5 ms·

Exactly. Just a week or two of contract work will tell you if the candidate is a fit or not. A 30 minute phone screen will tell you if a candidate is worthy of

Exactly. Just a week or two of contract work will tell you if the candidate is a fit or not. A 30 minute phone screen will tell you if a candidate is worthy of a contract. I think companies don't do this because a. They don't want to pay and b. They don't get to gloat 'we have a super rigorous hiring process'

mschuster91 9y ago
There is an additional difficulty in many cases: the law. Most people are not contractors with an established company/legal status as contractors, so you want to hire them. To "hire" someone formally for a week, though, entails a lot of paperwork and has, depending on the country, legal consequences (e.g. voting rights in worker councils, minimum employment durations, right to sue for wrongful termination)... The optimal way would be if lawmakers could create some sort of "employed contractor", however I can think of a dozen ways for employers to screw over poor people with it...
- theptip 9y ago
  Perhaps this is different outside the US, but this is not really a big problem inside the US from my experience. If you're doing "contract-to-hire" you do need to be somewhat careful that you don't treat them as employees before they are, e.g. don't give them equipment (laptop etc), don't require them to arrive at a certain time, probably don't buy them lunch, etc. IANAL (this is not legal advice), but it seems quite easy to keep a software engineer correctly classified. It's not like the job "Uber driver" where the fundamental nature of the job means you can't be a contractor.
- learc83 9y ago
  >Most people are not contractors with an established company/legal status as contractors, so you want to hire them. At least in the US, this isn't a problem. You just make out the check to the individual, and then send them a 1099 at the end of the year. No need to have any kind of established company/status, because by default anyone running a business without incorporating or organizing is operating a sole proprietorship--it's basically 1 extra form at tax time. As long as the person you're paying is doing business under their name, they generally won't even need to open a second bank account (they might want to if they do this more than occasionally).
  - mschuster91 9y ago
    > You just make out the check to the individual, and then send them a 1099 at the end of the year. Wow, that's awesome. What happens, for example, if someone is unemployed, then doing work for you and either gets sick on his own or gets injured on the job? In Germany, for an employed person, the medical insurance would cover #1 and the Unfallversicherung (accident insurance) of the employer would cover #2. Let me guess: the (potential) employee is totally uninsured in the US during such an relationship?
    - learc83 9y ago
      >What happens, for example, if someone is unemployed, then doing work for you and either gets sick on his own or gets injured on the job? For the first case--nothing at all. For the second case--generally nothing as long as the person is really an independent contractor. In the US there are guidelines that determine whether someone is an employee or a contractor. For example is the person flexible to work whenever they want, or do they have to be in the office from 9-5. Does the person have to wear a uniform etc. Is the position short term etc... So if someone were injured on the job, they could claim that they even though the company said they were an independent contractor, they were actually an employee because of xyz. Most employers know this so they take steps to ensure independent contractors actually fit the guidelines for independent contractor. And in the case of paying a tech contractor for a few weeks, it's usually pretty clear cut.
  - ghaff 9y ago
    Yeah. This is no different for me being paid to write a book or receiving an honorarium for something while employed by someone.
  - walshemj 9y ago
    Yeh but the rates for these 1099 contractors are so low to what I would expect.
    - learc83 9y ago
      What do you mean? I generally made much more per hour when I was working as a contractor.
- deepGem 9y ago
  As far as I know this isn't a problem in India, UK and US. Reporting additional income for tax purposes is fairly simple and there is nothing legally wrong in doing multiple jobs at the same time, unless you are on some kind of Visa which prohibits that kind of employment.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Most people are not contractors with an established company/legal status as contractors Is this problematic? Here in Portugal I just update my status in the tax authority website, then declare the extra income when filing my taxes (plus possibly pay social security for that month). You don't need to create a company or anything like that.
theptip 9y ago
How many engineers would accept an offer which is conditional on "a week or two of contract work"? Most of the engineers that I've hired came from another job (not all though), and so they need a confirmed offer before they are willing to jump ship. So this practice introduces its own selection bias; you'd only be sampling from the pool of currently un-/fun-employed, and those who hate their current job enough to quit without a safe landing. I'd vastly prefer to have a week or two of paid contract work from each candidate before making the decision, but it feels insulting to even ask.
- pwthornton 9y ago
  What we have done is hired people as contractors when we have overflow work. We'll pay you a high overly rate to do extra work for us each week. They usually already have gigs and want some extra cash. Others might be doing contract work full time. But if we really like working together, we chat about making the arrangement permanent. But I wouldn't just do this. I think any company of any size needs a strong internship program to build their own pipeline. I also feel that you should be able to hire people without them doing contract work for you or other kinds of assignments. Talking with someone, going over code and APIs, etc. is usually good enough to gauge someone. If someone has years of experience, has stuff on Git and can talk coherently about what they are doing and why, they probably can program. What I was saying is that if you insist on seeing code first, pay them as a contractor, don't ask them to do a bogus assignment for free.
- deepGem 9y ago
  Agreed. I guess you could make the contract route optional. I mean have the standard interview route or the contract route - ask the candidates to pick what they want.
- marcosdumay 9y ago
  > How many engineers would accept an offer which is conditional on "a week or two of contract work"? Unless you work on Google or something with the same size, more than you expect to hire. And yes, you will biasing your candidate pool. Every kind of procedure will bias the candidate pool. Again, unless your company is Google-sized, the only important thing about that bias is if it align with the preponderant bias (what is bad) or not.
matthewmacleod 9y ago
Companies don't do this because it will wildly cut down their candidate pool. There is _literally no chance_ that I am going to leave an existing job for a "week or two" contract with a company. If that's part of their hiring process, I will simply look elsewhere.
- pwthornton 9y ago
  We don't do this, but we do have people work for us on a contract basis for a period of time while they still have another job. We have a lot of people who are looking for extra cash or maybe they like to just do a bunch of contract projects. But one thing can lead to another and then you decide you both want to work full time with each other.
  - walshemj 9y ago
    Which is flat out gross misconduct for 99.9 % of all full time employees in the engineering field.
    - matthewmacleod 9y ago
      Is that true? I’ve never had a contract that forbade me to work on side projects for cash.
      - walshemj 9y ago
        Oh you mean working in the black economy I am sure the IRA will be interested.
      - JauntTrooper 9y ago
        There's often a clause in the Employee Handbook you're asked to agree to periodically.
        walshemj 9y ago
        And with Anglo Saxon law it's probably an implied term as there is so much precedent after all we are supposed to be good servants to our masters :-)
wtvanhest 9y ago
I personally would never, ever accept a week or two of contract work. Companies dont do a week or two of contract work because people that have strong experience will just say no.
handbanana 9y ago
I agree it's the best way to tell if the candidate is a fit. But, I think resume + phone screen (or 2) + an on-site can be almost as good, and not limit your talent pool. The on-site could even include working with the team. What you describe would require me to take PTO from work... to work. Sure I'm getting paid, but I'd tell you no thanks. Others without decent PTO and full-time jobs wouldn't even have that choice

mschuster91 9y ago

There is an additional difficulty in many cases: the law. Most people are not contractors with an established company/legal status as contractors, so you want to hire them. To "hire" someone formally for a week, though, entails a lot of paperwork and has, depending on the country, legal consequences (e.g. voting rights in worker councils, minimum employment durations, right to sue for wrongful termination)... The optimal way would be if lawmakers could create some sort of "employed contractor", however I can think of a dozen ways for employers to screw over poor people with it...

theptip 9y ago
Perhaps this is different outside the US, but this is not really a big problem inside the US from my experience. If you're doing "contract-to-hire" you do need to be somewhat careful that you don't treat them as employees before they are, e.g. don't give them equipment (laptop etc), don't require them to arrive at a certain time, probably don't buy them lunch, etc. IANAL (this is not legal advice), but it seems quite easy to keep a software engineer correctly classified. It's not like the job "Uber driver" where the fundamental nature of the job means you can't be a contractor.
learc83 9y ago
>Most people are not contractors with an established company/legal status as contractors, so you want to hire them. At least in the US, this isn't a problem. You just make out the check to the individual, and then send them a 1099 at the end of the year. No need to have any kind of established company/status, because by default anyone running a business without incorporating or organizing is operating a sole proprietorship--it's basically 1 extra form at tax time. As long as the person you're paying is doing business under their name, they generally won't even need to open a second bank account (they might want to if they do this more than occasionally).
- mschuster91 9y ago
  > You just make out the check to the individual, and then send them a 1099 at the end of the year. Wow, that's awesome. What happens, for example, if someone is unemployed, then doing work for you and either gets sick on his own or gets injured on the job? In Germany, for an employed person, the medical insurance would cover #1 and the Unfallversicherung (accident insurance) of the employer would cover #2. Let me guess: the (potential) employee is totally uninsured in the US during such an relationship?
  - learc83 9y ago
    >What happens, for example, if someone is unemployed, then doing work for you and either gets sick on his own or gets injured on the job? For the first case--nothing at all. For the second case--generally nothing as long as the person is really an independent contractor. In the US there are guidelines that determine whether someone is an employee or a contractor. For example is the person flexible to work whenever they want, or do they have to be in the office from 9-5. Does the person have to wear a uniform etc. Is the position short term etc... So if someone were injured on the job, they could claim that they even though the company said they were an independent contractor, they were actually an employee because of xyz. Most employers know this so they take steps to ensure independent contractors actually fit the guidelines for independent contractor. And in the case of paying a tech contractor for a few weeks, it's usually pretty clear cut.
- ghaff 9y ago
  Yeah. This is no different for me being paid to write a book or receiving an honorarium for something while employed by someone.
- walshemj 9y ago
  Yeh but the rates for these 1099 contractors are so low to what I would expect.
  - learc83 9y ago
    What do you mean? I generally made much more per hour when I was working as a contractor.
deepGem 9y ago
As far as I know this isn't a problem in India, UK and US. Reporting additional income for tax purposes is fairly simple and there is nothing legally wrong in doing multiple jobs at the same time, unless you are on some kind of Visa which prohibits that kind of employment.
icebraining 9y ago
Most people are not contractors with an established company/legal status as contractors Is this problematic? Here in Portugal I just update my status in the tax authority website, then declare the extra income when filing my taxes (plus possibly pay social security for that month). You don't need to create a company or anything like that.

theptip 9y ago

How many engineers would accept an offer which is conditional on "a week or two of contract work"? Most of the engineers that I've hired came from another job (not all though), and so they need a confirmed offer before they are willing to jump ship. So this practice introduces its own selection bias; you'd only be sampling from the pool of currently un-/fun-employed, and those who hate their current job enough to quit without a safe landing. I'd vastly prefer to have a week or two of paid contract work from each candidate before making the decision, but it feels insulting to even ask.

pwthornton 9y ago
What we have done is hired people as contractors when we have overflow work. We'll pay you a high overly rate to do extra work for us each week. They usually already have gigs and want some extra cash. Others might be doing contract work full time. But if we really like working together, we chat about making the arrangement permanent. But I wouldn't just do this. I think any company of any size needs a strong internship program to build their own pipeline. I also feel that you should be able to hire people without them doing contract work for you or other kinds of assignments. Talking with someone, going over code and APIs, etc. is usually good enough to gauge someone. If someone has years of experience, has stuff on Git and can talk coherently about what they are doing and why, they probably can program. What I was saying is that if you insist on seeing code first, pay them as a contractor, don't ask them to do a bogus assignment for free.
deepGem 9y ago
Agreed. I guess you could make the contract route optional. I mean have the standard interview route or the contract route - ask the candidates to pick what they want.
marcosdumay 9y ago
> How many engineers would accept an offer which is conditional on "a week or two of contract work"? Unless you work on Google or something with the same size, more than you expect to hire. And yes, you will biasing your candidate pool. Every kind of procedure will bias the candidate pool. Again, unless your company is Google-sized, the only important thing about that bias is if it align with the preponderant bias (what is bad) or not.

matthewmacleod 9y ago

Companies don't do this because it will wildly cut down their candidate pool. There is _literally no chance_ that I am going to leave an existing job for a "week or two" contract with a company. If that's part of their hiring process, I will simply look elsewhere.

pwthornton 9y ago
We don't do this, but we do have people work for us on a contract basis for a period of time while they still have another job. We have a lot of people who are looking for extra cash or maybe they like to just do a bunch of contract projects. But one thing can lead to another and then you decide you both want to work full time with each other.
- walshemj 9y ago
  Which is flat out gross misconduct for 99.9 % of all full time employees in the engineering field.
  - matthewmacleod 9y ago
    Is that true? I’ve never had a contract that forbade me to work on side projects for cash.
    - walshemj 9y ago
      Oh you mean working in the black economy I am sure the IRA will be interested.
    - JauntTrooper 9y ago
      There's often a clause in the Employee Handbook you're asked to agree to periodically.
      - walshemj 9y ago
        And with Anglo Saxon law it's probably an implied term as there is so much precedent after all we are supposed to be good servants to our masters :-)

wtvanhest 9y ago

I personally would never, ever accept a week or two of contract work. Companies dont do a week or two of contract work because people that have strong experience will just say no.

handbanana 9y ago

I agree it's the best way to tell if the candidate is a fit. But, I think resume + phone screen (or 2) + an on-site can be almost as good, and not limit your talent pool. The on-site could even include working with the team. What you describe would require me to take PTO from work... to work. Sure I'm getting paid, but I'd tell you no thanks. Others without decent PTO and full-time jobs wouldn't even have that choice