
Ask YC: If there's a talent crunch, why is finding part time work so hard? - malandrew
I'm bootstrapping my startup with a few friends and I've recently been looking to work part time (20hrs/wk) as a front-end backbone.js hacker. I've had numerous leads, and was even supposed to start work on Monday on a project where I was the most experienced front-end developer, yet the client asked to have me removed from the project solely because they only wanted full-time hackers. The other front end developer even lamented that this was unfortunate because the client expects this project to require two developers doing the front-end work and now he's the only one doing the work. This was the second time this has happened in this week. I'm asking this because this isn't the first time a job has fallen through solely on the fact that I'm not full time.<p>What's up with this? If there is such a talent crunch why is it that people are passing up developers solely because they are only part-time? I would imagine that it's better that it's better to have someone moving your product in the right direction at half speed than no one at all.
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adrianhoward
A few reasons why:

* Part time workers tend to go away. Leaving you having to find another person to fill that role. Hiring is expensive. Getting new employees up to speed is expensive.

* When a part time worker leaves, they take away their knowledge of the business. This is scary to some because folk worry about competitors. This is scary to all because it's knowledge that you need to build up again internally. Your staff are an asset.

* Startups need to build teams. It's much harder to build teams when some of the members aren't their for 50% or more of the time.

Flip it around.

Would you hire somebody half time if they told you that they were spending the
rest of their time focusing on their own startup? Would you think that they'd
be _really_ focussed on your work? Would you think they'd be more or less
likely to leave on short notice if their startup took off? Would you be a
little bit nervous that they'd be taking stuff they'd learned from you and
maybe using it to their own advantage and your expense?

~~~
jarofgreen
Your first two are basically "Part time workers tend to go away" then
explaining why that's bad. I agree that high/fast worker turnover is a bad for
a knowledge business like ours, but do they tend to go away faster than full-
time workers? On what are you baseing that? I'm not sure I've seen that.

Also, OP didn't say that the job that turned him down was a start-up. Team
building is important, but it can still happen with part-time workers.
Especially if your an established IT business that can parcel out small bits
of self-contained work to part-timers, it's not a insurmountable problem.

(OP: Good Q, I've also noticed this in the UK. No idea why tho.)

~~~
adrianhoward
_Your first two are basically "Part time workers tend to go away" then
explaining why that's bad_

Yup :-) The "reason why it's bad" bit was the thing I was trying to focus on.
Since that's the issue that the OP will have to get out of potential employers
heads (or find potential employers where it's not an issue).

 _On what are you baseing that? I'm not sure I've seen that._

I don't have any stats I'm afraid. Just my experiences over the years.
Anecdotal I know but it would seem to make sense. By definition part time folk
are spending the time they're not with you doing something else. Whether
that's surfing, spending time with their family, working on a side project, or
whatever. Those things are important to them otherwise they wouldn't be
spending their time on them. Sometimes they get more important than the part
time role.

 _Team building is important, but it can still happen with part-time workers_

Agreed. That's why I said it was "much harder" not impossible :-)

I'm not trying to argue against part-time employees. I've been one. I've
worked with 'em. I've hired 'em. It can work out great.

It's just that the benefits that the employee gets by being part time are not
necessarily risk free for the employer. If you're aware of the risks then
you're in a better position to reassure a potential employer that they don't
apply to you.

Oh yes - for the OP - did you ask why they didn't want a part time role? I
always ask why I get rejected. You may not always get an honest answer of
course - but you'll often be surprised if my experiences are anything to go
by. I've learned a lot by being rejected :-)

~~~
jarofgreen
> By definition part time folk are spending the time they're not with you
> doing something else. Whether that's surfing, spending time with their
> family, working on a side project, or whatever. Those things are important
> to them otherwise they wouldn't be spending their time on them. Sometimes
> they get more important than the part time role.

Don't really agree with that. This is a heavy start-up community so
perspectives will be screwed, but most of the side things people spend time on
are things that aren't going to become a full time job and mean they resign.
In fact, I would reckon it's probably the other way around - the reason your
making it your side thing and desperately clinging on to your part-time job is
because it's something that you know will almost certainly never make you
money; like having a kid or some strange hobby like acting in amateur theater
:-)

I've also done part-time for years, and in general I'm a big fan of it.

Thing is, all the risks you describe happen with full-time employees to. So is
it they are worse with part-time? Or more importantly, do employers perceive
them to be worse? As you say, as the job-seeker it falls on you to convince
the employer the risks are less in your case.

~~~
adrianhoward
_Thing is, all the risks you describe happen with full-time employees to. So
is it they are worse with part-time?_

Like I said - I don't have any hard data. But I've been working for... gosh...
26 years now.... and my observation is that part-time employees generally (not
always) have a higher turnover than full time.

As well as "other thing" becoming more important than the part time job -
another common failure mode is "other thing" failing, and the employee then
looking for a full time role. That full-time role is often not at the same
place they're working full time (either because there isn't room for a full
time role - or because they have better options elsewhere).

 _Or more importantly, do employers perceive them to be worse?_

Certainly true in my case. I could be fooling myself - it's been known to
happen fairly often :-)

~~~
malandrew
Is the turnover high enough that it's better to have no employee at all?

Plus, in the case of one of these projects, it was a 1-2 month project so
turnover wasn't even a concern.

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adrianhoward
Another issue with part timers is the overhead work around the employment.

Basically it's the same amount of work for a business to employ a part-timer
as it is to employ a full-timer (sometimes more).

So if you have a full-time role's worth of work, you will need to hire two or
three part-timers to get that work done. So you're at _least_ doubling the
overhead admin work around that role compared to hiring a full timer.

~~~
malandrew
This mainly only applies to salaried W2 workers though. Yeah the work for
hiring a full-time contractor and a part-time contractor is the same, but the
work involved with hiring a contractor should be minimal enough that
administrative overhead costs shouldn't be an issue when you have a job that
needs to get done.

~~~
sokoloff
It's not just administrivia/HR work, but there's a not-small constant factor
to coordinating the work of every individual on the project. 40 people, each
working an hour doesn't get you the same output as 1 person working those 40
hours.

(There's also an unspoken understanding in a lot of places that if a given
week or two gets intense, that full-timers will silently/for-free suck it up,
whereas part-timers won't. In my experience [as employee and employer], that
generally works and is often "paid back" on or off the books.)

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codeonfire
Acievement and effort don't have a linear relationship. Doing 20 hours instead
of 40 does not mean that the project is 50% complete or 50% viable. Early in
the project there is a process of discovering unknowns and ranking tasks by
importance. Usually this information is not communicated within the team or
other team members won't believe them, so with 5 part timers you get five
people who only rediscover the same constraints and no one is able to actually
finish the project.

Usually a full timer has to use judgement and time management to keep the
project within a full week or they work overtime. Part timers will feel less
obligation to deliver the project and more obligation to meet their part-time
limit of 20 hours. If they don't finish then that is perceived as ok because
they not fully invested in the project timewise.

~~~
jarofgreen
Sounds like some bad team work to me, and I don't see that a set of full-
timers would necessarily do better. If your a part-timer, you make extra
effort on the team communication part for obvious reasons.

& part timers aren't fully invested? I call bullshit. Again, sounds like some
bad team-work going on there.

Altho, with this question the truth doesn't really matter, what really matters
is whether employers think this will be true, so you may have 2 good points
here.

~~~
codeonfire
Although it is common thinking in the business world, teamwork is not a
panacea you think it is. Maybe if you are working on rote J2EE or .Net
software you can do four hours a day of work and know exactly the time it will
take to complete, but you aren't going to be working on the same project with
full timers. Someone working full time is going to complete the same work in
two days that a part timer is going to do in seven. Full time workers are not
going to wait an additional five days for dependencies the part time guy is
working on. And they're not going put dependencies in place, then wait for the
part timer guy to add 150% to the schedule finishing their part. This is not
bad teamwork. This is scheduling.

I know you are not suggesting this, but I should point out that the idea that
the team does tasks as a group around one computer is the amateur's view of
software development. In this instance, one might think that part time is
feasible because they will just join in on whatever the ONE task that the
group happens to be engaged in. I see this a lot in inexperienced managers who
think software development is like a meeting except with a computer to type
on.

Part timers by definition are not fully invested. Their work is defined by
time constraints rather than project delivery. What will you do if four hours
is not enough, work four more hours?

~~~
jarofgreen
No, its bad scheduling. In your example you seem to be assigning the same
amount of work to part-timers and full-timers then complaining that the part
timers take twice as long and make the full-timers wait. Well Duh! It's
perfectly possible in big teams/projects to schedule tasks to part-timers,
because you assign them shorter tasks or tasks that full-timers won't be
waiting for immediately. I've been there several times. (The fact that
sometimes task times are hard to estimate in advance cuts both ways; sometimes
a part-timer could be waiting for a full timer to finish work because the
full-timer got a task that turned out to take longer than estimated.)

I'm not saying that at all, I'm saying in big projects where you divide tasks
among a team it should be possible for a good manager to deal in part-timers.
The smaller the team/project the harder it gets, but it's still possible.

Why do you assume full-timers are "fully-invested", eg defined by project
constraints and not time constraints? Balls. I've known plenty of full-timers
who were out the door at 5pm. If a company wants workers to work over-time it
has to agree a system before-hand and agree compensation, money and/or time
off in lieu. Its the same for part-timers and full-timers, no difference. If a
company is just rocking up to it's full timers and saying "oh the projects not
finished so you have to work this weekend kthxbai" it's a bad company.

------
Joeboy
I somewhat sympathise with people who are reluctant to hire part-timers. A lot
of coders' time is lost to context switching, and working part time is likely
to exacerbate that problem. Also there's a high chance that if you're doing
something non-trivial you'll end up passing unfinished code between you and
your colleagues, which may be painful and frustrating for both of you.

That said, the number of part-time opportunities in tech seems ridiculously
low, and even considering those issues I can't see how it makes sense given
that tech largely seems like a seller's market at the moment. For the time
being I'm happy doing full time contract stints, but one day I'd quite like to
cut down my hours, and it would be nice if I didn't have to exit the IT
industry to do so.

~~~
anthonyb
Depends on how you structure your hours. Three days a week instead of 4 hours
per day is usually better. In any case, everyone has to context switch when
they go home and come back in the morning.

The real reason, I think, is that it's weird, which makes managers
uncomfortable enough that it puts you down the list. There are ways to arrange
it though - it definitely helps if you talk directly to the employer rather
than through a recruiter.

It might also help if you have some contact with them first - perhaps think
about segueing from either a full time role or a freelance contract into part-
time work. Once they know you're good and get to know you, they'll be a bit
happier to discuss it.

I work three days a week for a government department, which works out pretty
well, and then the other two I work with my wife on her business. So it is
possible - you just have to look.

~~~
malandrew
I was even flexible with the work saying that I could do 2 full days (morning
to night) or 4 half days where I would be with the team the entire 4 days, but
my day would be broken up into two 4 to 5-hour segments (I normally don't
lunch, just snack at my desk and keep working). This latter arrangement would
have at least would have helped keep me in sync with what the rest of the team
was doing.

I would also add that the context switching between working on one backbone.js
project (my startup) and another (the client's work) really isn't all that bad
compared to context switching from a non-programming activity to programming.

------
gexla
If you are doing this as a contractor, then this is partly the client being
dumb and you not selling. You tell the client how many hours you can work and
part time / full time is largely irrelevant. If pressed, tell the client that
20 hours per week IS full time (you have a business to run!)

There may be exceptions if the project has stiff hourly requirement needs that
you need to fulfill because of a tight deadline, but those expectations should
have been set up front (on both sides.)

Another exception may be a salaried W2 worker. Even in that case you may only
get 20 - 30 good hours of coding in a week, but I suppose everyone has to play
the paperwork game.

~~~
malandrew
I would do the selling, but I was going to be part of the team where one of
the other developers "owned" the relationship with the client and thus would
be the one that would have to do the selling. He tried to convince the client
otherwise, but the client was adamant about this apparently.

------
lifeisstillgood
I think we are seeing a transitional period.

There has long been talk of portfolio careers and companies of one. We are
heading that way (not everyone but a significant proportion of people will be
self employed at least at some point in their lives)

(tldw too long didn't write it all)

Summary - businesses need to realise the best and brightest can literally work
for themselves and will probably want to do so outside of 40hrs a week

So re arranging work practises to accommodate

Practical advice

Try setting up a shingle for "front end js development" - folks looking for a
project are more likely to accept different timescales

~~~
malandrew
What do you mean by shingle?

~~~
sokoloff
Noun definition 2 here: <http://www.thefreedictionary.com/shingle>

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malandrew
Thanks everyone for the responses.

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yashchandra
Great question. I have realized that as a freelancer, not many clients are
interested in hiring part time even though they could save on cost. One
primary reason in my opinion is fear of uncertainty. Clients are always scared
to hear that you want to give only part of your time to them. They want to
feel safe knowing that they own your time 100%. Not to mention other legal
implications specially in the financial industry where I work. It is my dream
to get a part time gig at a bank where I only work 3 days a week. Tried that a
few times but won't work easily. I am sure it has been done but _very_ rare.
Another point is that if you get hired for a particular project, it has its
own timelines,deliverables and milestones (as a PM would call it:). Clients
will include your time in the project estimates and they usually use man
hours/months but considering 5 day work weeks.

