Reply #72: You've probably thought of this

[matt819]

After a number of false starts, after seven years I decided (and found the money) to redo our website. We looked at four developers in the region (New England) and settled on one about an hour from where we live. As far as I can tell, this group is a "virtual" company. There are a few full-time people who work out of their homes. The owner drums up business, another person rides herd on the process, and then there's a project manager assigned to our site. I'm not sure, but I think the other folks - graphic design, e-commerce integration, coding, SEO - are all subs, though my guess is that they do much of their work for this company. At least one of the other companies that provided a proposal has a similar sort of arrangement, and I know that the developer I've used for the past several years does the same, at least with the graphic design component.

Granted, there must be thousands of these sorts of operations, some good, some great, and some utterly appalling, and trying to figure out who's who can be overwhelming. But this might be the way to go. (Think about it - if 100 DUers were to provide the names of 4 legitimate companies in 100 different regions, that's one heck of a start.) With a good website that quickly and clearly demonstrates your skills, you might even be able to avoid the experience you describe, since you will have demonstrated your expertise online before you meet anyone. In this regard, a friend of mine who owns a couple of businesses is also in the market for a new web developer. She may meet with the company I'm using, but at the moment she's considering a developer in Florida. That developer might be fat, skinny, old, young, male, female (or all of the above). It doesn't matter. But she likes their portfolio, they seem to be on the same design wavelength, and the price is right. As a result, they may come to an agreement without face-to-face contact.

As the subject line observes, you've probably already thought of this, but I thought I'd weigh in. Believe me, in my mid-fifties, I'm relieved that I'm running my own business (even in this economy) rather than having to confront the realites of the job market.

Good luck.