Hiring freelancers is itself almost a scam; hiring teams means scam, squared. Easiest way to fail your startup. Hire only locally, people you know. Don't use any online platform for that, you are going to get ripped.
Ask HN: What about a platform for hiring teams instead of individuals?
31–40 of 164 posts
Re: Ask HN: What about a platform for hiring teams instead of individuals?
#32I've almost hired full teams for my clients a few times as a recruiter. There tend to be a couple issues with this model. For one, what if the hiring company interviews the team and wants 7 of the 10? The team has to make a decision to either look for work where they can all be on the team, or abandon members. The other issue is timing. The team members need to all be available at (or around) the same time, and they…
For one, what if the hiring company interviews the team and wants 7 of the 10? In the model OP is talking about, that's not allowed. You either hire the whole team or none of them. The team knows this, so they're mostly not going to be running off to look at unrelated offers.
Thanks, but I'm not sure I understand your comment. Where does it say anything about the rules of this proposed idea? Isn't this a hypothetical?
Re: Ask HN: What about a platform for hiring teams instead of individuals?
#33Hiring freelancers is itself almost a scam; hiring teams means scam, squared. Easiest way to fail your startup. Hire only locally, people you know. Don't use any online platform for that, you are going to get ripped.
What "scam"?
I'm working as a freelancer for a startup that's doing great, thanks.
Re: Ask HN: What about a platform for hiring teams instead of individuals?
#34> Hiring teams instead of individuals
Sounds like you want the team to start a contracting business. Build your platform for that instead.
Re: Ask HN: What about a platform for hiring teams instead of individuals?
#35Please checkout our startup: https://www.superteam.io/ We're currently accepting closed beta testers. We're a platform designed to create teams with freelancers. Our mission is to make freelancing easy as possible, through team collaboration and specialization.
nice hijacking the thread.
Re: Ask HN: What about a platform for hiring teams instead of individuals?
#36I haven't been involved with outsourcing for a long time, but back when the company I was working for was outsourcing some work to Indian developers, we outsourced to a team rather than individuals. This was the standard practice at the firm we worked with. Essentially, the team consisted of one guaranteed long-term member who was our primary contact, a small group of senior developers we got to know (and train) who were usually dedicated to our project, and a larger group of junior developers who rotated around projects as needed. We generally didn't know who the junior devs were; the seniors and the manager were responsible for verifying and guaranteeing the quality of their work. My understanding is that we paid a monthly rate based on the amount of work the overall team would do. If the seniors could do the work themselves they got paid more, and if they had to share the work with juniors they got paid less. Basically, they sub-contracted to the juniors.
This arrangement might've worked well for us if the seniors and manager could've kept the quality consistent, but they couldn't. A couple of them were really good, but most were not and problems caused by the juniors kept leaking through to us. At one point I even had to entirely scrap a project their team had worked on, and redo it all myself. (That's one case where I have evidence of being a 10x developer, at least on that project and relative to that team.)
This isn't a great argument for teams vs individuals though, because a lot of the issues we had were more to do with the cultural and logistical difficulties of outsourcing from US to India and the company we were working with, rather than the consulting model.
Re: Ask HN: What about a platform for hiring teams instead of individuals?
#37I'm not sure how effective it would be for all the same reasons that have been listed below. But I can say that a friend of mine and I just asked for this to be done for us. We work well together and wanted to stay on the same team, at least initially. With that in mind I think the platform would have some interest but I'm not sure how much or the difficulty in creating such a platform.
We told the recruiters to think of us as 'The Bipod' and that we would only go to a new job if we both were hired for the same team, at least initially.
They claimed they had done it one other time so I know it must be asked for occasionally. Long story short, my friend and I are leaving our current employer for the new employer next week. So it can be done. And I think it is nice to have some consistency in a new place of employment. It should make the transition easier for both of us.
Re: Ask HN: What about a platform for hiring teams instead of individuals?
#38Hiring teams will also mean they would be leaving together. If that is unplanned then your project(s) could really be in a pickle. Cheaper to have backup for individuals as opposed to teams.
But that's the originating company's problem, not that of the individuals in a team. If anything, if a company endures an overnight exodus of talent it should probably review how it's paying and treating its existing employees.
I think neebz's comment was more along the lines of the company angle. Company B is hiring a team from company A. Maybe company A screwed up somehow.
The hiring manager at company B has to be thinking, "OK, what happens when company C comes along 18 months from now; am I at higher risk of losing this new team all at once?"
Re: Ask HN: What about a platform for hiring teams instead of individuals?
#39I think each team needs to be niche specific.
Re: Ask HN: What about a platform for hiring teams instead of individuals?
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
For one, what if the hiring company interviews the team and wants 7 of the 10? In the model OP is talking about, that's not allowed. You either hire the whole team or none of them. The team knows this, so they're mostly not going to be running off to look at unrelated offers.
Thanks, but I'm not sure I understand your comment. Where does it say anything about the rules of this proposed idea? Isn't this a hypothetical?
It is inferred that the group would always work together on projects, so their availability would be the same... If you sell yourself as a group but everyone still looks for offers of their own, it kind of defeats the purpose