Hiring Programmers For A Non-Profit?

Snowdog asks: "How can a non-profit organization compete when hiring programming talent? I work for a well-established project doing research into Internet technologies at a major university, and we've had a very tough time hiring full-time programmers. We have a great atmosphere, good benefits, and are doing some interesting work, but just can't match the high salaries being paid by companies in the private sector for programmers who know their way around the Internet. How are other non-profit groups dealing with this? Is there a way to adapt techniques used by successful Open Source projects to attract talented full-time programmers? The whole issue is further compounded because, like almost all non-profit groups, we can't go through recruiters, so it's difficult to even get the attention of software engineers, many of whom are hounded by headhunters so often they don't bother at all to scan through the Help Wanted ads." We've discussed this problem from the other direction, but is there a place online where needy organizations and programmers with free time on their hands to get together to solve problems?

Comments

Try playing hardball

[billybob2001]

Do what the private sector does.

Make big promises and fail to deliver on them.

Or offer perks that really appeal to geeks - mainly based around freedom of expression, eg they can choose their own h/ware and s/ware set-up, and play with new technologies.

This could be beneficial in many ways.

Re:Try playing hardball

[afrazer]

I actually had the choice which you are talking about a year ago. I had 2 offers, one from a non-profit educational site and the other from an intensely competitive startup which offered $, stock options, etc. I went with the non-profit, for the following decisive factors:

1) In the non-profit I had more input into shaping the product, despite my relatively limited experience
2) The people in the non-profit were much more laid back. I felt they would let me have time with my family, be flexible about vacations and holidays, and in general would not want to work me till I dropped.
3) The non-profit people took genuine interest in me on a personal level, not just on a professional one. I trusted them more to consider my welfare down the road.
4) The non-profit would let me work from home (or the mall, the beach, the moon, etc.) This also diverted more free high-tech toys to my house.
5) The non-profit's product was much more innovative and engaging.
6) The non-profit matched the salary of the start-up, minus options and perks.

The for-profit startup has since run through most of its' venture capital. The non-profit has another person with only a couple years experience working here, plus some after hours volunteers from big accounting places. Our senior management consists of idealistic people who already made their money in the for-profit internet and want to do something worthwhile now.

I think what you really have to realize is that ultimately, at least for some people, once you clear a certain threshold and are offering a salary they can live on and save some of, piling on more $$$ may not help them as much as being nice to them, letting them do something interesting, and giving them gadgets.

Good luck.

Perhaps

[biohazard99]

Two options
Establish a fund for support of a programmer, similar to the Perl6/Damian Conway deal. or
Hire a college student or retiree who has an interest in your group's aims.

Horny, promiscous co-eds

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously.

Every few months Rob posts a story about how much trouble geeks have finding life partners. We know he's really talking about the difficulty of geeks getting laid.

And you're ara major university, yesssah, thousands of young owmen eager to try out their new sexuality.

Nothing like getting laid a few times to make a programmer forget about such things as salary.

Of course, the danger is one of those coeds getrs her hooks into a geek, and demands he marry her and make more money to support her Nordstrom habit. But it should work for a few years.

use junior people

[BigWillieStyle]

I'd say that you might want to think about using more junior people, advertising yourself as a kind of "Get your experience here" type of place. No doubt that folks wouldn't stay _too_ long, but you might attract some good workers, maybe even some who stay.

I for one, am thinking about moving from Unix administration into programming. My problem is fairly obvious, general lack of experience. You could sort of provide that experience check mark for people's resumes while getting some work out of them. You'd have to be careful about who you hire though. You'd need to stick with smart people who seem to learn quickly so that you can get a return on your investment.

Hire a grad (or undergrad) student

[Lish]

Pardon the sarcasm but: Good gravy, you're at UWMadison and you can't find cheap programmers? They're those younger people crawling all over your campus. You know, the ones with student loans and tuition bills to pay. They might not have as much experience, and you might have to hire a couple of them to work together because they can't work full-time, and there's likely to be a big learning curve (depending on the person and the project). But, these are people who are used to learning constantly, they've been doing it in class for a while.

Yeah, you'll have to lower your expectations a bit, and pay decent wages. I've seen a lot of ads on campus from various local companies trying to hire student workers for dining-hall wages with "required skills" that no college student is going to have acquired. But it's a compromise, and a way to get things done. And hey, you might even be able to hire one or more full-time when they graduate.

Re:Hire a grad (or undergrad) student

[riley]

Me, I work at a non-profit organization as a senior software engineer (University in the Big 10). It doesn't really work that way.

It's a myth that you can throw two (or three or four) inexperienced programmers at a problem and expect them to build a good, supportable solution. What the inexperienced programmers need is an experienced programmer to help them to develop good practices so that they can grow.

That being said, it is worth it to hire someone with experience and patience. Letting younger programmers work in an environment where they are helped to become good programmers through things like peer review of code generally pays off. You'll lose most to higher wages, but some do stick around because they like college towns and get to take classes in whatever interests them.

The deal is paying for an experienced programmer is seed money to get those sorts of benifits. Without someone with experience, you'll end up with something that MIGHT work, and is completely unsupportable once the original coder leaves. In my experience with having had to clean up those sorts of situations, it's not worth it. You've spent the money, and you still don't have a good system.

As always YMMV.

Re:Hire a grad (or undergrad) student

[Snowdog]

You've hit the answer right on the head. We have undergraduate and graduate students on staff, and they're very valuable members of our team, but there's no substitute for experience when it comes to producing high-quality maintainable software. This is particularly true when, as we are, you're developing software tools, standards, and protocols to be used by other organizations in creating their applications and web sites.

(As an aside, it's actually much tougher than you would think to hire capable grad student programmers. If they're in the Computer Science program they can usually find an RA position where they essentially are paid to do their thesis work, and so have no incentive to take a project-based programming position.)

Make a new type of workplace.

[Snowfox]

Many programmers are so obsessed with programming that this is ALL they'd like to do. Period.

If you can set up an environment where food, shelter, taxes, doctors appointments, etc are all taken care of - all a person has to do is wake up, shower (maybe) and sit in front of the computer, you'll likely find that the money isn't too much of an issue. "Pay" could even consist of a $50 taped to the side of their monitor each work day (which is Sun-Sat for this type).

Then again, to whatever degree you feel responsible for their puffy pasty cave-dwellerness, you'll have your conscience to deal with.

Re:Make a new type of workplace.

[cloudmaster]

If that solution is implemented, lemme know. I wanna work there. :)

Re:Make a new type of workplace.

[Snowfox]

I feel kind of funny admitting it, but - pair it with a good retirement plan and I'd probably do it too. But if you really wanted to seal the deal, I say: give me a personal trainer 2 or 3 days a week and access to those college girls the AC ranted about.

Re:Go after them and appeal to their sensabilities

[MythMoth]

Absolutely. Don't underestimate the appeal of interesting work and (especially) a worthy cause.

I'm on an H1 visa so I'm probably not in your target group, but as with most people my salary is negotiable. If the work is interesting and there are sufficient incentives I'll pull it down.

For an academic and/or charitable environment I'll bring it down a long way.

Above all else I choose my work by considering the people who I will work with, another likely selling point.

So some of those programmers on Biiig salaries are probably more accessible than you might imagine. No, they're probably not looking in the help wanted ads, but sites like Dice and Computerjobs are where you can find an contact them. You'll spend a little time, but aside from that the cost is negligible since any techy worth your time will have an email address.

And if you can handle visa issues, drop me a line !

Sourceforge

[athena_original]

I would suggest that you also consider setting up a project on sourceforge.net. That's what the whole site is dedicated to.

Go after them and appeal to their sensabilities

[Badger]

When I was looking for a job a few months ago, I would have loved to have heard from some non-profits. I had my resume on dice and monster, but never heard from a one.

Look at those sites, and others, and ask those people. Tell them who you are and what you do. I suspect you'll find a decent amount of good developers who already have their money, or don't care about money, and are willing to work for you.

jason

Consider outsourcing

[Tony Shepps]

My company does outsourced internet development work for non-profits constantly, and they come away pleased because we aren't a bunch of stinking corporate whores with our eye on the latest insider quickie six-figure job we can weasel our way into through martini lunches, meaningless buzzword biz-speak, and blue-suit-wearing secret handkshakes. (Oh, I'm sorry, do I sound bitter? Maybe that's my five months of big-5 consulting hell coming out.)

If you can find a similarly-oriented outsourcer in your area, they may be a real find for you. What's more, in many cases you can get a reasonable estimate for jobs up front, and determine whether they're cost-effective before signing anything.

We like non-profits; they partner well, honestly care about the work and the results, pay on time, and they aren't a bunch of stinking... I'm sorry, I won't start again.
--

Advertise

[krb]

I should say that step one is to make it known that you are looking to hire people. There's not a single mention of it on the project web site (unless I've gone blind from terminal radiation). If no one knows you're hiring, you aren't gonna get too many inquiries. Set up a page which lists the openings w/ job description and such. People will see it and check it out. Too bad it wasn't already there, I'm sure the site got some traffic just off of the fact that you got posted on /.

Now, whether there are other places to advertise, I don't know... Perhaps some not too pushy posts on your local (or not local) LUG mailing list or newsgroup, assuming you think the members won't react poorly to this sort of spam. Local area newsgroups or IRC channels, etc. might be another thing to try.

If you're looking for national exposure, it's gonna cost money probly (unless you can get another post here...), but it depends on what you want.

Just my $((1/50)*(1.00))
Hope it helps somewhat...

-k
krb1@email.com

Re:Advertise

[Snowdog]

Point taken -- there is a mention on the project web site, but it's not exactly prominent, to put it mildly. That will have to be corrected.

We ran a nice display ad (US$350 with the University's discount) in the local sunday newspaper a few weeks back, and got just one (1) response. The problem is in part that we can't start someone at $85K/year, but a greater difficulty may actually be just reaching people at all.

Voluntech.org

[tangsc]

"Voluntech.org is a group of New York-area technical volunteers who give of their spare time and expertise to serve nonprofit and community service organizations. Our goal is to help community organizations in the New York City area take advantage of the latest computer and communications technologies so that they can operate at their peak effectiveness. " from their website <a href="http://www.voluntech.org">www.voluntech.o rg</a>

Why Recruiters Don't Serve Your Needs

[goingware]

I'd like to suggest that you stop using recruiters. Recruiters are your worst enemy.

Besides taking an enormous amount of money for doing very little real work (do you really think recruiters read a candidate's resume before they submit them?) many of them are either dishonest or even if they try to do the right thing they do not have the technical background to be able to separate the good candidates from the bad ones.

Your time will be much better spent if you find the candidates yourself. Perhaps you could hire a non-technical work-study student to use a search engine like Google to locate resumes for you. Then screen them and call them personally.

As a software consultant I cannot emphasize enough how much more carefully I pay attention to contacts from actual clients than I do from recruiters (or from potential employers, back when I was looking for perm jobs).

For my own policy about how and why I don't deal with recruiters, please read:

Important Note to Recruiters and Contract Agencies

I have intended for a long time to put up a page addressing how employers can find technical talent. I haven't done that yet, but in the meantime you can find out how I find clients and figure out the inverse to see how you can use the web to find programmers:

Market Yourself - Tips for High-Tech Consultants

Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc