My Experiences of Changing Job

Context: This article relates to my experience of finding a job as a Software Engineer in the UK Job market.

Define Objectives

Why are you doing this? - This is the main question I had to answer to myself during this process. I needed to establish the motivation for why I wanted to change job. I concluded these as follows in order of importance:

• Pay - The company I was with had not fared well during the 2008-2010 global recession and the prospects of a pay rise had not been an option for a number of years. When you are thinking of starting a family, this becomes a real issue.
• Travel - The daily travel to and from the office was about 60 miles a day by car. There were no public transport options that were feasible and with the ever increasing cost of petrol, this was becoming an increasingly expensive process. Combine this with the wear and tear on the car and it becomes quite significant.
• Career Prospects and Progression - The company I was with was very flat in its structure. Whilst this might normally be a good thing, it also meant that the prospects of any form of promotion or changces to work on different projects were limited. In particular the project I was working on was making little progress in the market place.

I had to make sure that these reasons were clear in my mind as to why I wanted to change job. As I go on to discuss in later sections, these reasons will be tested.

CV

Before you start your search, you will need a well prepared and well presented CV. This is something you will need to invest some time in. I found this site helpful in understanding the CV from the employers point of view.

When your CV is presented to the person making the hiring decision, it has to hold their attention for long enough to answer some key questions they will be looking to answer:

• does this person have the skills I am looking for?
• Have they demonstrated these skills with their work experience?
• Do they have the right qualities I am looking for?

Small details matter at this stage, and getting someone else to proof read will help point to areas you've overlooked or errors in wording, spelling, etc. If you demonstrate you are not interested in being precise with your CV, then what does this say to a potential hiring manager?

Job Searching

There are a number of ways of finding a new job:

• Recruitment Agencies - These organisations are aimed at linking you with a suitable job. Generally when I have worked with an agency I have done so carefully. Remember they are paid comission each time they successfully place a candidate. That said, they will have a large collection of contacts and generally take their role very professionally.
• Finding the Job directly - The companies using recruitment agencies will generally also advertise the role on their website. With a reasonable amount of searching, these sites can be found and the roles applied directly. You will be saving the company the agency fee and show initiative.
• A job search site - I used jobsite which I found worked quite well. Not so much for the jobs on the site, but more for the interest you receive from recruitment agencies when I uploaded my CV. They all received notifications, and then contacted me directly regarding roles they thought I was interested in. It was them up to me to filter these calls and choose carefully which ones I was interested in.

Regardless of the approach used, if you are able to present the skills you have to the right companies then with some luck, they will offer you an interview.

Interview

Regardless of whether it is a telephone interview or a face to face interview, one thing was clear to me:

Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance

I spent a fair bit of time preparing for each interview. They all generally follow the same format and aim to provide a chance for the company to get to know you, and for you to find out more about the company.

Research the company intelligently. You will need to locate the correct company website and find the area of their business that is relevant for the position you are applying for. Having suitable questions to ask during the interview will serve you well.

For an IT job, you should also prepare for a test of some form during the interview. Generally this will involve some mix of practical programming and theory. Preparation for these tests can be found online with plenty of interview style tests available.

Job Offer

If you have managed to succeed in showing that you would make a good addition in the role the company wants to fill, they will make you a job offer. At this point you will need to be very sure about your motivations and reasons for changing job.

Personally, once I felt that once I had accepted an offer I did not want to go back on this decision. In my case this was made particularly difficult as I received a second job offer from a different company. My motivations for changing job were tested at this point because both companies were very comparable in a lot of respects. However in other aspects they differed, and that helped my decision.

Accept & Resign

Once you have accepted, you will want to hand in your notice as soon as possible to ensure that the process and your notice period are worked out as smoothly as possible. Keep your resignation short, to the point and professional.

Your current company may decide of make you an offer to keep you. Think about this carefully, and I would recommend you avoid making a decision on the spot. Think it over and decide carefully. In my case, again my motiviations for changing job were tested. Sleeping on a decision can sometimes help.

However the process works out for you, I wish you luck in your search.