back to article New job in 2015? The Reg guide to getting out and moving on

Official stats show the British economy is recovering, with a huge demand for tech jobs across the board, and the storm of outsourcing and offshoring seen over the last few years now abating. Even those in Whitehall are hiring, bringing back in-house the planning and execution smarts they previously let go. For job-seekers, …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Be realistic above the size of salary you can expect" ?

    I'll do my best, but could you maybe post a training video or powerpoint presentation with concrete examples on how to be realistic above one's expected salary?

    And how frank should I be during the interviews? For example is the following acceptable?

    "Ok guys, You know I'm expecting at least £65K per annum, but I'll only be realistic at £75K, anything below and I'll give the It department totally irrealistic and nonsensical advice"

    Mmmmm..... did I misunderstand maybe?

  2. Jim 59

    Jobs

    The technology job market may be buoyant, but rates of pay still seem to be in the loo. Most of the advertised jobs are paying less than they paid in 2006, and that is without taking inflation in to account.

  3. Khaptain Silver badge

    I applied to a large International company recently ( 4 weeks ago). I received a 1st call asking only three questions

    1 : How quickly I was available.

    2 : What salary was I expecting.

    3 : Reason for leaving existing company.

    Time in call 5 minutes.

    That was all that was asked by the person whose task it was to "filter" out from the hundreds of CVs that they had recieved.

    2nd call : Sorry but you did not pass the intial process. There was no explanation about which of the three questions filtered me out, just that there was so many canditatures that they had to filter quickly....

    I was avaiable within 4 weeks, the reason for leaving was valid and the salary was the going rate for the region.

    No discussion about the CV or experience whatsover and this leads me to believe that some people must be is job hunting with very low salarial expectations......

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Market rate"

    Another one to hate. To me it means "What we can get away with, so don't bother applying if you want more than was offered 10 years back for a similar position".

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    That whole "we're too darn busy too give you any feedback" thing is cruel.

    You can spend hours building a bespoke C.V., researching the co., only to be told "no thanks"

    "Why?"

    "Too busy, can't tell you. Bye"

    Without that precious feedback, how can we ever know our mistakes, let alone learn from them.

    1. Tom Wood

      On the flipside of this coin - I'm a software engineer who is frequently asked to review CVs for applications.

      It's actually often quite hard to give precise feedback on the reason for rejecting a CV. It will normally be a whole number of factors. It's a bit like walking down a street in an unfamiliar city trying to pick a restaurant - there may be some absolute reasons for rejecting a place (too expensive, not the sort of food you are after) but often there are other reasons that by themselves sound trivial or judgmental but overall give you a bad impression (looks a bit dodgy, smells funny, decor doesn't look nice, menu has bad spelling, ...). Would you want to have to explain your reasoning to the proprietor of every restaurant you turn down?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        ...did you just equate having a craving for a particular kind of food to a hiring process?

        On my list of people never to work for!

        For the record, when I'm hiring, I establish a fixed criteria beforehand and I do keep notes on everyone I reject, in case they ask. It's professional courtesy. And if any restaurant owner asked me why I didn't pick his shop, I'd answer. But with a restaurant, "feelings" are valid. When hiring, a lot less so.

        Restaurant selection: "well, I'm craving umamai and a salt. I see over there a salad bar, a sushi bar and a steak joint. The salad bar isn't going to have much umamai and the sushi will kill me (thanks, allergies!) So I guess it's the steak joint.""

        Please contrast to a similar application were it applied to job seekers: "well, I'm in the mood for like minded nerd. We have here a hard core Trekkie, an Aspie and Felicity Smoke. Felicity is way too intimidating, and the Aspie might be too focused on his job to join in the jocularity or laugh at my Worf jokes. So I think I'll pick the Trekkie this time around."

        Do you understand the difference in criticality between the selection processes? Arbitrary selection based on spur-of-the-moment desire is a minor inconvenience to a restaurant owner when selecting a dinner. It can change the life of an entire family when we're talking about picking someone for a job. I dearly hope you apply more care than you've suggested.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          > ...did you just equate having a craving for a particular kind of food to a hiring process?

          No, he was trying to explain someone why it can be difficult to give feedback on early stage rejections by way of an analogy.

          The problem with analogies is that if people did not understand what you said in the first place, you are very likely to be misunderstood if you try the "it's a bit like..." sort of approach.

          > For the record, when I'm hiring,

          Hiring at what level? For a multinational company? For a sole proprietorship? It does make a big difference.

          > I establish a fixed criteria beforehand and I do keep notes on everyone I reject, in case they ask. It's professional courtesy.

          That leaves you wide open for a discrimination complaint. Sadly, there are not a few sore losers out there.

          You may not like to hear this, but the bloke above is right: feedback should not be expected from early stage rejections. They way they communicate this to you may make a difference, but the fact itself shouldn't.

        2. LucreLout

          For the record, when I'm hiring, I establish a fixed criteria beforehand and I do keep notes on everyone I reject, in case they ask. It's professional courtesy.

          I work for a large enough corporate that you'd have heard of it. We're specifically forbidden from taking written notes on candidates due to their being entitled to demand those notes via DPA S7 requests.

          I'd genuinely love to provide written feedback to every CV I review or interview I conduct, but I don't have the time professsionally - I see hundreds a year. I'd make the time personally, particularly where obvious effort has gone into a CV but it still needs simple changes to make it work better, but I'm forbidden from doing that by my employer. It's not that they're a bad company or place no value on those rejected at various stages, it's just that they're afraid of lawyers.

      2. Tom Samplonius

        "On the flipside of this coin - I'm a software engineer who is frequently asked to review CVs for applications. It's actually often quite hard to give precise feedback on the reason for rejecting a CV."

        I hire software engineers, and this is one of the most appalling approaches to hiring that I've ever heard. The only thing you mention that is objective is "spelling". Everything else you mention is subjective. I hope you go by more than feelings when you are engineering software.

    2. Tom Samplonius

      "Why?" "Too busy, can't tell you. Bye""

      It is legally tricky. The general HR approach is to say as little as possible, because saying too much can result in a lawsuit or a complaint to your jurisdiction's equivalent of employment standards.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Every once in a while it's fun to pop a C.V. out and test the waters.

    Results can vary considerably.

    My favourite i̶n̶s̶u̶l̶t̶ feedback thus far is, that even with 30+ years' IT experience in anything and everything, from punch cards to Hyper-V and everything else in between, I'm just not technical enough!

    WTF?!

    Oh, and did I mention career recovery from redundancy? Twice?

    Not technical enough. Pha.

    1. Chika

      Oh, do I ever hear that one! I'm just being pushed out onto the job scrap pile with a similar set of credentials for the second time thanks to short sighted downsizing and I am finding the whole thing humiliating, depressing and degrading. My own thoughts?

      Shoot all recruitment consultants

      OK, I could go on with a whole plethora of niggles including ads that ask for over-qualification (yeah, like you really need a degree to be a phone jockey on a helpdesk) or give a shopping list of obscure application requirements, but that one thing would make it a whole lot better given the sheer number of RCs making a buck out of your job hunting misery.

  7. J.G.Harston Silver badge

    If somebody spells "CV" with an apostrophe or with six letters, their application goes straight into the bin.

  8. Zog_but_not_the_first

    CV filters

    My time-honed CV filters (as a reviewer/employer):

    Several spelling/grammatical errors (I'll let the odd one pass - we all make mistakes) >>> Bin

    Bullshit along the lines of "My greatest weakness is impatience with others not matching my high standards" >>> Bin

    Evidence of a sense of humour >>> Worth a second look

    1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

      Re: CV filters

      "Evidence of a sense of humour >>> Worth a second look"

      For the record, depending on the job, evidence of a complete lack of a sense of humour is good too. Experience has taught me that aspies make absolutely amazing DB admins, and even better financial app admins. They take a little bit of care and feeding, but if you can find a role for them that is strictly defined, and where the expectations aren't prone to rapid changes, they make one hell of a dedicated employee.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: CV filters

      > Evidence of a sense of humour >>> Worth a second look

      I especially like the odd bit of self-deprecating humour.

      Example:

      "Education: PhD in Physics. I also have a first degree in Mathematics, but I'm not very good with numbers."

      I took the last assertion to be a very relative statement. :)

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Job salesman bigs up jobs

    A job salesman is talking up the prospects for job migration next year? What a surprise. The only people who benefit are the job salesmen because any company worth working for will be looking after their staff so they don't lose them to job salesmen and have to buy more staff from another (or often the same) job salesman. Companies looking for you because they lost their staff to a better job are not the ones you want to work for. Not mentioning any companies because the article already did.

  10. hfhghg6767

    Some advice based on my experience:

    1. Jobs come through connections, never answer head hunters, it's a waste of time.

    2. If not 1, another fertile ground is conventions/trade shows or the competition.

    3. Ask for a salary that is high enough to make you feel slightly embarassed about asking for it. That should be just about the right salary for you.

    4. Be proactive and switch jobs fast when things start to go down hill at your current job. Sitting down and waiting for better times seldom pays off.

    5. Remember that anyone who is a manager is NOT your friend and NOT there to help you. His job is to keep you in your job until the day your retire, at the lowest possible cost. Therefore, if manager says one thing, do the opposite if possible without affecting your immediate situation.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No. 3. :-)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No. 5. and keep as much of the bonus pool for himself by giving the minions a little and a lot of promises that are not worth a s***t.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      > Remember that anyone who is a manager is NOT your friend and NOT there to help you.

      My experience from my early days doesn't quite back up your blanket statement. Maybe I've just been lucky, but I've had very helpful managers who taught me a lot. I had two of my managers put their jobs on the line for me. Decades latter, I still stay in touch with people who were my bosses during those forming days, and I was subsequently able to help some of them in times of need.

      Some less than stellar ones? Yes, I've also met them (and been one myself). I moved on as soon as I could, while still making sure not to burn any bridges.

      Then again, it takes two to tango.

  11. Grubby

    Basically ignore everything

    Job titles - Thought up by someone who hasn't read the JD to attract people to apply.

    Job Description - A list of things the recruiter thinks they want based on a problem they haven't investigated, don't know the root cause of, yet have decided on a solution.

    Salary - As the problem has not been scaled or scoped the impact of it is usually unknown, as is the size of the project required to resolve it and so the salary is based on the job title, which was made up.

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