An unexpected danger of outsourcing

I work at a Fortune 500 company where we use many contract programmers, and one of my jobs is hiring them. Normally, this is a straightforward process. But on one occasion, it went wildly out of control.

Standard operating procedure works like this: We contact several consulting firms. I let them know what we need, review the résumés they send, and select six or eight candidates for interview. Then, along with the technical lead on the project, I conduct a series of phone interviews with the candidates.

On this occasion, the most impressive developer we spoke to was an East Indian man named Kabir. He had six years’ experience in the development language we use, talked a great game, and could point to many significant accomplishments. And although he had an accent, neither the tech lead nor I had any problem understanding him.

Kabir showed up the next week and began his obligatory three-day orientation. Then, the tech lead gave him a development assignment. To our surprise, after a few days he was significantly behind schedule. We thought that perhaps he was having problems with our proprietary development environment, so we arranged to provide him with special training.

Unfortunately, scheduling issues with the HR department delayed this training for two weeks, so in the meantime, the tech lead put Kabir to work on some simple interface design. After two weeks, however, he had produced virtually nothing of value. We were beginning to be concerned. Still, we figured it would be unfair to hold this against Kabir, since interface design wasn’t the work he had been hired for.

Finally, the day for Kabir’s training arrived, and I sent him off to class with a deep sense of relief. A week later, when he emerged from class, he was eager to get to work, and we gave him a significant development task. After two days he was getting nowhere fast, and I found myself struggling to understand why this promising new hire was so far off the mark.

One odd thing struck me: Kabir’s accent was much thicker than I remembered from the phone interview, and he appeared less personable. I asked the tech lead to re-interview Kabir in person and check his references. You’ve probably already guessed what the background check confirmed: Kabir was not the same person we had interviewed!

Management dismissed Kabir immediately — along with several other contractors provided by the same company who couldn’t prove their credentials either. It appeared that we had fallen victim to a scam. The consulting firm was providing unqualified people, charging market rates, paying the ringers a small percentage of the fees, and pocketing the profits. A different (and highly qualified) person would prepare résumés, sit for phone interviews, and provide covert phone support, as required.

Apparently, our company wasn’t the only one where tolerance for poor performance allowed the unqualified candidates to survive long enough to learn the ropes. We alerted the Better Business Bureau, and our legal department began putting the hurt on the consulting firm.

Sadly, the damage had been done. Kabir had cost my project more than five person-weeks of development. But at least he had taught us to be more careful in our hiring practices.