We all know that the current skills shortage, especially around the SDLC, has dramatically increased the number of roles available and this has of course increased the need for interviews to be more successful but is everything as it seems. Whilst the vast majority of company’s are of course completely transparent throughout the process there are some examples of people being offered a dream that hasn’t been realised yet or in some cases will never be.

One of the things I have noticed is we have seen an increase in people leaving roles after short periods and the main reason is “it wasn’t anything like the role I was told in the interview”. Now of course I am not saying this is the case across all business and of course projects and personal change but how can you make sure the role you have been sold is the Utopia you have been promised.

The answer is simple research with LinkedIn being a great resource for this. You can simply click on the company page and have a look at who is working there, what their history is and in a lot of cases what they are doing. It should give you an insight into the type of people they employ, what skills they are using and what they are doing.

You can also use LinkedIn to see who have recently worked there, you may be able to see how long people have stayed, where those people have gone and also what skills they acquired whilst working there. This of course  isn’t an exact science of course, as the information is reliant on accurate  and constant updates of peoples information, but it could give you an overview for example if you see a lot of people have left recently it might be worth asking the question of why that is.

Also look at businesses own blogs and social media,  this again will give you a good insight to the type of company they are, typically a business will have a social media “voice” which can give you an idea of company culture, corporate, relaxed, nerf guns etc.

These are only a few examples, finding information has never been easier, and making the important decision on your next job role is definitely worth a little investigation and will usually bring a positive response, so make time to make sure you have all of the information.

Blog written by Gill Twist of Twist IT Recruitment.

Gill Twist – LinkedIn

So they brought in a Management Team who realised that for the company to be what they wanted to be they needed to hire the best people to help them do this. They were one of the first to embrace using ASP.NET (yes that long ago) fully and their recruiter (ahem) was able to promote their company to a (very small at that time) group of developers, These developers had come out blinking from the darkness of Classic ASP, VB6, Visual C++ and VB.NET to the shiny new world of C#. Everybody was happy, the developers got to work on the latest technology, the website got built quickly and management looked after the developers making it a happy place to work. By being on the cutting edge of technology and methodologies everyone wanted to work at the company because they had a brilliant reputation, the company grew and grew and became the UK’s biggest and best at what they did.

Then it went wrong!

The company had gotten BIG and lots of management layers implemented, it all got corporate. The “keeping developer’s and techies happy” approach went out of the door and with it so did a lot of their staff. Disgruntled that their previous happy place to work had become super corporate and the technology whilst still cutting edge was becoming just the same as other company’s. The developers spoke with their feet and left and this caused a problem, if a significant number of people, all working in the same team, all leave a business within a short time it creates a ripple through the industry that can turn into a reputation killing tsunami.

The company got a bad rep!

With employees leaving and talking to recruiters, to future employees, to their mates down the pub, to people they met at events, to new colleagues the ball of rumour and speculation grew until it became almost impossible for them to attract the level of developer the company needed. Anyone the friendly recruiter spoke to about the company had heard negative rumours and didn’t want to be submitted, the rumours had created doubt in people’s heads something needed to be done.

Luckily the company whilst losing some very talented and important people still had a number of key people who still believed in their vision. A new leader was brought in who also shared the vision and the team worked hard to rebuild the environment that they had, making it even better than before.

They started developing again using bleeding edge technology and implementing marvellous methods of working, it was a sight to behold, a fantastic place, all they needed now was some amazing people to come and work  for them, but they still couldn’t get the staff they wanted

Their rep was still bad!

People still listened to the rumours,  the ball was still rolling, people didn’t believe. What could they do, building a reputation is hard enough but rebuilding one is even tougher.

A meeting was called; the first thing was to look at how did they promote their new and improved environment to get people through the door, the friendly recruiter needed to be briefed. This meant not just being given a job spec but really understanding why it was such a supercool place to work again, this involved speaking to recruitment team, business leaders and the developers who worked there, finding out what had changed and why it was so amazing.

Now the recruiter had the magic information, the stuff that developers needed to know, so started to approach developers, some of whom who had previously turned down the chance of interviews. By talking about what had happened honestly and explaining to developers what the business now offered people starting to become interested again.. As the recruiter is someone who talks daily to a lot of people in the industry they were also able to have conversations with the developers who had left the company. She proudly told them about all of the marvellous changes and new shiny tools that the company had implemented and how everything had changed, this started to get positive mumblings from them. (the ball was slowing)

People started going through the door!

The company realised that they need to really beef up their recruitment brand so the second way of promotion was to get involved in more events, getting their developers to show off their new shiny tools by doing talks and to also mix with other developers to tell them that it was once again a great place to work. The word was getting out

More people starting going through the door!

The company still needed to shout about this more, but how can you promote yourselves to people who spend most of their days tied to a computer? So they went online and created a jobs page that really showed what it was like to work at the company. They moved away from corporate job ads promoting the company and instead created job ads that explained to techies what they would expect by working at the company and why they would enjoy it they created a great online brand.

Even more people starting going through the door!

Now they had all of these people all wanting to go through the door, so how to interview them? The recruiter having spoken to many developers regarding the company had collated a lot of feedback information, one of the negative rumours was how the company interviewed its staff and how the process had made their mate/colleague/drinking buddy feel. The interview steps couldn’t be changed, they company needed to make sure that the people they brought in would not only be amazing developers but also buy into their ethos and philosophy. What could be done, the recruiter sat down with the company and discussed the feedback they had and from this by tweaking certain elements such as taking it from a 2 stage to 1, getting the leader who was passionate about what they did to do the interview and training the other team members involved how to present what they did.

Not only where people through the door but they loved the process!
(The ball had stopped)

The team starting growing again, and with top notch people, the word started getting out, people started approaching the company wanting to work for them. Other companies looking at their model started to emulate them once again. The developer’s were happy again!

So what is the moral of this story, well really there isn’t one. It’s just an example of how easy it is for your company can gain a bad rep through rumour and chat. It is important if you are looking at growing that your recruitment brand is positive and says everything you want it to say in the market.

 picture courtesy of http://tinyurl.com/px437of

When  we talk to candidates  attending interviews what we stress  is that it is the chance to sell yourself, what you have done and what you want to achieve  and make a great first impression, this also applies to companies wanting to attract great candidates, if the process is to long winded candidate can lose interest and also confidence in the company

This was highlighted when I was recently approached by a company asking me to work with  them as they had been looking for a number of months to bring on developers and hadn’t succeeded which in turn was impacting them by pushing projects back and causing costs. When I went through the job and company details they seemed to tick all of the boxes and then some, great company, growing team, bleeding edge tech, using the latest methodologies, collaborative and innovative environment, really interesting project work on offer and amazing offices but they just couldn’t get anyone on board.

So we sat down and went through their interview process which included

• a telephone interview with H
• a home coding test
• another telephone interview with one of the technical team
• an interview in the office  including a  HR competency based interview but then the technical manager doing another technical test and going through the answers for the interview
• After all of this IF they liked the candidate they would invite them back in for a final interview with a director. By this point I was exhausted just listening to the process phew.

Now it is very easy as a recruiter to just pooh pooh a process with a hand wave and dismiss this as “stupid” in the current market and just stop sending CV’s, the company wasn’t daft they knew that their interview process was slowing down the process and in some cases losing them candidates but having bad experiences in the past recruiting in panic they were nervous of cutting out any areas.

What we did was speak to everyone involved in the process and talk to them what they wanted out of the interview and working out a way to cut down the  time and also reformat the process to make it easier for candidates to attend the interview this involved

• removing the HR telephone call by ensuing we as a recruiter understood their business and was “selling them correctly”,
• the company increasing the difficulty of the home coding test
• if they pass the  coding test then it was a face to face interview in the office using their home coding test as the main point of the technical interview followed by a HR interview and making sure that the director was available should they like the potential candidate to see them then and there.

This still enabled everyone who had to be involved still was but by simply demonstrating we could be the companies first impression if you like and getting them to increase the difficulty of the home test we were  able to reduce the interview process to just  one meeting  but still give the company the confidence they needed in the candidates. Oh and yes place 2 developer’s with them.

So if you are finding that you are losing candidates be3fore you have even met them take a look at your process, it may just need some stream lining.

Wrong!

To many recruiters rely on job specs passed through a multi layered recruitment process with little or no understanding of how the role fits into and affects the team or how that role/team will progress in future. With the shortage of technical skills available to companies and the increased demand for talent this can result in wasted time on interviews, candidate frustration, increased attrition and an organisations recruitment brand being damaged.

Good recruiters should be working with organisations to understand what their goals are by filling a particular role. Recently I was asked to find a number of Web Developers for a team to fill a variety of roles. The roles provided different areas of expertise across the team but all had the same “buzz words” and “key skills” required.

Now what would be the “easy” thing to do would be to throw myself into the hunt for these developers, trying to match all of the skills on the CV, blanket sell the roles in a way set up interviews and then wait for the results. But I didn’t, luckily I was in a fortunate position to have a very good relationship with the team manager so spent some time really understanding how the roles fitted in. We discussed how the team would be developing, where the importance lay and also how to retain people they would be employing. This meant that with the market knowledge I have and also breaking down the requirements with the manager we came to a conclusion that the 3 roles actually should  actually be aligned in a different way with one position changing completely meaning that anyone who I submit will be the right fit. So the Web Developer’s they originally where looking for were not the ones they needed.

So don’t be clone recruiters, get to know your clients and use the market knowledge you have to consult with them and help them as well as yourself.

May the force be with you!

No this is not my new idea for a comic book although I reckon it could be pretty good, this is my experiences of practising what I blog. Following on from Why I got My Geek I have been very lucky to attend 2 great events over the last couple of weeks

DareDevs

I have to say I was a tad nervous (petrified) when the lovely guys at @DareDevs asked me to come along and give a talk all about recruitment, this would mean me talking to developers regarding a professional they generally mistrust and are frustrated with for 90 mins.

Having been asked, I was conscious of not just doing a “Recruiters are poor souls who are massively maligned” talk and instead put together a “warts and all” talk based around what we do, why we do it, and how to work with recruiter’s. I also was conscious that I would need a good amount of time for a Q&A (firing squad) session.

Content of talk

• Intro
• Why companies use a recruiter to hire developers
• What IT recruiters do – A behind the scene look at how we manage the process from taking a job spec to making sure a developer starts on their first day
• Why we do what we do – i.e. the seemingly dark side of recruitment
• Helping yourself -What to do before you start you job search, to give yourself the best chance – cv & social media advice
• How to choose and use a recruiter to find you your perfect job
• Current market conditions and trends – what companies are looking for, how to get yourself that perfect job
• You turn – How can we help you
• Q&A

All in all from feedback the talk went well and it was great to discuss people’s frustrations and also hopefully lift the lid a little on the reasons we do what we do as well.

The guys at DareDevs were lovely to me and anyone wanting to attend a Dev/Techie group in Warrington once a month you should definitely check these guys out they have some great speakers coming up.

Manchester Girl Geeks

I have followed the tweets and blogs online of the amazing Manchester Girl Geeks which organises networking events & workshops for women with an interest in STEM and was super pleased to be able to sponsor their most recent Barcamp. Having never attending an event like this I was really excited to see what innovation and inspiration would be on show.

The day was fantastic event, I met some really great people (girls and boys) and was really impressed and inspired by the topics covered in the non conference. As is traditional in all of Manchester Girl Geeks event their was a bake off in which Curve IT was super proud to come 2^nd.

I will definitely be attending more of these events as they are truly inspiring and informative as well as loads of fun…

Manchester Girl Geeks are hosting a BarCamp – an all-day interactive ‘unconference‘, where the talks are provided by attendees, and the programme isn’t known until the conference is under way!

Typical topics at BarCamps include technology, science, mathematics, or anything else that’s geeky and fun! Share your knowledge, passion and enthusiasm with other like-minded nerdy types. As with all Manchester Girl Geeks events, male attendees are welcome – to make sure we’re balanced, it would be great if you could bring along a female friend or girl geek. It’s a win/win/win situation, right?

The event is free to attend, and refreshments will be provided. Bring your laptop, tablet, phone or other wi-fi enabled device, and anything you want to share.

Manchester Girl Geeks are an amazing non-for-profit organisation that organises Networking Events, Meet Ups and Workshops for women and girls who are interested in or already work in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

You can follow them on twitter to find out all of their latest news and events mcrgirlgeeks

People seemed happy to go in and just be able to program and very little was needed to attract the right talent “to get the job done”. Most of our focus was about pleasing the client and we had plenty of candidates to do this. Yes we were specialists in our “vertical” markets but at that time that just meant knowing what skills went with what and where, who recruited the developers we had on our books and making sure we knew what was about to happen in development, which at that time changed very very very slowly.

Back then of course Technology was still seen as a business cost, a lot of companies still had the burn marks from Y2K, the .com bubble had apparently burst and the internet was only a toddler. The emphasis was on cost management, getting as much bang for your buck and if you like a “bums on seats” ethos.

Fast forward to now, we are in a Year of Code, there is an increasing gulf in skills and talent needed to fill the requirements of businesses, technology seems to be progressing and changing at an almost hourly rate. Take also into account also the reliance the UK has on Technology for its growth; in a paper from KMPG http://tinyurl.com/o7hq5pk, the Technology industry in 2013 recorded the best growth performance for almost a decade with 44% of technology companies saying they will be employing more staff.

So what does this mean? Well quite simply that Talented Technical Staff are massively in demand, and what that equates to in the recruitment world is that they are getting absolutely bombarded by in-house, internal and agency recruiters all fluttering their eyelashes and showing a bit of leg trying to get their attention all spewing roles that they “know” will be the best for them…. But do they?

Being a “true” specialist is an awful lot harder work than it used to be, having worked in the industry for years I have absorbed a lot of information from osmosis and have been lucky enough to meet and personally get to know some amazing Techies, who have patiently coached, explained and in some cases drawn simple cartoon diagrams enabling me to understand differences and innovations in IT which helps me do my job properly. To be taken seriously, I now have to spend many hours following tech innovators, leaders and developers on Twitter, trying to absorb tech blogs, reading Hacker News and generally up-skilling my brain on what makes the technical world tick and what its next moves are.

Knowing what a company wants in a developer’s code stack, what they are expected to do, how they will fit into the team is still all part of our role but what has become more important is understanding why a someone to would want to work for a company. This means that as recruiters we should now be getting much more involved in our industry sectors whether this be on social media, meet ups or even just taking people for a beer. Just reading about what’s hot in the market is not enough, we need to be engaging with people who work in the industry and not just to hit them up about roles or information but to understand and be involved in what is going on, why what people is doing is important and what is actually mean in the real world.

So get your geek on and get involved, I’m off to buy a Raspberry Pi….

My name is Gill and I am a Tweeting, Linked, Facebooking addict, not a day goes by without me spewing ideas, opinions and observations into an electronic space with the vain hope that I get some kind of recognition or acknowledgment back.

As I feed my addiction though recently I am noticing that I am having to “metaphorically speaking” shout louder and more often into the Social Arena to get my fix and I wondered is it all a bit too noisy and is this what is breeding the current trend of outspoken “Social Commentators” that a are rearing their ugly heads across all media outlets.

Whether it be online trolling, uncompromising newspaper columns, heated TV interviews or debates we know why these people are getting attention. They are “brave enough to say what people think”, but is this true, is it not the case that to gain that buzz of recognition they will say almost anything just to get the crowd riled up whether they believe it or not.

Newspapers and TV will always use this as publicity to gain publicity and you only need to read the comments of the “outraged” general public under newspaper articles all shouting and “fist shaking” to see that it works. Of course everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but surely only if these opinions are true rather than getting a fix of Social recognition.

Maybe its time to quieten down and stop feeding these monsters of the airtime and publicity they crave

“Image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/ter-burg/8127283172/”