One thing I know for sure, school means almost nothing. It helps a lot but only when you spend the time learning as much as possible about web technologies. As well as developing and refining your skills as a web developer.
The best gigs I ever landed were obtained without the use of a resume. Simply an email + a link to a cool site that I've built.
At least until he is willing to relocate and become involved in the day-to-day operations.
The point is what results you get.
I have one particular client who relies on me greatly. They accept the fact that school comes first and we work around that, but things have slowed down significantly while I'm in school. I find it more draining to sit in boring classes all day than to sit at a desk working on an interesting project. Between that, homework, and the distractions of college life, I get little consulting work done.
That's just me though...I flourish when at a desk with a large monitor, not sitting in my messy dorm room with a 13" laptop. He may be the type who can handle both an education and work, or he may be at a school that requires very little of him. Everyone functions differently in different situations. Bottom line? Keep him with you with small projects, even if he is busy. You never know when he, like myself, will have the sudden urge to take a semester off and work on a startup (and be sure to be there to take advantage this opportunity if it should come along).
P.S.-There's also a lot to be said for working in the same location as someone, telecommuting kills my productivity, but again, I'm not the standard for anything :)
The challenge is actually understanding whether a telecommuting college student was really digging in, putting in the hours, and generating high-quality code. And, of course, there's the challenge of a distributed team (but that's a pretty well-understood challenge).
If you have a passion for productivity/GTD and that sorta thing, feel free to drop me a line. If you have passion for other things, it might be worth posting a link to a bit more information about you and what you enjoy. The only thing cooler than writing great software is writing great software that solves a problem that you care about.
For quality code you need (to be) a good developer to know that.
A blog is nice, because in an interview process, I only really get to know you for like 1 hour tops. In a blog, I can better understand your values, your interests, and what you've done.
Resumes have their place, if you have hundreds of potential candidates to go through. If you are a good candidate, you should have pages and pages worth of experiences, and it's now a matter of picking the experiences relevant to the task.
I would have no trouble hiring someone, but they have to get up to speed quickly, as I also have no trouble firing someone. Hiring should be flexible and provisional.
What kind of experience are you looking to get out of it? What skills you got, and where are you located?
I would like to hire you.
Answers that question, doesn't it....
So, no.
I think starting your own or getting involved with something locally is your best bet. That's the fastest way to get experience.
As you have probably read elsewhere, the choice of co-founders and early employees is extremely important to a startup.
That said, depending on your skillset, you might want to look for freelance work for smaller companies on places like authenticjobs.com or the 37signals gig board. These will give you good experience and credibility, and require less risk on the part of the hiring company.
People/soft skills are very important, but what % are they relative to coding quality/output/volume?
I've telecommuted for almost a year before, working for a startup.
Communication can be a pain and you have to be really careful about wording, etc. when you're using email / IM / etc. Without vocal inflection it's easy to mistake joking / sarcasm / bluntness as instead someone just being a total dick.