Hiring contractors/employees

[hdpt00]

For a lot of the stuff I am doing on a few new projects I need to outsource some of my stuff like PHP and web design. I've used elance, scriptlance and rentacoder in the past for this, but have been extremely fed up by the quality.

Currently I'm getting a project done that should have taken 2 weeks, 6 templates built, and it's been 2 months. The guy is the best I could find on these sites in term of design elements and I can't cancel the project as he's is now almost done.

Where else can you find cheap, quality labor that actually cares about deadlines?

[rocknbil]

Where else can you find cheap, quality labor that actually cares about deadlines?

In the printing business, we have a saying:

Cheap
Good
Fast
Pick any of the two above, you don't get all three.

You want "quality," but don't want to pay for it. (i.e. cheap.) Until you loosen the purse strings and understand the value of the work, your project may continue to get pushed down in priority. The value of the deadline is directly proportional to the income of the project.

[hdpt00]

What I pay these offshore guys is probably as good or not better than what the average gets. I am paying around what they asked for. They're getting the quality, a nice sum of money, I should have speed.

[iamlost]

I agree with rocknbils comments.

That aside what sort of requirements are in your contract with this sub?

If you did not specify (for example) 6-templates to this standard and these requirements within 2-weeks or penalty provisions of such and such will be applied you need to review your contract(s). If you did cover such issues you may simply have discovered that not all subs are created equal.

I have found that many/most good subcontractors do not use services such as you mention but then they are not "cheap" either. If they are good they are busy and if they are busy they have no reason to be "cheap".

[plumsauce]

And I agree with iamlost. :)

The rates on the freelance boards are ridiculous. Anyone good stays away from doing business there.

These are the guys running around posting questions here and on other boards like this:

how do i <insert stupid question here>

And then followup any advice received with:

can you email me a script that does this?
or
please explain because I am too <insert excuse here> to read the documentation or search for it

if i am motivated to answer a post, i drop sufficient information for a good researcher to pick up the thread and start pulling on it. after that, they're on their own.

/rant

[jorj]

As an ex-rentacoder worker(coder) I can tell you why the poor quality of the work there: is the system.

See my point of view: I've bid on 10 projects to catch one. If I caught two of them then I'm burned because I cannot refuse them (penalty) and of course I won't make them right because both have to start immediately and end in X days. If I won't get any of them then the price is too high (in the buyers' opinion) so I'll have a problem.

Not to mention that many buyers starts with "I have a small project <big description follows> and I need it fast, reliable and with sources". Ha!

I retired now because the quality impressed few of my clients and I get a lot of work from them since.