>Finding a guy who can program a particular brand of chipshooters took 2.5 months. We found a single guy in all BC/Washington/Oregon area, and he demanded 100k+ for something that I can teach a highschooler to do.
So why did you waste 10 weeks searching for a candidate, when you could have so easily trained an entry-level employee?
It seems like your firm either failed to engage suffiently talented recruiters, or possibly failed to set the compensation offered appropriately.
Most people who need that sort of work done can't do it themselves, and people who can do it are rare in the US. It sounds like the one guy you found knows his value and charges accordingly. I admire him for that. What you charge for your time should be based on the value you return, not how hard your work is.
As Joe-Z says, there's a large supply of cleaners available which keeps wages down. I'd add I would pay a premium for really good cleaners. A company that employs cleaners who can clean properly and who understand the ways tech workers think would be able to charge more. For example, not moving people's monitors when they clean desks...
And if you've got an office full of sensitive material, you will and do pay a significant premium over what you'd pay to clean an office full of of help-desk employees.
Its probably about the compensation. The entry-level employee in u.s. probably was much more expensive and would do less "motivated".
And these skinny guys from the technical focused highschools there, can spend 14 hours doing your tech stuff on the screen + 6.5 hours a day playing DOTA at a massive smoky "smoke-to-death" Lan-house or cyber cafe or whatever its called nowadays. 7 days a week, 28 days a month.
And when this one brakes you take the next one on the line. Too many people.
So why did you waste 10 weeks searching for a candidate, when you could have so easily trained an entry-level employee?
It seems like your firm either failed to engage suffiently talented recruiters, or possibly failed to set the compensation offered appropriately.