I want to cover the employee lifecycle — from the moment they start searching for a job till they leave the company.
First you need to understand that companies need you more than you need them. The market is constantly growing, developers are always in demand.
You have full right to ask questions, request changing the interview process or offer conditions, ask for transparency in compensation etc.
You need to decide on:
- what you need — a role or a set of roles
- what kind of a company you want
- what employment format you’re after
- what work conditions you’d like
Often companies publish vacancies with a ‘fixed’ role in the job description.
You need to decide what you need for yourself, don’t just look at what’s written.
It’s OK to request or propose a combination of roles.
Most popular roles combination case — fullstack developer.
But in case you want to grow let’s say in design and frontend — negotiate, I assure you, there’s a huge lot of companies that will be willing to satisfy this need.
You need to decide what types of companies suit you more.
Choice criteria are always individual, but here’s a few to think of:
- company field of business
- company business model
- if a company has CSR
- growth possibilities
- company support for learning, education, mentorship
- opensource support
Company business model influence (or even defines) its culture.
Examples are:
- banks en masse are more conservative than product companies (some even have a procedure for requesting and approving access to things like messengers)
- companies working with government contracts’ are quite conservative too — most likely there will be no incremental development and no way for developers to talk to live users of the software
There still are companies requiring office work.
Some are OK with ‘hybrid’ (part office part remote).
Some do remote just fine.
It seems worthy to also do the following:
- see court cases for the company
- find employees from this company in social networks, talk to them and find out what it’s like to work there
- find former employees’ reviews on the company
General advice is: don’t apply on the company website, don’t even touch recruiters.
Each new chain link yields more information loss. Stories when recruiters lost important information or even discarded a candidate for some weird reasons — are not unheard of.
It’s always better to find the hiring manager and apply to him directly.
And doing that shouldn’t be really hard — you can always find people working with this manager in linkedin.
There is a possibility that this hiring manager will route you to the recruiter anyway, but there will be no way for the recruiter to reject you.
If a recruiter approached you, ask them for team members’ contacts or hiring manager contact, or find them elsewhere; then talk to them. Skip recruiter if possible.
Read about GDPR in recruitment.
General advice: if you disliked the company during the interview or any other communication — ask them to remove your personal information.
This request will lower the chance of your data shared with some third parties.
Prepare a list of important questions that you will ask the company during the interview.
Remember:
- companies need you more than you need them
- you will be spending at least 40 hours a week working so you need to make sure you’ll be enjoying the process
Ask the questions, make sure you get all answers. Don’t be shy to repeat questions that weren’t answered.
Ask in advance how many interview stages you’ll have, how much time they will take and who will be interviewing you.
Ask what you’ll need to do during the interview.
Usually more stages the interview process has, worse managers the company has.
Decide if you’re ready to do a take-home test or task.
I’d advise to ignore companies with a take-home test and/or multiple interview stages: it’s not hard to understand if you’re fit for position with one interview.
Ask for proper feedback after each interview stage.
A company not providing detailed feedback after the interview is a no-go. The usual excuse for not giving detailed feedback is lack of time. A manager with such an excuse is incompetent — overutilising employees time is a usual sign of incompetence in intellectual labour.
Check all the negotiated conditions to be listed in the offer you receive.
Make sure the total compensation structure is listed exactly as negotiated.
In case you will have bonuses, make also sure you understand how much and what for you’ll be given them.
Get yourself a checklist of what needs to be done on the first day:
- equipment
- accesses
- mentor assigned
- onboarding plan provided
It’s both in you and your manager interest to ensure you pass your probation period successfully.
Sync with them to get a proper understanding of the expectations you need to satisfy.
Ask in advance if you’re required to travel, how often it will happen and how long the trips will take. It will be also useful to see how the trips’ expenses are compensated.
You need to accept the fact that salaries in IT have been growing steadily for the last 20 years (possibly more, that’s just what I’ve been witnessing).
If you worked at a company for a year and haven’t received a pay rise, it’s time to think why you are treated like that. Chances are that your company is already hiring new employees with a salary higher than yours.
- company needs your growth more than you do