Tips to land a job in Development – Part IV: The Wait

Anxiety, concern, despair. The wait after a job interview, currently being employed or not, is a somewhat uncomfortable situation when there are high hopes involved.

The Wait

For those who are employed and determined to leave their current jobs, the wait is boring. Their willingness to work is low and the lack of interest usually takes over. Those who are unemployed have a similar fate: plagued by anxiety, the candidates lose motivation and feel discouraged.

In both cases, there is a common condition: the waiting period for a job interview result is unpleasant. Therefore, it is a sensitive moment.

According to available data (I found it somewhere on the web), it takes on average six weeks to close a selection process.

Tip 43:
Don´t stop job searching while waiting for a job interview result.
Tip 44:
Set a time to give up on a job opportunity (hint: maximum 1 month after the interview).

The Wait, for the Employed

Under no circumstances should a candidate who is currently employed get carried away by the feeling of total detachment from his or her current job. It is very likely that the company will continue its operations without the employee, and in my experience, after 2 or 3 weeks of someone’s departure, almost no one remembers that person.

Tip 45:
Keep an image of excellence.

It is difficult to keep devoting oneself as if perspectives still existed. I usually adopt a trick to keep myself motivated by letting the company know what they will miss through showing them the best of my work (even though both the company and former colleagues will forget everything in a few weeks time).

So, despite all the following tips being dedicated to those who are unemployed, those who are employed, time allowing, may also want to follow some.

The Wait, for the Unemployed

The wait, after a job interview, is much harder for those who are unemployed than for those who have a job. My only recommendation is to keep calm, although this is not a tip. In fact, this is a mantra that should be repeated whenever anxiety starts to get the better of us.

I usually say that work and employment are different concepts. One can possibly have a lot of work even without being employed. Consequently, this part focuses on the developers who are looking for a job.

Well-being

I like to hammer home the point that the development activity is a very sedentary one, and many professionals put in poor performances due to health issues. Moreover, when we think about those who are unemployed, we often find a combination of anxiety and bad habits, resulting in an explosive cocktail.

Well-being is something that should be taken very seriously when someone is discouraged by their current job. The moodiness of having to act against one’s own will is not something that is easy to cope with … A good suggestion is to make the most of any free time for self-improvement.

Tip 46:
Stay Healthy.

Take charge of health

Running requires nothing more than a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, and a pair of sneakers. It’s healthy, it fills the time positively, and it also provides the endorphins necessary for the candidate to keep his or her motivation and, most importantly, maintain self-esteem.

It also helps to stave off the sedentary lifestyle that is inherent in the development community.

Tip 47:
Play Sports. “Just do it!”.

Going out and running for an hour is far more useful than staying at home checking either the e-mail or the phone every 5 minutes to see if there is any contact from any employer. That is totally counterproductive: it will not only increase anxiety, but it might also lead to despair and therefore elevate cortisol levels to the ceiling.

So run! Money permitting, join a gym. In such a case, a great idea is for the developer without a job to enjoy the benefits of an empty gym in mid-afternoon to workout. This will seem like some kind of “generic advice” given in much the same way by all those health radio programs that always give the same old tip, but it is still valid, nonetheless.

Tip 48:
Physical health leads to mental health. Healthy body, healthy mind.

Motivation and Good Humour

The biggest challenge at this stage is to remain motivated.

If the worker is unemployed, he or she should give a great deal of attention to his or her motivation. Keeping oneself motivated and calm is not an easy task, especially with all the bad news that we are exposed to nowadays.

Luckily, there is a way to combat this. A good formula is to differentiate happiness from joy. Joy is a state of mood and attitude. Happiness is a state of spirit, or in other words, a state of mind.

Attitude is influenced by environment. Condition is a function of that environment. You choose your attitude towards the world, but do not choose how you feel related to what you face. So, there is a conflict at this point: where does motivation come from? Studies indicate that motivation stems from the person’s attitude, therefore, from his or her ability to behave in a more positive way in relation to the world.

Tip 49:
Read good news and consume positive information.

In short, this oversimplification of the subject will lead us to one conclusion: the candidate cannot be discouraged. And that depends on how much he or she is able to avoid being contaminated by an excess of negative points of view.

Coaching vs Psychologist

I really think that a lot of people who are paying for a coaching service should, in fact, be paying for psychological treatment. I have known many developers who make a point of countering the common opinion of the group they are in, even if they need to lie to do this.

Naturally, the number of people who know what a developer does is very small. So if being different makes the guy feel special, he already is. No need to strive for it.

Tip 50:
Remember that we are just regular human beings.

Remember that not always the most brilliant of candidates will land the job, but those whose profiles indicate that they will add to the profitability of the company. In other words, those who appear to be able to deliver more tasks on time, meeting set quality standards and who can still help out their colleagues. Being weird is not going to help that.

Even worse is when the guy decides to upset the interviewer for no reason whatsoever …

Other Activities

The so-called other activities are not the main activities requested by interviewers, but they can make all the difference during an interview. Developers who are currently employed will find it a little bit more difficult to study new things than jobless developers.

One of the best examples I can think of is the Microsoft Office package. Many developers claim they know Excel, but in fact, they only know how to open and save simple spreadsheets.

Learn a new skill

The candidates should remain active while waiting for the job offer, specially the developers. Even nowadays, I venture myself a bit in the technical area because I do not want to lose both the learning and the application development abilities.

Tip 51:
Never stop improving.

Some studies indicate that the cognitive ability declines with aging, however, the number of things we need to learn decreases in much greater ratio.

For instance, as technology evolved, those who already knew how to design embedded systems, only needed to change from the databook to the internet.

The key point is that, by adopting this learning mindset, the candidate demonstrates the much requested proactivity. I had mentioned that work and employment are not the same. So, by learning new skills, the developer will be working.

Tip 52:
Make it very clear to everyone that you are not inactive.

When it comes to learn a skill, people think of poetry, painting, woodwork, etc., but in fact there are a number of much more useful activities for a developer to learn. I recommend:

  1. Learn about Project Management.
  2. Read about HR and Coaching.
  3. Read about Philosophy.
  4. Study other programming language.
  5. Read good books (being totally biased, my book “Autodesenvolvimento para Desenvolvedores” can help !!!)
  6. Create your own internet structure. Email, cloud storage, etc. This can be done even with VMs.
  7. On an emergency basis, Uber can help you to pay the bills.

Nothing new with the remaining things: learn the application, study the solution and put it into practice.

Miraculous Solutions

Don’t look for or don’t waste your time with miraculous solutions. If there were a way to make good money in 2 hours of weekly work, why not to extend this formula to 40 hours and to make 20 times that?

I’ll answer this one. Because it is a scam.

Multilevel marketing solutions or pyramids only serve to take one’s time and money. Do not waste your time with that: in despair, a person might feel tempted to be “the chosen”, after all, there is always some case, weakly proven and usually away, of someone who has enriched it.

Tip 53:
Focus on your activities.

Unfortunately, there are many charlatans ready to take money from those who might be facing difficulties. There is no shortcut: obviously, only the consistent job search work will return the candidate back in the market.

Tip 54:
Keep confidence in your strategy.

Networking

The people you know are the first source of networking. However, in addition to them, the job searching period can greatly enrich the networking experience. Developers tend to underestimate the power of social networks in their careers.

Below, I will explore a little bit more this subject.

Analog Networking

People have lost the ability to make new contacts. I observe that a person will look very strange at you if you approach him or her, for example, in a coffee shop. So, how to do this?

Tip 55:
Make and keep contacts.

There are other ways. For example, there are trade fairs going on all the time. Many of them do not even charge a registration fee. And not necessarily it needs to be a technology trade fair. Better saying, every fair is, in its essence, a technology fair.

Tip 56:
Keep an open mind.

Visit a Supermarket Business Fair, for example. Find out what the trends are. What are the new developments?  In the worst scenario, the developer will be in touch with new ideas and will make new contacts.

Nowadays, the wave of connectivity, which makes that just about anything has a reason to be connected to the internet, brings an advantage to embedded systems developers because almost everything is a potential system to be developed.

All that can be developed makes money. So, expect the presence of potential companies at trade fairs, and consequently, the discovery of potential employers.

Digital Networking

Post a text with your opinion, and note the relatively low impact. Now publish a picture of some cute animal, drinking something, or if you use a professional network, post some mathematical game or any meme: the impact will be higher. With this test, one will notice that few people really care about what he or she has to say.

Tip 57:
Your friends on social networks are not your friends.

Therefore, do not post any confessions or complaints. And do not even think about a testimonial when to land (I hope) a job. And, most importantly, the candidate should not add people indiscriminately to his or her network in the hope that it will help in the job search. It simply will not.

Open networkers are personified SPAM.

The secret is that most of the open-networkers want the largest number of contacts for the purpose of advertising their products and services, whether they be in conventional form or in the form of contents. As these people’s idea is just to reach the greatest number of people (not necessarily to sell contents), an important publication may fall in limbo.

In other words: open networkers are personified SPAM.

Tip 58:
Keep useful contacts.

Certainly, cases exist of people who have succeeded in their job search using that method. However, it is a matter of statistics and the odds are not favourable. Anyway, do not do that. Why? Because someone’s posts are not distributed to ALL contacts. They are distributed to only a few contacts. So, when someone has no activity in your social network, chances are that the generated contents ends up in the hands of those who will not read.

Tip 59:
Delete useless contacts.

I recommend a real housecleaning on social networks, and removing everything that is useless. The candidate should consider to remove the people that he or she does not know, those who do not post anything that he or she likes, those who either never interacted with him or her or even “liked” a post. In this manner, the real contacts will see what the candidate shares. They will remember him or her. And finally the “digital network” will play its role: to facilitate referrals, to promote recommendations and etc.

By the way, the candidate’s social networks clean-up is the perfect moment for restoring contact with that high school classmate, and with that college friend that life has separated.

Tip 60:
Restore lost contacts.

It is usual someone to become happy by knowing the whereabouts of someone else.

The Profile on Social Networks

If the developer has been following this, he or she might be thinking of his or her digital life, and thus it will be useful to add a few things about it.

Tip 61:
Clean nonsense of your profile.

In the previous item, I have addressed the contacts. In this item, I recommend a real cleaning in the digital social life, because the same way the internet is the best place to find job opportunities, it is also the best place to search information about the candidates. I always use the social networks as a support to evaluate a candidate’s resume: depending on what I see there, I do not even call him or her for an interview.

Tip 62:
Interviewers may be true crazy stalkers.

A lot of people will be eliminated from the selection process after a quick look at their Facebook or Google+ profiles. Examples of wrong things:

  • The guy or girl is newly graduated, and still keeps those college parties pictures on his or her Facebook.
  • To place the name as a derogatory nickname “which he or she is proud of”.
  • To publish dog memes during business hours (when he or she should be working).
  • To criticize previous jobs.
Tip 63:
Organize your digital life.

That can hurt your chances!

Search for Opportunities

The Part I was almost entirely dedicated to the search for opportunities. To not repeat myself, I only recommend that you read it again and review those concepts. I consider that tips 1 to 10 are crucial for a more conventional job search.

Now I will give you a little bit more aggressive tips, that I consider secondary, but that may help to land a job anyway.

Online communities

Not long ago, the software people was best served in this regard, however, initiatives such as Arduino, 3D printers, etc, have changed the game. The developer does not need to be employed to be working. By doing this he or she remains current, makes more contacts and disseminates his or her work.

Tip 64:
Teach what you know in some community.

Who said that learning should be the only focus? Why not joining a community helping others? Demonstrating expertise is always a great attraction for potential employers.

Jobs Sites

There are not so many developers as one might imagine. Therefore, even paid websites for job opportunity announcements sometimes will want to suggest someone to fill their clients’ positions. If they do not send good resumes to their clients, those will migrate to other media.

Tip 65:
Do not be afraid of SPAM: sign up for various job search websites.

Ditto for the head hunters’ websites. So, rather than overloading your social network by adding every head hunter you find, browse their websites and sign up.

As for the free websites for job search, no need to say: sign up for everyone.

Tip 66:
Keep private your intimacy, but your career is public information.

Conclusion

I hope that this series of articles on job search, job market evaluation, etc. has helped the developers to better understand how the selection processes work in detail, so that they will be able to demonstrate their best along them.

It was an extensive series, and I have used several references to elaborate it, trying hard to make it useful for the developers as well as trying to put things in a friendly way, explaining the reason behind each tip.

One last tip that I can put here is:

Final Tip:
A good developer works on his or her continuous improvement and always fulfils his or her tasks.

I hope that this series has really helped.

 


In Part V : a summary of all the tips.


 

About rftafas 183 Articles
Ricardo F. Tafas Jr graduated in Electrical Engineering at UFRGS with focus on Digital Systems and achieved his Masters also in Electrical Engineering on Telecomunications Network Management. He also author of "Autodesenvolvimento para Desenvolvedores (Self-development for developers). Ricardo has +10 years experience on R&D Management and +13 years on Embedded Eystem Development. His interest lay on Applied Strategic HR, Innovation Management and Embedded Technology as a differentiator and also on High Performance Digital Systems and FPGAs. Actually, he is editor and writer for “Repositório” blog (http://161.35.234.217), editorial board member at Embarcados (https://embarcados.com.br) and he is Management and Innovation Specialist at Repo Dinâmica - Aceleradora de Produtos.
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments