thestoic

still are

this sounds like an aquihire. can anyone confirm?

We have seen this situation crop up with employers who refuse to do try outs. these great devs then get picked up by employers who try devs out PS I work for GroupTalent so I am biased

Ideally the time you spend writing code is both compensated and under a Work For Hire of the company trying you out. Your current employer owns the IP of whatever you do during work ours and using their equipment not what you do on your own time.

Hi this is Manny, CEO of GroupTalent. I wanted to add context to the pivot comment. More than a pivot, we expanded our offerings to include try outs and full time opportunities. It turns out that there is demand for all, and someone may do freelancing for a while until they find the right fit. We strive to provide all the options for the entire career life-cycle. We still connect developers with contracts and short term projects - however we see the majority of the demand on both ends for try outs at the moment

Hi - I am the founder of GroupTalent. Mahmoud above has had experience on the hiring side of our platform. I can put you in contact with other devs (with their approval of course) who are doing try-outs and they will relate their experience directly.

Contrary to the other comment, moonlighting is just as easy for someone FT employed to try as someone who is no employed. The FT employed can make 20-30hrs available a week to try out a company on a set amount of work and get a feel for it. The alternative is to go through a set interviews (that if you read the google article, are useless) and then change your job (effectively putting a bullet on your last job) only to find out that you hate your new job and now you are stuck there. Try outs are safer and available for all.

We are using the dating model to the recruiting process. Could not control the title of the article, but thx for pointing that out

some of them do. We have had developers moonlight at other companies while keeping their day job to try out a new company before making a jump. It is less risk indeed

Hi - this is Manny, CEO of GT. If you a try a company and then FT it may be a great outcome for you too. As you may in the long term not be a good fit for that job. Plus in the process of discovery you made a ton of money (contractor payouts are 70% to 100% higher than regular FT salaries even when it includes benefits!) Your point is right in that try-before-you-buy is not a new construct but rather a corollary of being an at-will employment society. So yes, GroupTalent is just a hiring platform that allows tryouts as a perfectly reasonable alternative.

this is probably the most worthwhile response in the whole tread. From running GroupTalent I have seen the most successful freelancers (those pulling in over $100/hr) do these things: 1- hitch themselves to great growing clients 2- put their clients feeling much ahead of their own 3- deliver value over and beyond what is expected clients do not need highly paid (senior, architects, etc.) devs all the time but when they do, they need a v good one. So whatever rate they are paying is worth it.

that was the funniest thing i read today ;)

Agreed. Also, the reason consulting rates are not high is not b/c of the benefits (that makes at most 20% of the diff between consulting and full time rates). The difference is uncertainty! If you freelance, you have no idea where your next gig will come from. If you are long term contractor, you are 1 step away from being the first cut in the budget

Agreed. unsatisfactory to read an article about data with very little data in it!