Finding developer projects and other work in this economy

[zridling]

Looking to post a few helpful resources for those looking to work on individual dev projects/temp work for companies. Here's what I've found.

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[superboyac]

Very interesting.  Thanks Z.

[mouser]

And please check out my post about the idea of adding a jobs board/group to dc forum:
http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=17681.0

My idea was that rather than reinvent the wheel -- let's see if we can find one of these existing job sites, but one that will let me or other programming school mod on dc be able to "manage" a listing of people on the other job site, and make extra comments, and prevent non-dc people from associating themselves with the group, and an api for being able to list everyone in the group on a dc page.

[kartal]

I would not suggest guru.com to the people who are looking for work. You would be severly underbid by others and the person who is putting the contract.

[zridling]

I would not suggest guru.com to the people who are looking for work. You would be severly underbid by others and the person who is putting the contract.

Good point, kartal. I wondered about that. But then you just wouldn't take the job if it was not worth the time, right?

[app103]

Authentic Jobs posts available jobs, mostly for developers & web designers. Subscribe to the feed or follow them on twitter to get the new listings as soon as they are posted.

There are listings for both onsite and at home jobs, as well as both regular employment and freelance. Most of the onsite jobs are in the US, but occasionally I do see some for other countries, or ones where the job allows you to work from home and it doesn't matter where you call home.

[kartal]

I do not think it is just time-price issue. I cannot live on the money that I might earn from that web site. First of all most of those projects will require some real time work without real pay. You might die of hunger and fatigue at the end of first year working with those clients from guru.com while you are trying to cover your monhtly needs.

Guru.com or similar places might be fun for those who are starting and have nothing to loose but if you are an establishes professional, none of those places would work for you. You generally get the short end of the stick.


Also as far as I remember there was some fee for every 3 months(75$) or annual for every category.

I would not suggest guru.com to the people who are looking for work. You would be severly underbid by others and the person who is putting the contract.

Good point, kartal. I wondered about that. But then you just wouldn't take the job if it was not worth the time, right?

[kartal]

Also just keep in mind that most of those people who are posting at those sites are looking for cheap labor. So keep the money to yourself and look for other means to find job unless you live in India or China etc. In that case  the prices and the opportunities might sound fair and exciting.

[zridling]

Thanks kartal, I appreciate it. Fees like that truly suck.

[40hz]

I have several friends and business associates who use and are very happy with a website called LinkedIn.

It's not so much a job site per sce, but rather a way of maintaining and developing a trusted contact list in your area of expertise and experience. More geared towards career-types and people looking for business opportunities, but it doesn't hurt to "know people" so it might be worth exploring.

A few years back, I got an invitation from one of my clients who had recently 'left' his IT position at one of the big mutual funds. I did join, but I haven't really used it all that much. I'll occasionally log on to see what's up or ask a question, but beyond that I'm a semi-lurker at best.

There's been a lot of press about it. And it's even got an entry in Wikipedia so I won't try to recap all the specifics here. Visit their website ( www.linkedin.com) to have a look. Google will give you a few hundred million hits if you want to investigate further.

If you're 'corporate career' oriented (I'm not) it could be a nice resource to have in your Favorites list.

So...anybody out there actively using LinkedIn?

[wraith808]

I'm on linked in and have a profile, but it hasn't really generated any job leads.

[kartal]

Well the reason you will probably never get one from those kind of sites is that everyone there is trying to promote themselves. Same for myspace or facebook. I never use any of them because they are waste of time, unless you have joined them in the beginning. Then probably there were some opportunities.

Those sites are all sellers market , no buyers there.

I'm on linked in and have a profile, but it hasn't really generated any job leads.

[wraith808]

I think it could be used to generate leads, but in general, I just go with headhunters.  I'm trying to build up my hosting presence, so from that perspective if there are small business owners, it could help.  But I've really not followed up and relied on word of mouth for clients.  So I don't think it's a function of the site, but more that I haven't used to resources for networking as it could be.

[40hz]

Those sites are all sellers market , no buyers there.

Not quite true for LinkedIn.

It's more of a buddy system - although some have called it another manifestation of the "Old Boy" network.

Obviously, successful and highly credentialed individuals will initially fare better at a place like LinkedIn than the average lumpen-worker. Success attracts success as the saying goes. But you can build a reputation and contacts even if you're not one of the 'shooting stars.' It will just take longer and require a bit more tact.

You need to approach LinkedIn more like you would a social network rather than a job/opportunity site. It's all about professional relationships. Unfortunately, generating 'relationships' has always been more time-consuming than just gathering 'leads.' But it's vastly more beneficial in the long run.

I only 'went in cold' for the first job I had after graduating college. Every other position I ever held after that was brought to my attention by somebody I knew. As I got to know more people, and they me, the money and opportunities that came my way got progressively better. So much so that I was eventually able to launch my own business with the financial resources and contacts I had accumulated over the years as a salaryman.

I'm not endorsing the "Ya gotta know people, Kid!" school of success. But I'm also enough of a realist to realize that most people prefer to work with people they know - or their friends know - rather than a complete stranger.

[40hz]

But I've really not followed up and relied on word of mouth for clients.

I'd be dead without 'word of mouth' clients. My company gets all its customers that way.

We only advertised once when we were just starting out. The only thing that ad generated was an avalanche of calls from job-seekers or people that wanted to sell us something. I've heard the same story from several people we work with who also own their own businesses.

[wraith808]

A co-worker of mine just had an enlightening talk with a recruiter.  She said that because of the deluge of interest in positions, most hiring today is being done through networking and internally rather than on job sites.  She also stated that Linked In was your best friend- get in touch with people whom you worked with in the past as they could be a critical key in securing a position that was not posted in any other way.

I'm praying that my contract gets renewed at the end of June, but I've not stopped looking in other places, so this piece of advice was like gold.