George Dinwiddie asked me a question in email, “Why do companies hire junior-level contractors? I feel bad about spending the company’s money trying to teach these junior contractors to be better software developers. A junior-level direct hire makes sense, as you expect them to be around long enough that the education pays off. But a junior contractor seems like a total waste–training someone for the benefit of a later engagement, probably with another company.”
Sometimes, I just don’t understand the money games companies play. It’s “cheaper” in terms of money outlay to hire junior contractors, because you don’t pay benefits. But, you also don’t receive the value of the money. You’re investing in a person who can’t possibly stay long enough for you to get the payback.
The problem is you can’t measure a single person’s costs or productivity. You hve to remember that it’s the team’s cost and the team’s productivity. Any new hire will reduce the team’s overall productivity. That’s one reason I advocate assigning a buddy for a while, so only one person is directly affected by questions.
But it takes anywhere from 6-12 months for people to become effective in an organization. How long do your contractors last? Many organizations (in the US) have a rule about eliminating contractors in a year. If you’ve hired junior contractors, you’ve just wasted the money you spent for a year on that contractor, and reduced the productivity of the team.
If you believe you need to hire junior contractors, think hard about what you and the team will get out of them.
July 27th, 2008
Experience and Education makes the point
We hire people to complete tasks and run functions (not really–we employ talent to create value, but I?ll try to stick to the point).
He goes on to say
The problem is, both of these (years of experience and education) are unreliable measures of whether someone can do a task or run a function.
I certainly agree. Previous posts are here and here.
The perceived ability to create value is what hiring managers pay for.
October 25th, 2005
We’re teaching my older daughter to drive. She’s had her permit since late August, and we try to make sure she drives 2-4 hours/week. In reality, that’s not a lot of driving. Just commuting to work most likely takes you 5 hours/week. But this past weekend, my daughter drove back from our ski weekend in Vermont to Boston, in the nor’easter.
Here in New England, nor’easters are a fact of life. In the winter, they dump a bunch a snow, or frozen slush which turns to ice. In the fall and spring, they dump a lot of rain, which sometimes turns to ice. Because some form of precipitation is a common part of driving, New Englanders who learn from their driving experiences tend to be fairly good at driving in snow, ice, and rain. It’s not fun, but it’s doable.
There are people who never learn from their driving experience in snow or ice. Every year, they’re surprised by the snow or the ice, and they drive too fast (or too slow). These people may have plenty of years of driving experience, but it’s the same year repeated over and over again.
Some parents want to protect their kids from driving in treacherous conditions. I have to admit, that was me on Sunday. But Mark said, “Do you want her to learn how to drive in the snow and the ice with one of us in the front seat or by herself?” Ok, Mark is clearly the thinking one here 
You’ve probably met people who claim 5, 10, 17 years of experience doing something, and you’d like to make sure they really do have that experience, not one year of experience several times. If you’re not sure how to detect someone with the same year of experience several times, here are some questions you can adapt for your needs:
- “Tell me about the first time you did that kind of work…”
- “What was similar and different about this last time (use the candidate’s resume for example projects)? …”
- “Tell me a about a new skill you learned.” … “What steps did you take to learn it?” … “How did you know you’d mastered that skill?”
- “How can you tell you’ve learned this skill/technique/practice?”
People who know the difference between the same year of experience multiple times and multiple years of experience have answers to these questions. People who do the same thing year-in, year-out don’t have good answers.
We’re trying to help our daughter gain that full year of experience that the graduated driver’s license requires, without putting her or other people at risk. She’ll have a year of experience driving. She still might not like driving in ice and snow, but she’ll be able to do so. How about you? Can you see differences in your work now and last year? If not, make sure you’re not acquiring the same year of experience all over again. And when you interview people, ask questions to see how a candidate has learned and grown in their work over time.
December 28th, 2004