The relationship between employer and candidate has often been seen as a one-way street, with that often-dreaded interview question; 'why do you want to work here?' springing to mind. However more and more, it's the employers themselves who are being asked the tough questions. Following a recent BCS report on how better company cultures would attract more women back into the profession; how much do we look into the company we're applying for? 

 

In the current job market, although many people searching for a new role will be keen to make a swift move back into work, the ways in which people make employment decisions is showing signs of change. For many IT workers, company culture is still high on the job-hunting agenda. Similar to the BCS findings, Computer People's Salary Survey conducted earlier in the year also suggested how the culture of an organisation is key to a happy and contented workforce.

 

Some 70% of those questioned placed high importance on the quality of their working environment and culture. Many also saw the culture of a company to be a deal breaker in their choice to apply for a position or not. Findings such as these highlight the shifting onus on companies of all sizes to sell themselves to the candidate rather than vice versa.

 

A key part of this process involves alerting all potential candidates, male or female, to what your company offers over and above a paycheque. From offering flexible working hours or childcare facilities to regular company-wide social activities or duvet days and sabbaticals, employers that offer the best mix of work and play will be the ones attracting and retaining the best candidates.

You've encountered a recruiter or the hiring manager. He says, "Come on in for an interview." But maybe you've got a lot of experience or you've met a number of people who don't share your vocabulary about the job you're looking for. Somehow, you want to make sure the hiring manager's expectations are similar to yours. A phone screen would solve this problem. But, how do you ask?

I recommend being truthful. Say, "I have a lot of experience, and want to make sure this job is what I think it is, and that our salary expectations are similar." If the manager asks about your salary first, explain that you need to know about the job first to make sure you are valuable enough for him to consider you. You are being honest, and that remark postpones the salary discussion.

Here are questions you might consider asking:
1.    Tell me about the job.
2.    Did the previous person leave? Do you know why?
3.    Give me an example of a really great challenge in this role.
4.    What would a successful candidate look like?
5.    What's the normal salary range for this job?
You don't need a lot of questions, but you do need a few.

If the hiring manager doesn't want to phone screen you, that's data. Why would the hiring manager waste his, his teams or your time if there's not a good match?

So your resume has attracted some attention, and a hiring manager wants to talk to you by phone. Now what?

When you agree on a time for a phone screen, make sure that time really is good for you. If it's only a so-so time, and the dog needs a walk, the baby is crying, dinner needs to be finished, or the goldfish needs attention, don't agree to that time. Look for another day and time. Or, if you're now talking about a week or two out, acknowledge you're potential boss' schedule ("Wow, you are really busy!") and ask if someone else can interview you. Now, keep that time inviolate. Never cancel a phone screen unless you are dead, dying, or really don't care about the job.

BTW, If something does happen, and you do have to walk the dog, pet the goldfish, explain that at the beginning of the phone screen. "I thought this time would be good, but my significant other is still in traffic, and can't be here to take care of his responsibilities, so I am. I'm still willing to talk (if you are), but I have to talk while I walk the dog. Is this going to work for you, or would you rather reschedule?"  Be honest.

Now, between the time you've made the phone screen interview and the actual time, research the company and the person you'll be speaking with. Aside from the company's web site, search their product lines. You not only want to have a little understanding of their products, you also want to see if anyone has anything interesting to say. Use social networking sites (I prefer LinkedIn) to see if you're connected to anyone at the company. If you know someone working there, ask about working there.

Look at your resume and see if there's something you can see that relates well to this company. Think of successes you've had that you think will translate to that environment. I'm not saying you should practice a canned speech, just spend 5-10 minutes in advance thinking.

Now you're ready for the interview. When the person calls, answer the phone with a smile on your face. (Please make sure your phone is charged if you're using a wireless or cordless phone!) People can actually hear the smile in your voice. As the interviewer asks questions, answer with a story describing your experience (not a made-up story, a real story from your background).

With any luck, at the end of the phone screen, the interviewer will ask you about your availability for an interview, or will explain how the company will follow up. If the interviewer doesn't follow up, ask.

That's it. Be ready, be friendly, and be yourself. Not so hard, is it?

You are a technical person. If you are like me, you might be pretty geeky. I don't think there's anything wrong with that (!), but you might need to think about your social skills so you can build rapport with your interviewer.

Building rapport with your interviewer is an intangible thing, but it leads to a great conversation and a way to showcase your skills. Make sure you make contact with the interviewer as a human being.

Here's how:

1. Stand up when you meet the other person, extend your hand to shake, and look at their eyes. Yes, looking directly at someone else's eyes is a Western approach to making contact, but I am. If your culture is different, and you're interviewing with someone else from that culture, do what is appropriate. Standing up is almost always appropriate. In some cultures, women don't shake with men, nor do people look each other in the eyes. But if you're in the West, make sure you do.
2. Give a brief but firm handshake. No limp fish handshakes. Yes, you can practice shaking hands with a friend or family member.
3. Now you're into the small talk part of building rapport. Say, "Hello, it's nice to meet you" or something like that. Now, you can start into the real small talk. "When we spoke on the phone, I was intrigued by something-or-other." Mention the project, or the organization, or the position. That's usually enough to get the interviewer started. But if not, be ready with an open-ended question. "It seems like a really complex project. How is it organized?" 

As you speak through the interview, continue to make eye contact every so often with your interviewer.  Keep your interviewing skills in mind, and you'll do well.

At the end of the interview, ask the hiring manager for a business card so you can write a thank you note. I'm old fashioned and prefer a handwritten note, but an email might be good enough. Learn enough about the hiring manager so you know!

Being geeky doesn't mean you have zero social skills. It just means that you (and I) have to work on them a little. A little practice will go a long way.

Skills are one of the most important parts of a good CV. As a composite, they reflect your sum of experience and the role to which you would be best suited. Most job adverts will have a listing of required or desirable assets, and the ideal CV will intersect with this requested skill set as much as possible.

Caveat employer

However, an individual's skill set is often hard to describe in one short section - and the quantity of experience doesn't indicate quality of experience. A programmer with a purported ten years experience in a given language could potentially be less able than another with just one or two. This can inevitably pose a problem, especially for employers looking for proficient professionals in a particular area.

Those claimed 'ten years of experience' could consist of superficial, occasional usage of the skill in question spanning the last decade, where only the subject surface is scratched and advanced topics are left unlearned. However, just one or two years of more intense, continuous experience within a given field or with a specific language could mean that the applicant is quite proficient.

Decoding stated experience

The above is hypothetical, of course - generally a greater quantity of experience within a field indicates the more skilled candidate. Nonetheless, it is a hazard for both candidates and for interviewers to rely absolutely on the level of skill stated on a CV - particularly using an ambiguous metric such as 'years of experience', or something equally as soft a measurement (non-qualified descriptions such as 'highly proficient', etc).

To really ascertain the level of proficiency in a skill area the candidate should be put to the test - either through an informal Q&A session with a technically-minded person or with a more formal testing procedure.

Presenting your skills

Problems aside, the skills listing on your CV shouldn't be overlooked. In many cases it is the passport through the first stage of selecting the most suitable candidates for interview. Indeed, in the pre-interview phase the CV is the only indicator of aptitude.

If you're applying for a position that mandates a certain skill set, you should think carefully about how best to present the skills you possess with your CV. Should a position state that '3 years of professional experience is required' within a certain field, and you can only claim 1 or 2 but are otherwise of a suitable proficiency, you should ideally emphasise any other contributory experience.

You will need to be careful not to disqualify yourself at an early stage - if you don't meet any posted required standard you may be rejected at the first hurdle. Ideally, the person responsible for reviewing your CV will be aware of some of the issues facing skill metrics.

On the other hand, you must be careful not to overstate your skills - should you reach interview any lack of supposed experience may become apparent. Balance is the key - you need to fit your applicable skills as best you can to the listed requirements, highlighting your skill strengths while mitigating any apparent weakness.

If you're in an interview and your interviewer is not so skilled, you may have to prompt the interviewer to ask good questions. Yes, for those of you who dance, this is called "back-leading." I'm assuming you have prepared yourself in Developing Your Interviewing Skills for Candidates, Part 1: Prepare for the Interview.

Here's how this can play out.

I just love the question (not!): "Why do you want to work here?" My non-career enhancing question is, "Why should I? If you manage like you interview, I don't!" But like I said, that's not helpful.

So here are alternative ways to answer that question:

Candidate: "Let me make sure I understand something about the project" or "Let me make sure I understand something about your environment."  You want to make sure you have a similar project in mind. Now, take your first set of projects, where you thought about your non-technical qualities, preferences, and skills, and answer in ways like this: "I worked on a project like that" and point to the project on your resume. "I enjoyed this part." Now, explain your role, how the project proceeded, what happened, and how you succeeded. What you've done is take an open-ended but meaningless question and turned it into a behaviour-description answer. You've talked about your past experience and given the interviewer a place to start asking you more and hopefully better questions.

Sometimes, interviewers ask another of my not-so-favourite questions:  "Tell me about your strengths and weaknesses."

Instead, give a story about one of your successes on a project. If the interviewer says, "That was a great strength, now how about a weakness?" go back to your homework and turn around one of your strengths. One of my favourite ways to answer that question is: "Well, sometimes at the end of the project, I work too hard." Stop there. If the interviewer asks why that's a problem, you can say, "I burn myself out without realizing it." That's actually a huge problem in projects.  But interviewers who ask these questions might not realize that. Sigh.

Your job is to be prepared.

Once you've started interviewing, you might encounter plenty of interviewers who don't know how to interview. That's ok -don't discriminate against these folks just because they don't know how to interview. They might know how to build great software. If you build your interviewing skills, you can still present yourself in a good light, *and* help the interviewers learn whether you are a good fit.

First, do your homework. When you think about the job you're interviewing for, think back on your career so far. Have you worked on similar products? Maybe you've worked in a similar environment? Maybe you've worked with people on the team before? Think about your accomplishments in the context of this particular job.

Now, think of the qualities, preferences, and non-technical skills you want to showcase as your expertise. (Yes, I'll get to technical skills later.) Maybe you're great at considering multiple options for architectures. Maybe you're great at driving to a finish for a project. Maybe demos are your forte. Maybe you're great at asking questions about the product that make everyone think about what they have to do as developers, analysts, testers, writers. Think about times when those non-technical skills shine. If you need to, make a note of the projects where you shone.

Now, think of your technical skills. I find it easiest to think about the four dimensions of technical skill:

- Functional skill: what you know about development or testing or analysis or writing or project management or whatever your role is.  You started learning these skills in school, and have increased them on the job.
- Domain expertise: solution-space domain expertise is how well and how quickly you learn the insides of a product. Problem-space domain expertise is how well and how quickly you learn about the problems the product solves.
- Tools and technology: what tools and technology you know: Eclipse, Ruby, Java, C#, Unix, any of the unit testing frameworks, and more
- Industry expertise: the expertise people assume when you've been in an industry for a while. For any application involving a database, maybe it's about how you organize and reorganize a schema. For financial transactions, maybe it's security. For online applications, maybe it's performance and security.

Think about how you've succeeded with these skills in projects.

You've got some projects where you've been successful. You've got non- technical qualities, preferences, and skills, as well as technical skills. If you do your homework, you can actually think about how to interview.

Getting a job in IT is a lot more than just ticking the right skills boxes; there are a number of other assets and techniques you can bring to an interview to maximise your chances of getting the position in question. Such 'employability' is essentially a composite of your skills, your effectiveness in presenting those skills, and the manner in which you communicate.

Here I will cover five of the more important key aspects used to assess the suitability of candidates for IT roles - largely stemming both from my experience as an interviewer for technical roles, and on the other side as a interviewee.

 
Education

A good education is a good start, as far as employability is concerned. A degree is not always necessary to break into an IT career, but it certainly helps - treat your degree as a foot in the door, not as a passport to an automatic career.

A key thing to remember is that your IT education does not end with the receipt of your degree - in many ways, it is just the beginning. If you wish to remain competitive, you will need to constantly improve your skills, and keep up with developments in languages or frameworks.

Do not discount additional educational routes either, in particular professional training courses. Microsoft's offerings are well known, and valuable - as are Cisco Career Certifications.

Qualifications alone will not get you a job, though - you will need to round out your education with the demonstration of a little aptitude and a willingness to continue learning.

Experience

Regardless of qualifications on paper, the breadth of experience you have will also be a major factor in your employability. A degree in database systems is one thing; ten years working as a DBA is quite another.

For university leavers, the lack of experience is a hampering factor - many job listings state that they require a certain number of years of 'professional experience', which may seem insurmountable to those who have dedicated the last three-plus years to the study of their chosen art.

If you lack the required experience, fear not - some positions will be more amenable to graduates than others - and the key thing to remember is that years of experience can be trumped with your other assets, whether it is your specific skill set, or demonstrable dedication to a field.

Confidence

This is perhaps the hardest asset to attain, but confidence is a great skill to have in an interview situation. The IT world is filled with introverts, many of whom are greatly skilled, but if you cannot convey your suitability for a role your chances may be diminished.

Confidence does not mean you have to know the answer to every question - but it does mean that you should not be fazed should you come across a query in a subject with which you are unfamiliar. There is no perfect solution to dealing with unknowns, but do not let it throw you - just roll with it and steer your answer back to the areas in which you are capable.

Be wary of arrogance, too - you do not want to come across as confident to the point of rudeness. Your demeanour in interviews should be a balance between confidence, likeability, and a touch of modesty where needed.

Enthusiasm

You do not need to be fresh-faced to be enthusiastic. A passion for IT, or a specific area, is undeniably a boon in terms of getting a job.

Genuine passion for a subject usually shines in the interview - if the interviewer sees that you are willing to talk at great length about a particular subject, they will probably note that as a key interest of yours. Just make sure it is relevant to the role!

It is not just your ability to wax lyrical about a subject that will convey enthusiasm either - extra-curricular activities, such as maintaining a relevant blog on a technical subject or indulging in personal projects, will help in showing your enthusiasm and dedication to a given field.

Such relevant work is particularly suited to the next point, demonstration:

Demonstration

The single best thing you can bring to a job interview is a direct demonstration of your skills. You could talk about how many years experience you have with a language until you are blue in the face, but if you can demonstrate a concrete example of those skills, you will fare far better.

For certain skills, this may be tricky - but in my field (web development / design), a solid portfolio of live URLs that are demonstrable of suitable skills are invaluable. The visual aspect is important - whether it is printouts, screenshots, or live demonstrations - such assets will ably illustrate your talents, and in a much more memorable way than simply discussing such work.