6 things I need to know before starting a conversation with a recruiter

I work as a Software Developer in Romania since 2005, even before I graduated from college. When I started working in the IT industry the market in Romania wasn’t so developed or at least I wasn’t aware of that. Right now there are lot of big companies that opened offices in Bucharest and in other big cities in Romania.The IT industry with only 150000 employees manages to produce more money than 2000000 people that work in the agriculture industry. The market has grown a lot since then and we as software developers are pretty lucky because we have many opportunities to grow our careers, not only in Romania but worldwide.

But :)), there is always a but. With the growth of the IT industry some other connected jobs have emerged e.g. the IT recruiter who I think has a hard job finding and convincing new people to join their company or the company that pays them to do the recruiting. In my opinion they rely on a mix of luck,statistics and the people’s lack of satisfaction on the current job when they approach their “pray” because the info they usually provide is insufficient: mostly a job announcement contains some tech-stack info, profile requirements and responsibilities for that job, which basically would be useful just to fend off potential applicants that don’t match.

Looking back at my past job experiences, some inner introspection and some research that I’ve made trying to figure out what makes me tick when on a job urged me to setup a frame that would help me get more data from someone who proposes a new gig to me. Below are the 6 things that I would like to know more details and why I would need those details.

1.The project

Most proposals don’t give too many details on what the project is about. The problem that the project needs to fix can really make a difference in the decision to make a job move. Maybe people may have some moral issues regarding the industry of the new proposal or on the contrary, they may have an additional motivation to accomplish what the project tries to solve.

So what is the project about is important. Also it is important to know how many people use it,whether it is a public software that you are building or an internal one. What is the difference that I’m making by putting an effort into this project?

2.The tech-stack

As I mentioned earlier many of the job descriptions contain a tech-stack. Mostly an enumeration of frameworks, programming languages, tools and development methodologies used by the company. I think this part is rather tricky. It is useful to know what tools and frameworks a company uses, but I guess that more important is how they use them. This enumeration is important because some companies would be glad to have someone that has a deep understanding of a certain framework or others are interested in a developer willing to jump in and learn a programming language or a framework new to him. But this interest goes both ways. I may be willing to give a company a chance because I could “play” with some things that arouse my interest before and I would be happy to learn and make use of in a future role. But if I’m not willing to make so many changes, maybe I could choose a company that would match my tech-stack history.

3.Culture deck

Most of the companies out there concentrate on how it’s clients perceive them. Just a few of them have a real interest in how their employees or their potential employees think about them. In order for companies to attract talent and most importantly keep the talent, the company should put forward the values that it strives for, how it treats its employees, how it repays them and what are the principles that stand behind the employee interaction.

Here the match is really important. Some people can resonate with some company’s culture deck, but others might not. If you, as an organization have some clear principles that are known from the start and agreed upon, then you won’t have that resistance that every new employee may have when they find out that some things aren’t the way he knew from his previous workplace or how he imagined. If a company does not have a culture-deck defined than you might be lucky and find great people you can build great things with, but on the other hand you might not and leave the company with a bitter taste. Then again you might find a great environment that evolves for the better or on the contrary for the worse. In my humble opinion (INMHO )when you lack some clear principles is more probable to evolve for the worse.

Maybe is hard to accept this as a criterion, as it is not tangible but there are a few companies that managed to define a culture-deck right from the start and stuck to it. Bretton Putter has researched this and you can find some examples here.

Also, someone can get an insight on a company’s inner workings from how their departments are set-up or how the the stake holders interact with the team. In general companies with a flatter organizational structure might empower more their employees and give them more freedom. On the other hand companies with more complex hierarchies might be more into processes and even micro-management.

The company’s culture and it’s hierarchy can have a great impact on your day to day activity and also your motivation which is the driving force for a efficient employee according to Dan E Pink.

4.Type of contract

The type of contract is something that can be shared very easily. That can tell you a lot about the job and can help an employee make some future plans. A proposed job can be as an employee, contractor,full-time or a part-time job. Another interesting thing to know is if a job is remote or on-site. These types of contracts have their advantages and disadvantages. Maybe you feel better working on site or at home. Maybe you like to change the project more often and you would prefer a contract on a certain period of time. Each of these can suit you differently or can be more or less convenient. This is good information to know from the start and can help people weigh-in all the aspects.

5.Budget

The budget for the position is the easiest part to quantify . Yet many companies avoid giving that information from upfront. An amount interval for the position would save us all a lot of trouble. I would prefer the initial announcement or the initial conversation to contain this information. Most of the time recruiters ask you for an amount or invite you for a meeting. If the asked amount is higher than there expectations you might encounter some awkward situations:

• they might say it’s ok and invite you to some interviews and then make you an offer way smaller than what you told them
• or, they might say they will get back to you and never hear from them.

On the other hand, this is time lost for everybody to chat over the phone, the interviews and even the interview preparation. Even chatting, with a recruiter once they approach you, would be a loss of time if the recruiter is reluctant to give you the information you ask for. The difference between the potential employee and the recruiter is that the recruiter is on his job and is paid for that chat, but the potential employee is on his own private time.

The budget interval that is specified upfront can save the potential employee time, the recruiter, the people doing the interview and even people making the offer.

Moreover this negotiation game that most of the companies propose is not something that a IT guy would be as his best, or at least not me. We make a living out of developing software not by negotiating. You should hire a salesman for that.

In addition having this interval upfront would be a sign of transparency and trust. If the parts get to an eventual offer, the developer could understand where he is positioned in the team.That could be a reason for him to strive to reach his best, or could make him responsible towards the others.

On the other hand that interval helps the existing employees. Over the time I noticed that loyalty wasn’t praised. On the contrary. The more you stayed in a job, the more you lost as the labor market went up and the additional gains that you had were not matched. If a company would have that in its job postings than it would surely take care after you even after you are employed. Netflix’s model where people get raises based on their performance and their market value might be a good model to imitate.

6.Recruiting process and on-boarding

In the end I would like to know what are the steps that need to be taken in order for me to join the company: how many meetings, with whom,where and how. Most of the time that is info delivered through a phone-call but I would like it to be written because with age I have difficulties remembering things.

The on-boarding is a step that some of the companies don’t value too much and it happened to me that in the first day not to have my own PC ready and just looking at the walls for a whole day.

Glad you could hang for so long and I hope I made clear point on how I see things. Hopefully this will help not only job seekers but also job proposers and even companies that sometimes tend to overlook their inner image.