I would like to tell you about my past experience when I have been in the process of finding a new job as a Software Developer.
I was able to find an opportunity with a great team and interesting project but this post is about the job search itself.
What I have to admit, is that the recruitment process was quite demanding and time-consuming.
It required the coordination of several phone calls, phone interviews, and onsite meetings.
I often found myself repeating answers for the same questions:
I suspect that, looking from the other side, I was also one of many candidates in the sea.
Could it be done better? I bet it could!
It seems that the job search process is (not only in the IT industry) in some parts broken or bad designed.
I am happy to share my insights on the recruitment process from a Software Developer perspective and tell what made me pick one company and say “Thank you” to the others.
Let's start with the issues I found during the few recruitment processes:
The first thing that I found quite irritating is hearing the same questions across interviews at a company. (like, for example, what is your motivation for applying). It has not happened very often but still a few times.
Now, I understand that some information can get lost in the process but, dear companies and recruiters, please try to make it a consistent narrative and make sure that you are up to date with the notes from the previous meeting or call with the candidate.
It is beneficial for both you and the candidates to get to know each other better during the interviews.
If you require the candidate to have an interest in what you are doing, then you should also make sure to get a better understanding of the candidate's background.
Another frustrating thing with the current state if tech recruitment (similarly to the previous one) is repetition in interviews with different companies.
In the couple of interviews that I went through I ended up explaining the garbage collector in Java in at least 4 companies and had to answer: what are generics in Java? at least 3 times.
This repetition isn't easy solvable because each company needs to check if the candidate is competent.
One solution might be having some sort of knowledge / skill proof that you do once and just show it to the company, so that the interviewers can focus on the more specific question.
One caveat: I don't mean here a certification or a state exam but more like a real skills vetting process. (perhaps a coding session)
Now, there are a few problems with such an approach:
They are not easy to solve but if they would be, the industry would benefit from it immensely.
One important information for the recruiters - we, developers, hate the generic emails / LinkedIn messages that you send.
It doesn't matter that "it is a great career opportunity at an international company" or that "the project is a new product written in the state of the art technologies"
We are sceptical to those messages because they show that you do a spray and pray approach and don't really care about the recipient. I mean, why do you think I would change the job just 4 months after joining the current company?
This spammy approach probably works on a bigger scale if you send hundreds of such messages but you can do better.
How?
Simply ask the developer:
How are you doing at your current role?
What are your career goals?
Which project might interest you?
Take it from there with those who reply and try to give them valuable career advice instead of pushing yet another job offer.
It might be hard to switch to this mindset:
But, if you build just a couple of those genuine relationships, you will not have a hard time finding the people in the future (especially from recommendations
One thing that I would give kudos for is the response time and organization of the interviews.
Most of the recruiters and companies that I dealt with deserve an A note for it.
And those who are sloppy - please, take notes:
If a candidate is applying and you don't answer him within 48 hours - he might be already scheduling an onsite interview with your competitor.
Finding time for the interview this week instead of next might not be easy but it might mean that the candidate will finally take your offer.
Last but not least - how much time do you need after the last interview?
I had companies that answered me the same the and those that took 2 weeks for it.
Guess which ones have a better chance of hiring
Looking for a new role in tech in Switzerland?