recruitment – The Blog of Colin Mackay

At the top of your game

Having recently changed jobs I read a fair number of job specs and a phrase that stuck out for me was a desire for companies to hire someone “at the top of their game”.

I can understand the sentiment behind that. You want to hire someone that is very good at what they do. However that turn of phrase is off-putting for one big glaring reason. If you are at the top of your game now, where do you expect to be in the future?

I will be quite honest and say that I am not at the top of my game. I don’t expect to be at the top of my game for decades to come. And when I do get to the top of my game it will be the day I retire.

What I do expect of myself is to continually learn and improve. Each day I improve “my game”. I take the mistakes I’ve made in the past and commit to not repeating them. I take the successes and find out what made them successful and apply them to appropriate situations in the future. I learn new technologies as that broadens my horizons and makes me more valuable. Through my blog, at conferences, or mentoring colleagues I teach others what I have learned as that helps everyone improve and it solidifies in my mind the knowledge I have.

The interesting thing is that I didn’t used to think that way.

When I left university I had the arrogance to think that I knew it all and for a few years I worked on that principle. But that attitude eventually caught up with me and I spent some time unemployed partly as a result of that attitude. I am determined not to let that happen again. These days I am acutely aware of what I don’t know. I think that now I am more aware of my limitations I am a better developer. Because I’m more aware of what I don’t know I strive to fill those gaps by ensuring my own education – I don’t let an employer dictate what I should be learning. I am pro-active and go out there and ensure I’m educated. Of course, if my employer wants to put me on a specific training course I’ll accept it.

— Training Developers 10/Nov/2008.

Eventually, one day, I will finally be “at the top of my game”.

How not to interview a candidate

I recently started a new job. I interviewed for a few companies and got a few offers on the table. However, one interview stuck out for me because, well, let me tell you the story…

I interviewed for a company and the first interview went really well. I liked the guys that were interviewing me and everything went really positively. They also liked me and invited me back for a second interview. They explained at the end of the first interview that the second interview was going to involve some technical competency questions, whiteboarding and so on. I was looking forward to it.

A few days later the recruitment agent called to confirm the time for the second interview and I duly turned up at the appropriate time. The second interview had a different panel to the first which isn’t unusual. However, the format was very similar to the first interview.

Towards the end of the interview one of the interviewers asked me about Scottish Developers, the user group I help run. This is not unusual. Companies are often keen to see such passion for the job that they see this as a positive. Not this chap. I was subjected to several minutes of questions about how my involvement could negatively impact the company and what I’d be doing to mitigate that.

I have found that negative leaning questions fail to understand the implications of running a user group. I run Scottish Developers as part of my own personal training and skills improvement programme, it also benefits many people around me also. To ask how that might negatively affect the company and to seek further assurances that any activities that are organised in my own time, which they are, and are done so well in advance displays a level of control that would be unacceptable, not to mention detrimental to them as I would not be able to keep my skills as up-to-date as I’d like. Something that benefits them more than it does me. I do this because I enjoy software development and I want to continually improve, the side effect of this is that they get a employee that is highly skilled and highly motivated. To cause demotivation in that way would be detrimental to both of us.

Suffice to say that line of questioning left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Then they asked me what I thought of the interview process, so I mentioned in my answer that I thought that the second interview was going to be the more technical and there would be some whiteboarding, problem-solving, and technical questions.

“Where did you hear that from?” was the unexpected, almost barked, response.

“Well, I was told…” was as far as I got in a reply.

“Was it the [name-of-recruitment-agent] at [recruitment-agents-firm]?”

“N…” again I didn’t get a chance to respond.

“I’m going to have to have words with her. That’s not acceptable”

And that was when a previously very positive impression of the company turned into a very firm definite rejection.

He refused to listen to my answer. In fact, he refused to let me speak. He made a wild assumption, which was wrong, and wouldn’t let me correct it. Finally he set out a course of action he was going to take based on that incorrect assumption which was to chastise the recruitment agent for something that was clearly not her fault.

Some interviewers forget that an interview is a two way process. The company want to see what the candidate is like and the candidate want to see what the company is like. For an interviewer to act in such a way was quite revealing.

In one respect I was glad that he did react this way at the interview stage, it saved me finding out once I actually started with the job.

Recruitment Agents take note

A few times a week I get emails from recruitment agencies, they are are pretty much all along the same lines. The email seems to be a standard template that tells me absolutely nothing of importance about the job and gives me next to zero incentive to find out more.

I’m in a pretty great job at the moment that I’m really enjoying, so I’m not actually looking to move, but had this been maybe about a year ago (before things got restructured) I would have moved if anyone gave me a reasonable incentive for doing so. Based on the generic emails that say nothing of consequence that recruitment agents send out it is better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know. And I really don’t know.

So, here’s an example of something I received earlier this week:

From: <Name-of-agent>
Sent: <date>
To: Colin Mackay
Subject: Possible Synergy

Hi Colin,

We’ve not spoken before, I’m a head-hunter in the <technology-misspelled> development space and your name has came to light as a top talent in the <technology-misspelled> space.

I know your not actively on the market and I would not be contacting you if I didn’t feel I had something truly exceptional.

My role not only gives you interesting programme work in the <technology-misspelled> space but also strong career progression route in a growing business, work life balance, supportive environment, stability and a final salary pension. <name-of-city-I-live-in> based role.

Are you free for a discreet chat about this, what is the best time and number to call you on?

Kind Regards,

<name-of-agent>

<contact details>

This tells very little. She has at least identified that I work with the relevant technology (although sometimes I think that might just be a fluke given the number of emails I receive about things that I’m not remotely competent in) and the city I live in, so I suppose that’s a good start.

Pretty much every recruitment agent send out something similar. Every email I receive says the job is “truly exceptional”, “exciting” or that it’s an “amazing opportunity”. Those words are so over used that more often the email gets binned at that point. A lesson from many a primary school teacher trying to improve her pupils vocabulary is that they can’t use the word “nice” any more and they’ll get marked down if they do.

Nothing here sells me on the idea that change would be a good idea even although they acknowledged I’m not actively on the market.

The agent did not mentioned the type of company. Even if they can’t mention the name of the company at this stage the following would be useful: Is it a software consultancy? a digital agency? a software house with a defined product? An internal software department in a larger company? Which industry is the company operating in?

Some of the answers might turn me off, but it is better to know now than waste time to find out later. Some of the answers may pique my interest, which is obviously a good thing.

They mention the “<name-of-technology> space”. For the moment, we’ll ignore that it was misspelled (lots of technologies have strange ways of spelling or capitalising things, but it doesn’t take long to find out the official way).

They don’t really define what “XYZ space” actually means. There are so many subgroups of technology in that “space” that it could mean anything, including things I’m either unsuitable for or have no interest in. What’s the database technology (assuming there is one)? What is the front end technology (assuming there is one)? Or is the role wholly at one end or the other (e.g. mostly in the business logic or mostly in the front end)? What tool sets and frameworks are involved? (e.g. Visual Studio 2012, include version numbers. I’m interested in progressing forward, but if they’re still on Visual Studio 2008 I’m not interested and it would be better that you know that now). Is the company all single-vendor based (i.e. only using a tool if that vendor produced it) or do they use technologies from third parties (open source or commercial)?

There is nothing about training in the description they’ve provided. That would be a big bonus to me. I already spend in the region of £2000 a year keeping myself up-to-date (books, on-line videos, conferences, etc.), it would be nice to find an employer that is genuinely interested in contributing in that area beyond buying occasional books or giving me the occasional day-off outside of my annual leave to attend a conference that I’m already paying for. After all, they are the ones benefiting from all that training. However, occasionally emails do mention training, but it is sometimes couched in language that suggests a reluctance (e.g. “as an when required by the business”), but it’s there because the company or agent knows it will attract potential candidates if they mention training.

If the prospective company doesn’t provide training then I’d remind them that it is “Better to train your developers and risk they leave, than keep them stupid and risk they stay”. If the prospective company has a really negative view to training then I really wouldn’t want to work for them – I have already worked with a company that seemed to proactively provide disincentives for any sort of training.

Finally, there is no mention about salary. While, on the whole, I’m more interested in other things, I do have a mortgage to pay. If the salary won’t cover my bills with enough left over for a nice holiday (it’s no fun sitting at home watching Jeremy Kyle on days off) then that would be a showstopper even if all other things were perfect.

Also, stating salary as “£DOE” or “£market rate" is equally useless. Companies have a budget. They might say “£DOE” (depending on experience), but if it goes above their budget then that’s all they are going to offer. If that is not enough then it is better to know that up front than later on.

I’ve also been in situations where I’ve felt that the recruitment agent knew my salary expectation wasn’t going to fly with the hiring company, but strung me along for a bit until finally saying that they rejected my CV. It would be better to let potential recruits know up front without wasting everybody’s time.

While providing more information up front might reduce the interest from some potential candidates, at least they are not going to waste their valuable time and the recruitment agent’s valuable time pursuing something that is not going to come to anything. On the other hand, providing more information might be the catalyst to getting someone who is not actively looking to sit up and think about making that change.

Certainly, if I keep receiving the generic emails like the one above, especially that acknowledge I’m not actively looking, then I’m never going to look unless my current employer does something to make me question why I am there.