Dear developers👩💻, recruiters🕵 and companies🏢,
I am a software developer.
In the last few months I have been in the process of looking for a new challenge.
I was able to find a great team and interesting project😍 but this post isn't about it.
It is about the job search process 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:
- What is my motivation?
- What technologies do I know?
- Why I am applying to this company?
Looking from the other side, I was probably just one of many candidates in the big 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 about 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 quite annoying:
The first annoyance is hearing the same questions across interviews at a company. (e.g. "What is your motivation for applying?").
Now, I understand that some information can get lost in the across multiple interviews 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.
Oldest comments (4)
Hi, as someone having participated and participating on both sides of that table: If an interview starts to feel like a real talk, the process and pressure are not noticeable anymore and all participants feel like they are learning something and enjoy sharing past experiences - then it is really going well! If the process is the main focus, then something is going very wrong.
Fair enough. As a "headhunter" recruiter, I hate the text-book questions and scripts that have been "proven successful". Bullshit. I threw that out on day one and still refuse to utilize that process. Tech Recruiting is broken because recruiters are not spending time to UNDERSTAND the roles, requirements, languages, databases, etc. I apologize to all the techies out there getting contacted for the 5th time for a position that is opposite of the candidates' role and skillsets currently. Maybe one day it can restructure, but in the meantime, I hope you find that badass recruiter in Poland who can be of use to you.
Erica
Only one annoyance listed, no real solution and no reason why you turned down other firms.
Hi George, this is a series of posts - in each of them I am tackling one of the things that could/should be improved :)