Re:The subtleties in outsourcing using RentACoder
by lsc on Monday March 15, 2010 @05:51AM
(#1192573)
In an efficient, transparent labour market where a person's productivity was obvious to buyers, I would expect you would be right.
Personally, I believe the market is so opaque; the water so turbid that the cost of living difference is almost noise compared to the value I can get by finding good people who other companies don't notice.
I think the thing is that nearly everyone trains to send false signals in this market. It's extremely difficult to measure a persons ability at an interview. (hell, it's no cakewalk to measure a persons ability at all, but I have a hard time imagining a worse way to evaluate non-sales candidates than an interview.)
I'm spending a lot more effort finding the person than most companies do, and that's a lot easier for me to do in America. Almost everyone I've hired that worked out well was a friend or a friend of a friend. I've tried many foreigners; the only one that was really good was someone who I knew personally (she worked with me in the US at my dayjob, then worked for me remotely after she went back home.)
I don't think this is due to a dearth of good people overseas; I believe this is just because the hard part is figuring out who is good and who is not, and really without working with someone for a while, that's an extremely difficult thing to do.
Personally, I believe the market is so opaque; the water so turbid that the cost of living difference is almost noise compared to the value I can get by finding good people who other companies don't notice.
I think the thing is that nearly everyone trains to send false signals in this market. It's extremely difficult to measure a persons ability at an interview. (hell, it's no cakewalk to measure a persons ability at all, but I have a hard time imagining a worse way to evaluate non-sales candidates than an interview.)
I'm spending a lot more effort finding the person than most companies do, and that's a lot easier for me to do in America. Almost everyone I've hired that worked out well was a friend or a friend of a friend. I've tried many foreigners; the only one that was really good was someone who I knew personally (she worked with me in the US at my dayjob, then worked for me remotely after she went back home.)
I don't think this is due to a dearth of good people overseas; I believe this is just because the hard part is figuring out who is good and who is not, and really without working with someone for a while, that's an extremely difficult thing to do.