UPDATE: If you don’t feel like read­ing this, just watch this video instead. It’s the same message.

Before I start, I’m sorry to any expe­ri­enced design­ers and devel­op­ers who have read these dozens and dozens of times before. Sadly, the lay­men still con­tin­u­ally make these mis­takes so every cou­ple months begin­ner blog­gers like me have to rein­force these issues.

For the past cou­ple weeks I’ve been hunt­ing for free­lance jobs in the Chicago area on Craigslist. I’ve slowly learned that this is the worst place to look for work. There’s a bonus free­bie. After going through a cou­ple hun­dred list­ings, I’ve noticed the same reoc­cur­ring trends that have started to make me cringe and not even bother reply­ing. If you have or are think­ing about mak­ing a job post­ing on Craigslist or any other ser­vice, please avoid list­ing any of the following.

“I need some­one who can do EVERYTHING!!!”

As much as I hate to admit it, no one can design you a logo, design and code you a web­site, incor­po­rate some e-commerce, make it #1 in every search engine, and also be a sys­tems admin­is­tra­tor who is an expert in Flash and Final Cut Pro and is a Social Media Ninja with strong graphic design skills. They did start design firms and ad agen­cies for a rea­son. I find it per­fectly accept­able to seek some­one who can do fron­tend work as well as back­end work, but there are limitations.

“I want it fast and cheap.”

Fine, but you’ve already picked your two. This kind of think­ing is so old and com­mon there’s even a Wikipedia entry on the clas­sic “Project Tri­an­gle”. In other words you have three options:

  • Design some­thing quickly and to a high stan­dard, but then it will not be cheap.
  • Design some­thing quickly and cheaply, but it will not be of high quality.
  • Design some­thing with high qual­ity and cheaply, but it will take a long time.

If you need to think about this out­side of web design, think about what hap­pens when you build a house in a day with just card­board. Cheap, right?

“I’d like a sam­ple of your work to com­pare against some­one else before I hire you.”

TOTALLY UNDERSTANDABLE! I’m happy to show you my port­fo­lio and even projects that are near­ing their com­ple­tion that haven’t made it to my port­fo­lio. Wait, you want me to “enhance a photo” or give you all of my ideas before I start? Well if that’s the case why did I spend all that time revis­ing my resume and putting together my port­fo­lio in the first place? Ah, you want it cheap, fast, and good. Doesn’t work like that (see above).

You don’t hire some­one for a job, see how they do, and then decide whether or not to pay them. In real­ity your hir­ing thought process should be more along the lines of, “hey this per­son has done qual­ity work in the past and I can see that. I expect them to do the same, if not bet­ter, work for me,”

Time Expec­ta­tions

It’s a fact of life that dead­lines need to be met. But! If you think you’re going to post some­thing on Craigslist and get it done in a day or a week, then it’ll prob­a­bly take a week or month, respec­tively. (Unless you don’t require high qual­ity, see above)

What’s even worse than putting a designer or devel­oper under the gun, is “know­ing” how long it will take them to com­plete a project. The posts usu­ally read, “I’m a pro­gram­mer so I know how long it takes to design” or vice versa. News­flash: your math savvy appli­cant is going to adjust their hourly rate to accom­mo­date the amount of hours you think it’ll take to “get the job done”.

Job vs. Intern­ship vs. Vol­un­teer Position

The econ­omy sucks. Fine. I can’t afford some­one who is expe­ri­enced. Fine. I want some­one to work for me for free. Not fine. Seri­ously, it’s ille­gal and insult­ing. I could go on and on with phrases peo­ple use to say, “I don’t have any money to pay you now, but there will be TONS of future work”, but I think my favorite from today is:

Please don’t respond if you aren’t will­ing to start on intern­ship basis, we’d be offer­ing $ now if we could.(link)

First, there are such things as paid intern­ships. (I’ve had a few) Sec­ond, if you’re start­ing a busi­ness why would depend on com­plete strangers to help you suc­ceed? Friends, fam­ily, and fools. Ok, there are a lot of fools on Craigslist.

Bot­tom line, don’t call some­thing a “job” or say that you’re “hir­ing” if there isn’t any com­pen­sa­tion. Let peo­ple come to you if they want to work for free, don’t go out phish­ing for them. Intern­ships are meant to be valu­able expe­ri­ences so indi­vid­u­als can go on and per­form at a higher level at their next posi­tions, not for young col­lege and high school kids to be taken advan­tage of. If you aren’t offer­ing a cup of cof­fee or a cou­ple bucks an hour, then you’re just offer­ing a vol­un­teer position.

Every designer and devel­oper under­stands that not every­one under­stands how much time and effort goes into their work so for every lay­man out there — please don’t under­es­ti­mate us! Our work is valu­able, spe­cial­ized, and, for some, a liveli­hood. Thank you for not mak­ing your­selves sound like obliv­i­ous morons in your job postings!