For a blog that I intended to write weekly, so far it’s been a bust! Unfortunately life got in the way of my best made plans!
The week after I set everything up, my boss announced he was making my role redundant. My attention naturally had to shift to negotiating my exit (a challenging prospect with such short service) and finding another job.
This was no easy feat; managing communications with agents and completing job applications was a full time job, which I was trying to do on top of my already full-time job. Thankfully, my boss was reasonable enough to allow me to take paid time off to do this, I just had to keep the day job ticking over. Since the main reason my role was being made redundant was because there wasn’t the capacity to define and test the features I was required to deliver, this wasn’t too much of a challenge.
I was really worried that I wouldn’t find something quickly, especially when I had an interview where the “nice guy” interviewing me said that I had ‘no right to command [the salary I already earn] with [my] skillset... If you think you can; good luck to you’. I left that conversation feeling that I was being given a harsh but realistic and objective assessment, that it was just down to luck that I landed my current role and that it was a fluke that I was unlikely to repeat in the current job market. Then I spent some time thinking about everything he said and his general attitude throughout the conversation and I suddenly realised he was not realistic or objective, but rude and arrogant.
Of course, it’s possible I didn’t present myself in my best light, that the agency had oversold me or irritated him in some way, or that he was simply just having a bad day, but ultimately I’ve proved him wrong by landing another job that seems to have everything I was looking for (including genuinely nice people) less than 2 weeks after that conversation.
So what I have I learned from this experience?
Firstly, there are suitable roles and companies out there. I started this journey with one company I wanted to work for, and that didn’t work out. However, the more people who contacted me, the more interesting roles I was presented with. In fact, there were so many opportunities that I was able to stick to my values and job goals rather than apply for everything that was vaguely in my wheelhouse; I was able to reject some roles after the telephone stage and even had multiple job offers to choose from.
Secondly, I discovered that I can and should trust my instincts (most of the time). As with many other skills, it needs to be developed over time but I can see how far I’ve come. Previously I’d have to pursue every possibility to ensure I didn’t miss “the one”, but these days I have a better idea of when to stick and when to quit. I also have a better idea of what I’m looking for and what I need. I can ask the questions that identify whether a role is likely to meet these needs.
Thirdly, I began to accept that it’s OK to not always be great at technical interviews. I often know more than I think I do, or can at least give a convincing talk, but when I can’t, it’s OK. Moreover, I’m not alone, and that is a comfort.
Finally, I discovered that my go to sites for jobs aren’t as useful as they once were. A lot of the most relevant and genuine leads came from LinkedIn, and more employers advertise on Indeed than the job sites I usually subscribe to. Glassdoor is on the rise and numerous roles are advertised on StackOverflow but I’d also forgotten about public sector job boards such as the one for the NHS and resources I was familiar with as a student such as jobs.ac.uk. Roles advertised on these sites weren’t coming up in search engine results that were filled by agency and other job sites.
I'm hoping to not have to refer back to these links for the next 5 years or so, but hopefully they can help someone else.
TFC