In Austria we are partnered with Celum, a leading Digital Asset Management software vendor. Today we are happy to say that this partnership has extended out into the UK as well and we're looking forward to working together on some projects very soon.
We've recently been trying to recruit some new developers here in our UK office. Just after we'd hired someone, my copy of .Net magazine arrived with a double page spread asking different agencies how they go about recruiting peope. It's almost as if they had been watching...
Now this isn't the first time we've been through the recruitment process, here or in previous roles; but this time around it felt like some of the CVs had been vetted by a bunch of monkeys. Job roles weren't clearly defined, skills we'd specifically asked for were missing or the level of experience was suitably vague. Even if the skills were present on the CV they didn't always marry up with the list of roles that the person had been carrying out.
Having just been through the process I thought we'd post up some of our tips on what to do when applying for a technical job. Obviously these are just our preferences, but it should help anywhere.
Be clear about how long you've been using a technology
It's all well and good saying that you've used Sitecore or C# in your previous job, but if that job is listed as being for 4 years, a recruiting agency is going to assume that's 4 years experience in those technologies and that you're up to date with it all. You and I know full well that you could have been using them for a month somewhere at the start of those 4 years and you're now really rusty. Be honest and clear about what you've done. It's better for everyone if this isn't in the middle of an urgent project.
If you (or an agency) are going to send your CV for a role that requires a
specific technology (or combination there of), make sure to vet what is being sent through. You
don't want to lose out on an interview because the CV you sent
wasn't clear about how you used it.
Break down your CV into projects within each employer
By breaking down your CV into separate projects, even if it's just a one liner for each project with the technologies as keywords and start/end dates underneath it we get a better indication of when you used stuff. If you're using one liners, pick one or two projects that are relevant to the job you're applying for and flesh these out a bit more.
After talking to lots of agencies and reading far too many CVs, we gave up and went down the recommendations route instead.
