Hi Mike,

I can't tell for sure but it appears you're looking to hire someone full-time as opposed to hiring for a specific project or contract. If so, some of this might not fit perfectly for your situation but I thought it might be helpful if I shared my experiences from the other side (as a freelance developer/consultant seeking projects). Here are my thoughts and responses to your questions:

Filtering Candidates:
The Salesforce AppExchange is also very useful for both posting Jobs as well as perusing lists of Developers and Consultants. I wish it were exposed better but if you visit the AppExchange <https://appexchange.salesforce.com/> and then click on the search box, you'll get a popup that lets you choose 'Developers'. From there you can apply a limited set of filter criteria like skill, rating, location and language. The direct link is <https://appexchange.salesforce.com/developers>.

Based on my experiences, finding the appropriate person for your project is much like hiring any employee for your company. Salesforce is vast and there are so many different skills, experiences, communication abilities and work-ethics out there, most of the companies I work for go through the process of first detailing the duties and responsibilities of the position along with the skill-set required. Then, based on the applications received, they are manually filtered in order to find the candidates that meet the baseline. From there, phone interviews are conducted and references are checked to verify information contained in the resume.

You can post your job here, in the discussion board, but I feel a lot of companies prefer to post in the Jobs section of the AppExchange since candidates can privately apply directly to the posting and, as the poster, you get a nice summary of everyone that has applied along with direct access to their online profile.

Salaries/Prices:
Again, Salesforce is vast so if you simply ask how much someone charges, you'll find rates will be all over the map. However, once you clearly define the perfect candidate for your job, you'll be able to post the job information and then compare candidates. There are many factors that affect prices such as skill-set required, urgency/timetable, length of contract, and terms of contract.

I probably don't need to mention this but there's always a word of caution about comparing candidates solely based on hourly rates since this number is useless without also knowing the number of hours they estimate it will take. In this case, fixed-price contracts are a good way to compare (though they require detailed specifications to make sure you're comparing the same things).

Previous Work, Portfolio, List of Developers/Companies:
This ties into your first question from above regarding the filtering of candidates. If you decide to use the AppExchange to post your job, you will have direct access to each candidate's online profile. There is always the risk that these profiles have also been padded but you can look at their Jobs and Reviews to get a sense for the type of work they have been involved with <https://appexchange.salesforce.com/results?type=Developer>.

I hope this helps provide some direction? I have many more thoughts and feelings about finding the right developer for your situation but my response is already getting too long...

Kind Regards,
Chris