You will be so glad you dropped in on our Blog if you are an ASP.NET (C#.NET) Developer.

You will be so glad you dropped in on our Blog if you are an ASP.NET (C#.NET) Developer.

 This is undoubtedly the best move you will have made today! Apply now and you could be working for the kind of company you have always wanted to be with.

 

 

Our client is looking for an ASP.NET (C#.NET) Developer (eCommerce), West Midlands £35-40k package.

 

 

Favourite client!

 

Brief Details of position.

 

 

ASP.NET (C#.NET) Developer (eCommerce), West Midlands £35-40k package

 

Our client has a requirement for an industrious, reliable  ASP.NET (C#) Developer to develop e-commerce solutions for customers.

 

 

Suitable candidates will have solid C#/ASP.NET development experience working on e-commerce sites.

 

 

Find out more about this great position at:

 

HTS
Call: 07970 494916
or: 0121 687 1234

 

Email: jayne@hts.co.uk

 

 

HTS, Specialist Recruiters to the IT Industry. Contract and Permanent Vacancies

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blogging styles: orthodox and mystical

There are two classical schools of blogging:

1. The traditionalistic, ultra-orthodox school that insists on posting things on your blog with some sort of frequency, and...

2. The free-wheeling, mystical, esoteric school that focuses on the meditative side of blogging.  Specifically, it focuses on just letting your blog sit there meditating while you do other things, like work, eat crisps, etc.

I lean towards the latter, more introspective school, as you can see from my recent posts.  But there are some things - quite a few things, actually - that one simply cannot communicate without doing some communicating.  

'What like?' you ask. 

Well, you can't ask questions, for a start.  Questions like:

Are there any C# Developers with Silverlight or WPF in the Midlands who are looking for a new role with a fantastic, very successful company with lovely offices?

And -

If so, can you send my colleague your CV?  Jayne@hts.co.uk.  Thanks.

Also, you can't impart advice on how to get a job or switch jobs in a market where everyone is trying to get a new job.  

With this in mind, I've decided to write a short series of posts addressing different aspects of job-hunting from the perspective of someone who spends all day looking at CVs, matching them to job specs, weeping over the relentless frequency with which he has to correct people's spellings of the word 'liaise', etc. 

Stop by tomorrow if you're currently looking at the jobs market and want some old-fashioned type-written advice (or if you find yourself thrust into that position between now and tomorrow).

Next post: Job-hunters take note: not standing out is the new standing out

Mind The Gap

Dear person whose CV contains no information about what you've been doing since 2010:

Unfortunately, when I read your CV and you've given no indication of what you've been doing since 2010, I don't have time to embark on a thrilling detective adventure and discover what it is that you've opted to omit from your CV.

I'd love to!  Trouble is, I have to look at all these other CVs, CVs written by people less mysterious than you.  I also have to find a way to get all these biscuit crumbs out of my keyboard.  Also, I have to write this blog post, as I haven't updated the blog since (hypocritically enough) 2010.

So, I'm going to assume that you were either in the Foreign Legion or in prison, and then go back to looking at the CVs of people who I don't have to assume have been in the Foreign Legion or in prison.  Is that okay with you?

I could, of course, assume that you've been doing really worthwhile things since 2010, things relevant to your job aspirations, or that you've been in a coma.  But, of course, if either of those things were the case, you'd have mentioned it on your CV.  Unless you're stupid!  And I don't want to assume you're stupid.  Just a criminal or a Foreign Legionnaire.

For any non-stupid, non criminals out there with gaps on their CVs - my advice would be to fill them.  Fill them with information about:

- studies you've undertaken, formal or private
- voluntary work
- freelance work
- work for a friend's company
- travel
- qualifications achieved

And throw in as many technical skills as possible ('While looking for a new permanent position I undertook studies in Java, PHP, horse whispering and CSS').  Bold the skills, bullet-point them, and presto!  Your 2010-date slot will look pretty much like a period of gainful employment at a glance.  Your reader will be infinitely less likely to look at your work history and immediately think, 'ah - a layabout'.

Incidentally, it's perfectly fine to have a sabbatical or a career break, unless you've only been in work for five weeks.  However, it's still a good idea to demonstrate that you've kept your hand in (through studies, working on personal projects, etc) where your marketable skills are concerned.

Don't put anything like 'due to the economic recession I have been looking for work since 2010'.  Non est mea culpas on CVs, no matter how reasonable, project the exact opposite of the image you want to project, which is that of someone who takes responsibility for stuff.  The person evaluating your CV doesn't care about why you haven't found a job, unless it's because you've been in prison, etc.  They care about what you've done to keep your skills fresh while you were looking.

There's no excuse, my gappy friend!  (Unless you were actually in prison, in which case I'll have to check the legalities of not mentioning it on your CV.)

A bientot, comrade.

Graduate Developer, C++, Birmingham, to £24k + bens

Graduating this year with at least a 2.1 degree in a subject involving lots of maths (Maths, for example)?  Good A-levels (particularly in Maths?)  Got some OO development experience, preferably in C++, and want to go down the development route with a fabulous global company based here in buzzing Brum?


Well, jolly good for you!


CV ASAP SVP* to nick@hts.co.uk!


* bit of French there

The Pygmalion Principle

You know the charming myth of Pygmalion.  It’s a classic(al) ‘boy makes girl’ love story with a reprehensible lead character and some morally questionable intervention by the goddess Aphrodite. Its message seems to be that when it comes to women, Greek men prefer the chiselled look. But like every other* Greek myth, it also applies to job-hunting in general and job interviews in particular.  It applies to when you are going for a job for which you lack experience.


Here's what I sometimes** call the Pygmalion Principle:


Employers like - or at least like the idea of - moulding employees in their own image.  If there's any aspect of your target job for which you lack experience, you should exploit this quirk of human nature.  Here's how it looks:


'No, Barry, I have no experience in car sales.  I have great people skills, phenomenal drive and intriguing hair, but when it comes to selling cars, I'm looking for someone who knows the market inside out and who can mould me into his idea of the perfect Lada salesperson.'


You get the idea, I hope.  Fantastical as it may seem, the above trick actually works.  If it has any downside, it's that it makes you particularly attractive to precisely the kind of egotistical control-freaks you were probably hoping to avoid working for.  Otherwise, it's a winner!


Next week: the Pygmy Lion Effect.


* I meant 'no other'
** Or, more specifically, now

on doing research before your job interview

Today's theme: doing research before your job interview.

My advice, as an industry insider, would be: you should, like, do it.

Let me put it another way.  You know how it's bad to turn up at an interview drunk and do that trick where you waggle your finger through your trouser zip?  Turning up having done no research is sort of like that.

Most of you will agree with me, but there are a few avant garde job-seekers (naming no names) who seem to have difficulty with the idea.

As recruitment agents, we can tell you about the company, we can send you a link to their website, we can urge you to research the company prior to your interview, and we can advise you on how to go about this. We can't, however, do the research ourselves, dress up as you and then attend the interview in your place.

We'd love to! But since the laws changed in 1986 we can't.

Now, we make a point of actually begging our candidates to do research - tears, hand-wringing, the whole shebang - and most of them do, but if you're one of the minority who prefer to prepare for your interview by doing nothing whatsoever, you might profit from the following 'behind the scenes' insight:

When candidates turn up at interviews with our clients having done no research, the only thing the clients ever say to us afterwards is, 'We're not interested in taking it further.  They obviously hadn't done any research.'

They never say, 'Bob turned up completely unprepared, and didn't even know we were an online marketing agency. We've hired him - he's a maverick.'  Any more than they say, 'The moment Bob put his finger through his fly and waggled it around while crashing drunkenly into our cardboard cutout of Bill Gates, we knew he was the one for us.'

Let's recap.  When our client asks you what you know about the company, it's usually not enough to wipe your nose on your sleeve and say, 'Something to do with the internet?'

To those of you who refuse to heed my advice (and there are plenty of you out there): Instead of going to the trouble of attending job interviews, why not consider staying home and watching television in your underpants while eating Monster Munch?

To those of you who do your research: Take heart; your competition may not be as competitive as you fear.

more on standing out as a jobseeker

Just in case I didn't get my point across sufficiently in the last post (about getting useful information about yourself up front where hirers and recruiters can see it), here's a real live screenshot from an internet job site this morning.  Notice the marvellously helpful information provided by the middle candidate:

Oh, how we in the office laughed!  Those of us who weren't weeping.