Back in August 2010 I decided to leave my job to find a more satisfying role while I still had a reasonable amount of time left on my visa.
A few weeks later I received an unsolicited approach from someone who I had never met, but who now worked at Autoquake and had liked the look of my LinkedIn profile. I had interviewed with Autoquake before and had actually been offered a position, but hadn't liked the fact that they were still a start-up.
This time around there would be fresh faces from a team that had previously worked together on highly successful well-known web applications etc. etc. So I agreed to another interview.
I was a bit rusty in the interview process, and unsurprisingly was not able to come up with a brilliant solution to a problem that had taken them quite some time to solve with 5 minutes at the whiteboard.
I wasn't entirely surprised not to hear back from any of the people who had interviewed me that time around, though it wasn't particularly courteous or professional of them.
Today I came across something which reminded me of the company, so I tried some Googling, only to find that they no longer exist:
http://www.which.co.uk/news/2011/03/massive-online-used-car-retailer-autoquake-folds-248918/
It's just as well I didn't place much value on the stock options they included in their package offer first time around.
Showing posts with label job interviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label job interviews. Show all posts
Tuesday, 30 August 2011
Tuesday, 4 August 2009
My experience on the London IT job market during economic downturn
After a holiday in Ireland and the UK back in 2007, I decided that if nothing much was happening for me in New Zealand then I should head to the UK where I would have more opportunities to see the rest of the world.
In September 2008 my paperwork came through for my tier 1 visa to live and work in the UK.
I booked my flights so that I would arrive on the same date that the visa became valid, hoping to make a quick start at securing work.
Strange as it may sound, I didn't have any real experience of looking for work. My job in New Zealand had resulted from knowing a bit about a particular technology - CORBA - and a little bit of good luck.
I had initially hoped for some parttime work during my post-graduate study, but got invited to take on a fulltime job - with the option to continue studying parttime. Given that I was only studying to improve my chances of getting a job, this was an opportunity that I could not refuse.
Nearly 10 years later, and on the other side of the planet I had to actually apply for jobs and wear a suit to the interviews - as opposed to the "Pink and The Brain" t-shirt that had been part of my clothing selection back in 1999.
Working in a single company for a long time has some down sides, one of which turned out to be that the choice of technologies used did not match up well with what many job advertisements listed. Spring and Hibernate were the two biggies that I soon identified as being a big deal, so I read some books attended user group meetings etc. and even managed to win a 4 day training course.
After following other people's advice by applying for contracting roles, I started to consider permanent roles. After about the 3rd face to face interview I was lead to believe that an offer of employment was just a formality, so I stopped applying for other roles and considered having a little holiday over Christmas.
In early January the role fell through due to corporate re-structuring that had been followed by a companywide recruitment freeze. It was tough to get myself back into interview mode, so the next couple of companies didn't get a good impression of what I was capable of - 1 even told the recruitment agent who had represented me that I came across as though I wasn't that interested in being there.
After lowering my salary expectations I had more roles to consider, and soon came to the awkward situation of having to choose between two roles.
I chose the role that was located closer to home and the venue of the various technical user groups that I attend during weeknight evenings.
After being hired as a Java developer I accidentally painted myself into a corner that was labelled "Grails/Groovy development" at a time when Grails 1.1 and 1.1.1 were having stability issues.
At the end of my standard 3 month probation period the company shocked me by saying they were "letting me go". Given that I wasn't making much headway with the battle against the Grails issues, and several of their former colleagues had recently become available I can understand their decision.
Second time around on the London job market was a little easier. After six weeks and interviewing for eight different roles, I had two offers to choose from again.
I chose the well-established consultancy that offered greater potential for professional development, over that startup that offered more money.
No regrets.
In September 2008 my paperwork came through for my tier 1 visa to live and work in the UK.
I booked my flights so that I would arrive on the same date that the visa became valid, hoping to make a quick start at securing work.
Strange as it may sound, I didn't have any real experience of looking for work. My job in New Zealand had resulted from knowing a bit about a particular technology - CORBA - and a little bit of good luck.
I had initially hoped for some parttime work during my post-graduate study, but got invited to take on a fulltime job - with the option to continue studying parttime. Given that I was only studying to improve my chances of getting a job, this was an opportunity that I could not refuse.
Nearly 10 years later, and on the other side of the planet I had to actually apply for jobs and wear a suit to the interviews - as opposed to the "Pink and The Brain" t-shirt that had been part of my clothing selection back in 1999.
Working in a single company for a long time has some down sides, one of which turned out to be that the choice of technologies used did not match up well with what many job advertisements listed. Spring and Hibernate were the two biggies that I soon identified as being a big deal, so I read some books attended user group meetings etc. and even managed to win a 4 day training course.
After following other people's advice by applying for contracting roles, I started to consider permanent roles. After about the 3rd face to face interview I was lead to believe that an offer of employment was just a formality, so I stopped applying for other roles and considered having a little holiday over Christmas.
In early January the role fell through due to corporate re-structuring that had been followed by a companywide recruitment freeze. It was tough to get myself back into interview mode, so the next couple of companies didn't get a good impression of what I was capable of - 1 even told the recruitment agent who had represented me that I came across as though I wasn't that interested in being there.
After lowering my salary expectations I had more roles to consider, and soon came to the awkward situation of having to choose between two roles.
I chose the role that was located closer to home and the venue of the various technical user groups that I attend during weeknight evenings.
After being hired as a Java developer I accidentally painted myself into a corner that was labelled "Grails/Groovy development" at a time when Grails 1.1 and 1.1.1 were having stability issues.
At the end of my standard 3 month probation period the company shocked me by saying they were "letting me go". Given that I wasn't making much headway with the battle against the Grails issues, and several of their former colleagues had recently become available I can understand their decision.
Second time around on the London job market was a little easier. After six weeks and interviewing for eight different roles, I had two offers to choose from again.
I chose the well-established consultancy that offered greater potential for professional development, over that startup that offered more money.
No regrets.
Monday, 23 February 2009
It's unique, just like all the others
So, I've been going to a few job interviews lately and I can honestly say that no two have been quite the same.
For the first few weeks after arriving in London, I was applying for contracting roles. It didn't take me long to realise that Spring and Hibernate are a big deal in the local job market, so I started to do a bit of upskilling - Winning 4 days worth of training in the latest Spring technologies was a good start, but the timing of the course - December - was awkward as I had to second guess how that might be treated by a prospective employer - Good: training; - Bad - 4 days off before he's even started really working.
Reading the books and having a course coming up was never going to be enough to get me up to the standard expected when a company is paying top £s for a specialist, so I eventually agreed to look at permanent roles.
The first interview was in Devon and involved a long train journey - which half convinced me that it was not going to be suitable, given that at least some of the reason for my moving to the UK was to be close to Ireland and Europe for quick weekend getaways. After I had proven my technical prowess in a coding exercise and a general "problem solving around the whiteboard" discussion, I had the panel interview with 2 techos and an HR person. I decided not to proceed with the team lead role they were looking to fill as they were also looking to change their entire development methodology - and I could see that being painful.
The next interview was for a role as a consultant and was run in a cafeteria with a couple of techos, that would have involved me working at client sites and from home - which doesn't really fit with my preference to stick with developing as part of an agile team.
The third interview was unusual in that the company involved approached me directly after finding my CV online - as opposed to the agencies that I usually hear from. Their offices seemed nice, and the discussion went well - but I wasn't really expecting to hear back from them, given the timing and the industry sector they are in.
The fourth interview involved another out of town train ride, but ended promisingly with the guy saying HR should be in touch with me with an offer - hopefully before Christmas. So, leading up to Christmas I felt that my quest was at an end, but the holy grail of a steady income with that company ran away in corporate re-structuring and an unrelated subsequent recruitment freeze.
January proved to be quite a quiet month on the recruitment front, so I applied directly with a few companies and followed up on some companies that I had been in touch with pre-Christmas.
In two interviews I foolishly attempted to bluff my way through describing the design of a system that I had been responsible for developing. I kept tripping over how to describe a particular sub-system which a colleague had designed, but which was critical to the description of the product.
The feedback was mixed:
- one company said I was technically great, but recommended that I read a particular couple of books (one of which I had already read, the other I am in the process of reading right now);
- the other company told the agent that I gave the impression that I wasn't interested in working there
Given that I had just spoken to the agent to let them know that I would lower my salary expectations by 10%, as I felt that the company had a great approach and were really innovative in applying agile methodologies to their development, getting that kind of feedback came as a bit of a shock to me.
So, in the next interview I made a point of giving well thought out responses to the touchy feely HR questions as well as the technical ones. I thought that I was on a roll when the interviewer said that a lot of candidates hadn't known some of the aspects that I had covered... The interviewer deliberately skipped his questions about Hibernate, as I had stated on my applciation that I did not have commercial experience with it. So, I think that I was justified in feeling frustrated upon hearing their excuse for not proceeding further with me: the other candidates they spoke to had more experience with Hibernate.
So, now I've finished reading Java Persistence With Hibernate and have started posting solutions to problems other people are reporting on the Hibernate forum site. I like to learn from other people's mistakes, and get a feel for what areas are proving to be challenging. It's been re-assuring to find that the issues encountered are much the same as I found with JPA - but saying that "I don't have experience with Hibernate, but I've got a year of JPA and 3 years of JDO" doesn't mean much to the recruiters.
Now that I have some casual part time work I should be able to fill a few of those silly gaps in the CV and be set to hit the ground running - maybe I could give contracting another look?
For the first few weeks after arriving in London, I was applying for contracting roles. It didn't take me long to realise that Spring and Hibernate are a big deal in the local job market, so I started to do a bit of upskilling - Winning 4 days worth of training in the latest Spring technologies was a good start, but the timing of the course - December - was awkward as I had to second guess how that might be treated by a prospective employer - Good: training; - Bad - 4 days off before he's even started really working.
Reading the books and having a course coming up was never going to be enough to get me up to the standard expected when a company is paying top £s for a specialist, so I eventually agreed to look at permanent roles.
The first interview was in Devon and involved a long train journey - which half convinced me that it was not going to be suitable, given that at least some of the reason for my moving to the UK was to be close to Ireland and Europe for quick weekend getaways. After I had proven my technical prowess in a coding exercise and a general "problem solving around the whiteboard" discussion, I had the panel interview with 2 techos and an HR person. I decided not to proceed with the team lead role they were looking to fill as they were also looking to change their entire development methodology - and I could see that being painful.
The next interview was for a role as a consultant and was run in a cafeteria with a couple of techos, that would have involved me working at client sites and from home - which doesn't really fit with my preference to stick with developing as part of an agile team.
The third interview was unusual in that the company involved approached me directly after finding my CV online - as opposed to the agencies that I usually hear from. Their offices seemed nice, and the discussion went well - but I wasn't really expecting to hear back from them, given the timing and the industry sector they are in.
The fourth interview involved another out of town train ride, but ended promisingly with the guy saying HR should be in touch with me with an offer - hopefully before Christmas. So, leading up to Christmas I felt that my quest was at an end, but the holy grail of a steady income with that company ran away in corporate re-structuring and an unrelated subsequent recruitment freeze.
January proved to be quite a quiet month on the recruitment front, so I applied directly with a few companies and followed up on some companies that I had been in touch with pre-Christmas.
In two interviews I foolishly attempted to bluff my way through describing the design of a system that I had been responsible for developing. I kept tripping over how to describe a particular sub-system which a colleague had designed, but which was critical to the description of the product.
The feedback was mixed:
- one company said I was technically great, but recommended that I read a particular couple of books (one of which I had already read, the other I am in the process of reading right now);
- the other company told the agent that I gave the impression that I wasn't interested in working there
Given that I had just spoken to the agent to let them know that I would lower my salary expectations by 10%, as I felt that the company had a great approach and were really innovative in applying agile methodologies to their development, getting that kind of feedback came as a bit of a shock to me.
So, in the next interview I made a point of giving well thought out responses to the touchy feely HR questions as well as the technical ones. I thought that I was on a roll when the interviewer said that a lot of candidates hadn't known some of the aspects that I had covered... The interviewer deliberately skipped his questions about Hibernate, as I had stated on my applciation that I did not have commercial experience with it. So, I think that I was justified in feeling frustrated upon hearing their excuse for not proceeding further with me: the other candidates they spoke to had more experience with Hibernate.
So, now I've finished reading Java Persistence With Hibernate and have started posting solutions to problems other people are reporting on the Hibernate forum site. I like to learn from other people's mistakes, and get a feel for what areas are proving to be challenging. It's been re-assuring to find that the issues encountered are much the same as I found with JPA - but saying that "I don't have experience with Hibernate, but I've got a year of JPA and 3 years of JDO" doesn't mean much to the recruiters.
Now that I have some casual part time work I should be able to fill a few of those silly gaps in the CV and be set to hit the ground running - maybe I could give contracting another look?
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