Hi all,

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who shared great thoughts and ideas about this either privately or on the list . I got so much out of the whole discussion and will be rewriting the job posting now. And learning about what it takes to get a campus parking spot on Berkeley never hurts. :) 

(When I said 'competitive' it's competitive by the library/higher ed standard. So it is a very real limiting factor to support and enhance library applications/services that we have to work around.) 

Thanks again!
Bohyun


> On Aug 15, 2014, at 3:48 PM, "Priscilla Caplan" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> I work remotely as a manager and my staff are all around the country.  I think the advantage to being able to work from home is enormous.  You may very well find a good person who will work full-time for a "non-competitive" salary in order to not have to move from where a spouse has a good job and the kids are settled, especially if the work is interesting.  
> 
> Some of my staff are developers, and I find no disadvantage to the fact that we are all telecommuting.  We are in touch constantly via skype and other channels, have video calls regularly, and feel very much a team.  A shared project management system like Asana can help too.  
> 
> Of course, it may not work with all developers -- you need to be sure you are hiring someone who is a good communicator, self-motivated, and knows what s/he is doing.  Another caveat is that it can be harder if you have only one telecommuting employee and the rest of the team is together.  When several people are meeting in a room and one is on a speakerphone or something, that doesn't work too well.   But you can do things to ameliorate that.  
> 
> Bottom line is if you have good people, it doesn't matter where they work.
> 
> Priscilla
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Kim, Bohyun
> Sent: Friday, August 15, 2014 12:44 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [CODE4LIB] Hiring strategy for a library programmer with tight budget - thoughts?
> 
> I am in a situation in which a university has a set salary guideline for programmer position classifications and if I want to hire an entry-lever dev, the salary is too low to be competitive and if I want to hire a more experienced dev in a higher classification, the competitive salary amount exceeds what my library cannot afford. So as a compromise I am thinking about going the route of posting a half-time position in a higher classification so that the salary would be at least competitive. It will get full-time benefits on a pro-rated basis. But I am wondering if this strategy would be viable or not.
> 
> Also anyone has a experience in hiring a developer to telework completely from another state when you do not have previous experience working with her/him? This seems a bit risky strategy to me but I am wondering if it may attract more candidates particularly when the position is half time.
> 
> As a current/past/future library programmer or hiring manager in IT or both, if you have any thoughts, experience, or ideas, I would really appreciate it.
> 
> Thanks,
> Bohyun