Job Searching for Software Engineers

Over the years, I have gained a tremendous amount of experience and insights through the hiring process. I’ve reviewed literally hundreds of CVs, created, and assessed technical tests and interviewed well over fifty candidates for predominantly senior software engineering roles…

I have seen the entire spectrum of CVs and met many extremely interesting people along the way. I’ve learnt from candidates, colleagues, and other interviewers. I’ve even done some formal training, from all of this, here are some tips I hope that could help you next time you’re looking for that greener grass.

The CV:

Your CV is often what gets you in the door, it’s usually the first filter, when someone has a stack of CVs to go through, you need to make sure yours stands out, so I recommend the following:

• Invest some time on your CV, make it look professional (use a template if you don’t have the design flair) and review it for grammar errors etc.
• List actual skills and experience, if you read an article once on whateverJS, no you can’t list that as a skill. Depending on the job spec and your experience, consider being explicit if it was commercial VS personal experience.
• Make your points succinct, yet informative, if your CV is over 5 pages, it’s probably too long, you’ve lost a large percentage of reviewers, they don’t have time.
• Get a little personal, include a few sentences about who you really are, you want to be relatable, associable, or rememberable.

The interview(s):

Regardless of whether it’s a meet and greet, technical interview, final negotiations, or a mix.

• Have a positive attitude and be nice?— Having a bad attitude from day dot is not going to do you well, first impressions do last.
• Be honest and transparent, don’t tell your potential employer what they want to hear, tell them what you have done and what you are capable of, if you going to make promises, make sure you can fulfil them. If you don’t know something, be truthful, if you willing to take a guess, let them know it’s a guess/inclination.
• Be Prepared, go through the job spec, their tech stack, what the company does etc., make sure you know if it is a technical interview or not and if there are any specific about the interview process that can be shared beforehand to minimize surprises. Being prepared will also make you more confident, increasing your chances of a yay.
• Ask Questions, it always surprises me when a candidate has no questions about the company, they are going to commit almost a third of their life to… Really think about this one, what is it that you like/don’t like about your current role? Make sure you know what you are getting yourself into.

The whole hiring process is a risk, no doubt about it…

It’s a risk for the business,?because the company gets one, maybe two interviews and usually a technical test or project of sorts and then with that very little information, you need to decide whether the candidate will be able to perform the tasks expected of them daily, for 40+ hours a week, potentially for years to come…

If the business gets it wrong, it can be very costly both in terms of costs and time from employees that could otherwise be doing adding actual value to the business. On top of that, the business is not realizing the value initially expected from the employee, so either they accept less than expected performance or they will likely have to find a replacement, another time-consuming and costly exercise.

It’s a risk for the candidate,?because you are leaving what you know, who you know, and going into a whole new environment, even for the same job title or job role, your day-to-day responsibilities can differ significantly. You’re being sold on this new company, team, position etc. and they want you for your skills and value you can add to their organisation. You could be getting over-sold or misled, intentionally or based on biases.

If you can’t do the job required, either you just coast which brings you zero job satisfaction or fulfilment, or you might get performance managed, which can be an extremely taxing process on your emotional and mental wellbeing. I have had to performance manage people before, and trust me, it’s one of the worst things for everyone involved, especially the person under performing.

Or if you can do the job but the environment is toxic, unrealistic or the work is just outright not what you expected, moving again after such a short tenure can be a lot of unnecessary admin and poses the following question for your future job prospects… “did they not cut it?”

Conclusion:

So, there you have it, I hope the above can at least provide some food for thought if you’re considering… Yeah sure it’s a risk, it’s going to take time and preparation, you might get rejected or you might be successful, it might end up working out and it might not… Isn’t that part of what makes the whole process so interesting… I wish you all the best in your journey!

“The biggest risk is not taking any risk” — Mark Zuckerberg