surely?" can be
> disastrous.
> Watch for signs of demotivation, and ensure that there's some
> "telecommuting best practices" available.
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Tue, 14 May 2013 10:18:15 +0100
From: Mark Stringer <mark at repixl.com>
Subject: Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers
To: london.pm at london.pm.org
Message-ID: <51920157.4000003 at repixl.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
We sent out an Intern Wanted posting to heads of careers departments at various colleges and Unis. This was filtered through to the students and we had a number of promising looking applicants contact us. We're a startup, no track record, tiny budget, no benefits and all we had to our credit was wfh and flexitime. We had an intern signed in 4 days, and our pick from a number of decent looking ones.
Sure, we're having to train him up a bit, but overall he's proving beneficial.
With a decent sized budget for a full time employee, I'd have thought it'd be easy to get a high standard of applicant. They may not be experienced in Perl, but some experienced developers are willing to cross-train IME.
Also worth pointing out that now is about the best time to be finding Uni/College leavers... they're all wondering what they're going to be doing come June/July.
As for wfh, I've done it for about 10 years now. One previous employer operated solely on this basis. Staff turnover was minimal. It occasionally didn't work out due to distractions/it not being a suitable environment for some, but by and large, it seems to work IME.
Cheers
Mark
On 05/13/2013 10:22 PM, Duncan Garland wrote:
> Hi,
>
>
>
> We're advertising for a Perl programmer again, and once again we are
> struggling. It's a shame because we've got quite a lot of development
> work in the offing, mostly using Catalyst, DBIx::Class, Moose and the like.
>
>
>
> I spoke to the agent today and asked why so few people are coming forward.
> His view was that there aren't many Perl vacancies about at the
> moment, and even fewer people are interested in them.
>
>
>
> What are other companies doing about this?
>
>
>
> We've got several PHP projects on the go as well. It's easier to get
> local PHP programmers and when we can't, there seems to be a constant
> supply of good Eastern European programmers. Why isn't there the same
> stream of Eastern European Perl programmers?
>
>
>
> A second possibility is to cross-train experienced programmers from
> other languages into Perl. However, Perl has got itself such a
> reputation for being difficult to learn that the CTO winces whenever I suggest the idea.
> How have other companies got on when they've said that they will take
> experience in Python/Django or Ruby/Rails or whatever in lieu of
> experience in Perl/Catalyst? Was anybody interested and did they succeed?
>
>
>
> The third possibility is just to move some of the projects ear-marked
> for Perl into the PHP camp. I don't really believe that they can't be
> done in PHP, but it's a pity because they sit nicely with similar
> successful projects we've done in Perl. (A Catalyst-based system of
> ours won an industry-wide prize for "Best Digital Initiative" a couple
> of months ago.)
>
>
>
> All the best.
>
>
>
> Duncan
>
>
>
>
>
------------------------------
Message: 6
Date: Tue, 14 May 2013 11:29:44 +0100
From: Aaron Trevena <aaron.trevena at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers
To: "London.pm Perl M[ou]ngers" <london.pm at london.pm.org>
Message-ID:
<CAJWQ4V3gziCgQq_4AQBtJ7-YD4ReWJr5s4MrJUtJSMMsxFRWQg at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
On 13 May 2013 22:22, Duncan Garland <duncan.garland at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> We're advertising for a Perl programmer again, and once again we are
> struggling. It's a shame because we've got quite a lot of development
> work in the offing, mostly using Catalyst, DBIx::Class, Moose and the like.
That's a good start but not much to go on...
Where and how are you advertising?
What sort of role is it, and how does the salary (presumably you're advertising a salary range) stack up against the market for your industry/area?
> I spoke to the agent today and asked why so few people are coming forward.
> His view was that there aren't many Perl vacancies about at the
> moment, and even fewer people are interested in them.
The agent is talking bollocks, find another - some actually specialise in Perl so they must be confident that there are both enough candidates and vacancies to make a living from. The number of perl vacancies and developers are both increasing based on all the data available.
> What are other companies doing about this?
Lots of different things, telecommute, offering salaries that match or beat what you'd get with the same experience with Java, offering flexitime and other decent benefit packages that make it worth taking the job and sticking with it.
> We've got several PHP projects on the go as well. It's easier to get
> local PHP programmers and when we can't, there seems to be a constant
> supply of good Eastern European programmers. Why isn't there the same
> stream of Eastern European Perl programmers?
I've never found that a problem myself - both my current and previous employers have recruited developers from eastern europe, they're not
10 a penny, but good developers aren't 10 a penny for any tech in any country.
> A second possibility is to cross-train experienced programmers from
> other languages into Perl. However, Perl has got itself such a
> reputation for being difficult to learn that the CTO winces whenever I suggest the idea.
At headforwards we've cross-trained maybe a quarter of the development team from C++ and other tech, it was very successful, to the point where some have been promoted into very senior roles within 2 years.
That was without formal perl training - of which there is plenty available like Dave Cross' courses and perl academy.
> How have other companies got on when they've said that they will take
> experience in Python/Django or Ruby/Rails or whatever in lieu of
> experience in Perl/Catalyst? Was anybody interested and did they succeed?
That should work fine, the only problem I can forsee is the problem widely seen with python developers with a big chip on their shoulders about perl, they can and should be weeded out at interviews tho.
I don't believe you've linked to the ad yet, I'm guessing you've already advertised on jobs.perl.org, and your local LUG.
Other places you can use social networking to advertise are twitter (I got my current job via a twitter tip), coderwall (which is a really nice way to showcase your company and team), by sending your team to conferences and workshops to talk about your projects (a 5 second "oh, and we're hiring" at the end is usually acceptable, at least from what I've seen).
You can also look at your recruitment process and advertising copy itself - does your ad stand out, does it meet the basic criteria of what a developer needs or wants to know (pay, location, will this company be in business in 18 months or fold, will I learn or work with new things, is there a career path/training/etc, is there a package as a whole including benefits, working hours, holiday, etc that will give me a better quality of life, etc)
Hiring perl developers isn't *that* difficult, we've managed to recruit a large number over the last 2 years - despite our office location in Cornwall (which is also a selling point but to a much smaller pool of people), and despite all roles being on-site.
Cheers,
A
--
Aaron J Trevena, BSc Hons
http://www.aarontrevena.co.uk
LAMP System Integration, Development and Consulting
------------------------------
_______________________________________________
london.pm mailing list
london.pm at london.pm.org
http://london.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/london.pm
End of london.pm Digest, Vol 91, Issue 13
*****************************************
More information about the london.pm
mailing list