Category: Job hunting

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Job hunting mental health

How I ended up in my current job

Let me tell you a story of how I got my role at one of Australia’s big four banks. Back when I was last job hunting, I had a few different leads come about from networking at meetup events and this bank wasn’t my first choice.

I had another Job Offer

My trip up to Newcastle to present at the Newcastle coders group had lead to job offer from a startup. The job offer was a mobile app team lead to a potential head of engineering upgrade career path. It was a super exciting offer and after chatting to my partner about it (they weren’t super happy) I signed the job offer.

Moving to Newcastle

I gave notice to my house mate, my previous contract and my community. I had arranged a few inspections and had put down a rental deposit on a new apartment up that way and had my heart set on living a 20 minute walk from walk, a 15 minute walk from the beach and a 5 minute walk from a brewery. All for less than $350 per week rent for a 2 bedroom apartment right in the centre of Newcastle. I had my priorities straight 😆 .

Then it all fell through

2 weeks before moving, the startup calls me up and cancels my employment contract. The level of transperancy I practice personally was a culture fit concern. Apparently someone on the board spoke to a previous colleague while doing “extra background checks” and my history of depression and performance came up. It’s not like I publicly speak and blog about these struggles. But they didn’t want to hire someone with this history. However the formal reason for cancelling the contract was for “culture fit” reasons.

This was over a phone conversation with one of the founders of the startup so the termination reason was never written down formally. I’m on good terms with the founder, they were annoyed with this decision but there wasn’t anything either of us could really do.

I think someone had spoken to a colleague who didn’t have the full context of why I left a previous role. The role didn’t suit my skills and expertise.

Where as from the outside, it looked like my broken leg blues was impacting my performance. Now it did impact my engagement but it wasn’t the reason for the departure. you can read more about that story here.

Mental Health Discrimination

If you feel like you’ve been unfairly dismissed or discriminated against, you have a few options. I had a chat to a fair work lawyer, they believed I had a valid case but because I hadn’t started employment there wasn’t a lot of financial reimbursement I could claim and their fee was $7000.

Claiming Unfair Dismissal

You can claim on your own with no lawyers fees but it’s harder if you chose to self represent. Also you have to let the fair work ombudsman know within 21 days of being dismissed. I let that time window pass. You can claim a few other ways too, one way has a 6 month time frame and another is within 12 months with the human rights commission. *

*Disclaimer; I might have some of these facts mixed up and this is not legal advice. Please reach out to a lawyer for further clarification

Opting out of unfair dismissal

I opted to not go down the unfair dismissal route. The startup had reimbursed me the direct expenses I had already paid with the move (my rental deposit and inspection fees), so there wasn’t much else I could claim except for the lapse in work/stress from moving because I now had to find a new job and move (my house mate had already found a new room mate and I couldn’t undo that). I didn’t feel all that hard done by and felt like they had already made fair reimbursements.

The only other reason I’d want to pursue the case is because I’d want people to acknowledge that mental health is important and it’s illegal to discriminate on this basis.

Rekindled previous leads

After the Newcastle job fell through, I rekindled all of the previous job leads I had. The original job at this bank I had interviewed with had been filled but there was another mobile QA engineer related role with another team that had just opened up. My details were passed along to someone else on the Talent Acquisition team. I did have to redo the 2 stage interview process again but it was a successful process this time round.

Moving and the new job

In the end, it all worked out for the better. I moved into my own 2 bedroom apartment in Crows Nest which had even cheaper rent than my last place (it wasn’t as cheap as Newcastle) and ended up with a job with this bank with a higher salary package compared to what the start up was offering. I’m still on a mobile team and I’m working on an interesting product. I have a financial update here if you are interested in reading more about my current state of affairs.

My partner is happier with this option and I can continue to do all of the awesome event based stuff I’ve been doing for Sydney Testers and YOW! Conference. I really dodged a bullet, I wouldn’t have wanted to work for a company where people didn’t like my transparency.

I’ve also written about fatness and bias before. This doesn’t constitute illegal discrimination under Australian law but it’s another story of how society can feel like it treats us unfairly.

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Job hunting

Job applications are BROKEN

I’ve been job hunting more than I’d like to count (4 times in the last 2 years if you really must know). With my recent round of efforts I have NOT heard back from a single application through the online Job Advertisment process (Seek and LinkedIn job ads). However I’ve had 9 leads come up from my network. I do not have a lack of options for work but the Job Ad route is completely broken.

Here are my 9 leads for work and how they’ve come about. The TLDR: networking is really important and the job application process is broken.

1. IRESS

IRESS is a financial markets, wealth management, and mortgage advice platform company. One of their leads internarnally had seen my profile on linkedIn as “open for oppurtunities” and put my name foward for a testing role there. The interview went well and there office was cool but I was exploring a few other leads and this didn’t feel like the right direction for me.

2. Fat Zebra

Saw this tweet and reached out. I had recently applied for an IT support role in Antarctica and so the idea of moving into support was on my mind. Fat Zebra is an online payments company in Surrey Hills. It looks like a pretty cool company. I’ve met the team and they seem to be doing some cool things. I don’t know if there is great alignment with my skills and what that company needs right now. They also have an open security role and an open tester role.

3. YOW! Conference

I’m now a part time developer evangalist for YOW! Conference which I’m super excited about. Basically I get paid to attend tech meetup events around Sydney when I promote the YOW! Conferences. I was at a meetup event, thinking, “I’d really like one of those developer advocate roles“, so I reached out to someone who use to work for YOW! and she said, “Reach out to Michele“. I sent Michele an email asking about the role and bam, next thing I know I’d been accepted under the YOW! banner as a developer evangalist.

Working my network for the win.

4. Dolby – QA Mobile Engineer

Stephen sent me an email about this role. It sounds like Dolby are doing some super exciting stuff with realtime video/audio preocessing for mobile apps. If I wasn’t actively purseuing a few other leads I’d apply but right now I don’t have the capacity to do it.

5. CBA – Test Engineer

This is one of my more exciting leads. Mobile testing is my speciality and I’m leaning towards a Software Engineer in Test type of role in either financial services or mobile apps (or both huzzah). I found out about this role because I presented at the Cocoaheads meetup and had a beer with the organiser afterwards. Turns out his team is looking for a QA Engineer. I’ve got an interview scheduled this Friday.

6. Startup – Tech Lead

A mobile app start up. I was approached by the co-founder of a startup last week about a potential tech lead role. It seems super exciting. The only reason why this lead has come about is because I went up to Newcastle last week to present at the Newcastle Coders meetup group.

7. Equal Experts – test consultant

I saw someone post an ad on an slack community I’m part of (Girl Geek Dinner Sydney). Equal Experts is a network of Contractors who do consulting work on different projects. It’s very similar to my current position but more organised. You can join the slack if you a woman in tech based in Sydney:

8. Readinow – Quality Coach

This might be a short term engagement. I’m having a meeting with the Director this week. My main concern is the job is pretty far out of the CBD.

9. DX – Test Environment Manager

Someone reac hed out to me over email over this one. If I didn’t have other leads or my heart set on Mobile Testing I would take up this role. I’ve enjoyed doing test environment support before.

Current role

I got my current role because I offered a free lunchtime learning session for Challenger from a tweet from one of their employees. My previous job made me redundant and Challenger said to me, “we enjoyed your lunchtime learning session, come in for a contract”. Again working my network to be in my favour.

Conclusion

Networking is super important and the job application process is completely broken. I’m super excited for a few job leads I’ve got going but I didn’t apply to any of them. Not even my beautifully crafted 1 page CV gets through the job ad application process.

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Conferences Job hunting Software Testing Technology

Next Career move

I recently asked myself, “where would I like to take my career?”. This is a blog post on that reflection. From maintaining tech skills to improving my coaching. Here are the things that are important to me.

Keeping tech skills up to date

I’ve been doing software testing now for over 7 years and even though I come from a Computer Science and Engineering background, I’m finding people too easily put me in the box of “non technical manual tester” based on my previous roles. If I do not work hard at maintaining my tech credibility I see a risk that I will be stuck with the “non technical” label for the foreseeable future. So how am I maintaining this skill? I’m working towards the following:

  • working towards a certified ethical hacker
  • Building a mobile app as a side project
  • Attending developer focused conferences

Certified Ethical Hacker

I’m working through Troy Hunt’s and Dale Meredith’s, certified ethical hacking course on Pluralsight. I find security testing more interesting than automation testing and there’s a huge demand for technical cyber security skills. The course is hard to do, there’s 80 hours worth of lecture material and it requires a commitment to regular learning to maintain it.

Wearable app side project

I’ve already spoken at conferences about my example poo tracking wearable app to talk about ideas like privacy by design. I haven’t even built the app yet and I’m using it to teach people. I’m interested in teaching myself mobile app development and how to build basic API’s. I even have someone who’s offered to help build this. Eventually I’d like to use this app to help teach people about different elements of testing.

Attending developer conferences

I’ve always enjoyed attending dev focused conferences. I always learn more compared to software testing focused conferences because it is out of my domain of expertise. I will continue to prioritise these conferences over software testing conferences this year.

Any new role that I start has to help me with maintaining my tech skills first and foremost. This is number one priority I will look at when assessing new roles.

Improve my Teaching/Coaching

I have always loved teaching. I was the kid in school that all my friends asked for help with maths questions. I’ve been tutoring my peers for as long as I remember. I’ve had my tutoring side business for almost as long as I’ve been testing. If teaching wasn’t see as a bit of a dead end low respected job, I would have studied it at uni. I do this stuff for free, that’s how much I love doing this. Being a Quality Coach at Campaign Monitor showed me that there is demand for people to teach software testing skills. In a few years I’d love to be running my company where teaching technical testing skills is my focus. I’ve been running robotics workshops for kids since my uni days. Any job that allows me to practice on the company dollar is a plus in my mind.

Speaking at Conferences

I’ve spoken at 14 tech conferences in the last 3 years. I enjoy getting up on stage. Any role that encourages me to do more of this is awesome in my books. It relates to the enjoying teaching, however getting up on stage is a little different to tutoring/coaching a person one on one. There is an element of entertainment with getting up on stage. The putting on a persona and pretending to be something more that what you feel inside.

All the data

In all of my previous roles, I’ve always enjoyed doing a deep dive into data analytics. From creating dashboard for event tracking testing to helping product understand how our customers were using our apps. I enjoy it all. I’m considering doing a Masters in Statistics in a few years when I’m more on top of my finances.

A bit of job stability

I went through the motions of job hunting 3 times last year. I do not want to do this again and again. Also meeting new people is mentally draining. A bit of stability with my work environment would be awesome. Or at least some having planned turbulence. I hadn’t had much luck with full time positions last year. Maybe this year I do all contracting? I’m still considering full time though.

Have a good culture

I care deeply about having a good social connection with the team I’m working with. I need to feel like I can bring an authentic version of myself to work. That means being vulnerable enough to talk about my struggles with depression and to be comfortable bring my quirkiness to work. It comes down to psychological safety.

Reasonable salary

I’m not solely motivated by money but having a consistent budget compared to my previous role is important for my financial security. I do feel like I’m getting at the expensive end for being a software tester and I can’t even compete with off shore testers in regard to pricing.

Practising a bit of sales and marketing

I struggle with selling testing as a craft where you want skilled people doing it for you. I’m glad I’ve never had to pitch my skills to CEO’s before getting hired as a tester. Someone else has already been convinced of the value testers bring. However with shrinking test teams I think the testers that will thrive in the future will have their pitch just perfect. Any testers who knows how they add value to others and remains relevant probably won’t struggle as much as those testers who don’t. I’m practising marketing through things like my blog and running Sydney Testers. Getting up on stage is related to marketing too. I’m also going to right a book this year as a marketing exercise.

I’m not interested in

Management; this feels like a clear way to let you tech skills go rusty and it’s becoming harder for managers to promote themselves as relevant in today’s agile/self driving teams.

Having QA in my title and working in a role that is only “Automation” testing; I find a lot of companies are demanding QA automation skills but don’t seem to understand the value a skilled tester can bring to the role or company. QA often stands for quality assurance, however building automation doesn’t assure quality, it helps the engineering team deliver code with higher confidence. To me QA stands for Quality Advocate. I can’t assure quality. You will find I never call myself QA anything in all of my online profiles.

It’s rare that I find someone who can clearly articulate why they want automation in a way that drives me towards it. I’ll happily collaborate with an Engineering team to help build this however I have a tendancy to get distracted by all of the other fascinating elements of quality. Like accessibility or security.

I’d prefer to call myself a Software Engineer in Test who is focusing on helping developers own and improve their own quality processes. There shouldn’t be a difference between Software Engineers and Testers in today’s agile teams. We are all working towards building quality products.

Summary

I’ve come to believe that my next ideal role is some kind of developer advocate role. Tech will be the focus, but that blend of marketing, community engagement, technical writing and speaking at conferences is appealing to me. Ideally I’d like to have a Mobile Software Engineer in Test role to help me move towards my coaching/teaching goals and to help me keep up to date with mobile technology.

What are you looking for in your career? Do you have a career coach to help you move in the right direction?

Categories
Job hunting Software Testing Technology

Back on the job market (again)

It’s only the third time this year I find myself job hunting (again). It was only back in June I found myself going through a break up from Campaign Monitor and in July I was starting a new role with a start up called Insight Timer that built a meditation app. I was just made redundant on Monday. I guess that’s #StartUpLife for you. Software Testers are expensive. I’m still fascinated that the CTO managed to convince the team they needed a software tester in the first place, even if it was just for 5 months. Redundancy is just another day in tech right?

I still want to do testing

This time last year I was thinking about becoming an Android Developer or a Product Manager. It seemed like the only way to progress my testing career was with Automation Testing or Management and I was not looking forward to any of those options. Over this year I have rediscovered my passion for testing and teaching. I want to combine the two. In a few years time I want to be running my own company where the focus is teaching testing skills. I’m not there yet but I’ve now got something I want to work towards. I’ll be looking for a position that has some strategic alignment with this goal. You can access an updated CV in PDF format here or as a Google Doc here. I’m hands on and very technical when it comes to my testing.

Goals

The goals I’ve set myself for next year do align with working towards my own company. I’d like to launch a wearable app, help my Nan with her digital marketing and continue to look after my health. You can read more about at at this blog post for my 2019 goals. Maybe I should add a goal, “Keep a job for 12 months?” 😭

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Job hunting Uncategorized

The future of work

There was a question at last nights Sydney Testers meetup event with James Bach, “What is the future of software testing with AI and automation?” Have a read of “Weapons on Math destruction“, it’s about how big data is driving inequality. I think testers are in a good position to raise questions around the ethics of Big Data. I’m not too concerned about our current state of AI drastically changing how I work. The tools I use might change but I’m going to remain being a tester for the foreseeable near future.

If I was to look into my broken crystal ball on future proof work this is what I’d be telling anyone who listens:

Become a nurse

Hear me out, if you are a high school student contemplating what to do and you don’t really have an idea but you know you want to go to uni and study something. Pick a nursing degree, especially if you are male. Men just aren’t taking up this robotic proof work.

With an ageing population more and more people will need care in the future and you have an almost guaranteed job for the rest of your life. You can do an accelerated nursing degree within 2 years and if you decide nursing isn’t for you, at least you didn’t waste that much time at uni and you learnt something practical.

Try it out first

If you are looking into trying this field out, approach your local nursing home or disability support group for a few weeks of work experience. If you can deal with other people’s shit (sometimes quite literally) consider going into health care.

Suicide impacts older generations more, this demographic are often stuck in nursing homes and are disconnected from their families. Robots aren’t exactly going to able to replace that need for human connection for these people. An aged care nurse will be providing services to growing market demands.

Other health care services are prime for automation and disruption. A machine learning algorithm based on probability and linking your symptoms to likely causes could replace 90% of General Practitioners work. Drug dispensing machines that access your prescriptions through the internet could replace pharmacists. Health care will be a growing market but could be changing.

Any existing work that has a strong focus on people is going to be hard to automate; parenting, teaching, recruitment are a few I could list off the top of my head. Maybe people thought the same thing about bank tellers 30 years ago?

Many new roles will exist

in 10 years time there will be new roles on the market. 10 years ago who knew that “Social Media Guru” would be a thing? If you have some basic web skills (HTML and CSS) and a passion for marketing I think you’ve got yourself a fairly guaranteed position for the foreseeable future. Email marketing is still a big thing and how long have we had emails for?

Most new jobs that are created tomorrow will not have a clear path from uni today into them. People will need to be adaptable and will experience career changes. What you study probably won’t be related to your work all that closely. Why consider doing an expensive 4-5 year degree at uni when there’s many shorter ways to get to work out there. If I knew someone who wanted to work in tech tomorrow, I’d suggest doing a 12 week coding bootcamp program over going to university. I didn’t really learn much hands on technical skills at uni through my computer science degree and I’ve learnt more stuff on the job.

Having a learning mentality is more important.

Once you have a degree in anything, studying a masters for a career change becomes an option too. Why not do an accelerated 2 year degree just to get a piece of paper?

If I had a spare 15-30K I’d be studying Data Science or a masters in teaching, but I don’t because I’ve been bad with my finances. I really enjoy teaching people and I don’t need a masters degree to practice that.

Don’t follow you passions

You know that sentiment, “follow your passion and you will never work a day in your life”? That’s a load of baloney, throw that shit in the bin before it infects you further. It’s harmful wishful thinking. If you do know what you want to do and how to get there, good for you. Most people aren’t in that situation, me included. acknowledge what type of work engages you and what interests you but don’t conflate passion and work.

I find testing engaging work and I’ve made it my passion but I didn’t go through high school telling myself, “when I grow up I want to be a tester”. Often the work you do will not be what you expected. I never thought I’d be doing mobile testing for a meditation app but here I am.

I want to teach people; there’s a market for learning technical skills. It’s something to work towards that combines my skills and interests but I didn’t know I wanted to do this 6+ months ago. It’s been a recent evolution. Heck, if paying off my credit card debt wasn’t one of my main focuses I’d probably be working in a brewery. 

A lot of work is prime for automation

Automation is coming for all of our jobs. Even people who work in technology aren’t safe. However if nursing doesn’t appeal to you, consider doing engineering. Even if automation changes how we work, we will still need bridges, buildings and infrastructure to support everyone. Unless we figure out how to upload our consciences to the internet, then I have no friggin’ idea  what work would look like. 

Categories
Job hunting Software Testing Technology

Evolution of my CV

My CV has evolved a bit over the years. But there have also been a few constants too. I’ve always tried to keep my CV under 2 pages, my most recent one is 1 page with embedded links, it’s a little experimental and it’s more like a portfolio.

Bug Hunter Sam Connelly 2019

You can also access it under my public canva profile here

The 2 page CV

I have a two page CV that I use when I feel like the 1 page visual one is a bit too adventurous. It’s created using google docs.

Bug Hunter Sam Connelly 2019 – 2 pages

I also tweak this CV for applying for specific roles like tech team leadership.

How it’s evolved over times

2014

Sam Connelly Tester Profile 2014

I used this CV to apply for my role at Tyro, it was created using Word and it’s interesting to read over how I presented myself 4 years ago. This was my first attempt at putting the 5 c’s of testing on my profile.

2016

Sam Connelly Tester Profile 2016

I started experimenting with the 1 page CV, using Canva (an online designer’s tool). I was told somewhere that dates didn’t matter as much as duration. I used this CV to get my role at EPAM Systems. I still have the 5 ‘c of testing but I’ve replaced crazy with coding.

2017

Sam Connelly Tester Profile 2017

This is a 2 page CV that I used to help me get my role at Campaign Monitor. It went through a few iterations and I had a few other ideas in how to tweak/and experiment with it.

1 page vs 2 pages?

How many pages in your cv is hugely contested. Some recent studies indicate 2 pages are preffered over 1 page. I actually have both because different recruiters/managers will have different preferences. It’s good to have CV’s for different situations.

Bug Hunter Sam Connelly 2018 – 1 pager

Bug Hunter Sam Connelly 2018 – 2 pager

The whole point of a CV is to make you seem like an interesting enough person to invite into for an interview. Think of it as a user interface with that whole purpose in mind. How can you simplify the data and layout to make it easier to read?

How has your CV evolved over time?

Categories
Job hunting mental health Software Testing Technology

Back on the job market

I find myself back on the job market after a break up with Campaign Monitor. I didn’t successfully pass probation. It was a mutual thing and both sides of the discussion were adult about it. These aren’t easy conversations to have and it doesn’t serve any purpose to get angry and rage quit. I am a little sad to leave because I enjoyed the company and people but I wasn’t able to advocate for quality in a way that added the business value they needed from the role.

Depression and Job Hunting

When I was job hunting around 8-9 months ago, it took me well over 2 months to find a job and interviews with over 13 companies (blog). However in that situation I wasn’t in a rush and was willing to wait for something that looked like it would fit me well. The constant rejections were hard to deal with; especially when I had been experiencing a spell of imposter phenomenon and feeling like I was not good enough for anything. I also broke my ankle during these job hunting efforts which had a huge impact on my mental well being (blog).

My broken ankle contributed to a relapse of depression at the start of the year. Because of this I wasn’t able to give my 100% to the new job at Campaign Monitor and this negatively impacted the engineering’s team view of the Quality Coach role. Once your perception of value is seen in a non favorable light, it is very challenging to recover. You only get one shot at leaving a first impression and your reputation is built up on that. I didn’t do a great job when I started, then I tried a new team and a new process and saw some improvements. However there were still some doubts if this role was what the company needed and if it was the right fit for my skills. I went to a third team for the last 3 weeks but I feel like the decision had already been made by that point.

Keeping Track of Job Hunting

I used a spreadsheet in my previous job hunting efforts to help me keep track of where I was up to with every company;

spreadsheet of previous job hunting efforts

With this spreadsheet I noted the source of  the lead; I was relying on mostly LinkedIn and a technical recruiter from Opus. I noted down where I was up to in the interview process, excitement for the role (out of 5) and any follow up notes. I also noted the few companies who contact me after I had received a successful job offer.

Will I do the same thing this time? I’m not too sure. I’ve got the luxury of around 2-3 weeks for job hunting before the personal budget starts getting a little tight but it would be worth experimenting with the spreadsheet again this time.

What am I looking for in a new job?

This time round I have more confidence in my skills as a tester. Last time I wanted to quit testing and try something different (either Android Development or Product Manager). However now I know I love growing my reputation for being known as a passionate tester. In a few years time I’d love to be running my own company focusing on running workshops for technical testing and mobile apps (e.g. TDD and kotlin, Continuous Integration and iOS). I’m not there yet so I’m looking for a mobile app testing role while I work on workshops in my spare time.

I’d love to have a role with support for speaking at conferences. I’m speaking at Agile Australia on how to get more people involved with testing in a few weeks, Selenium Conf in India at the end of June on using robots for mobile app testing, CAST in Florida in August on stories in becoming a quality coach. I now have an anecdote where that didn’t work out for me so that should be an interesting talk.

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Job hunting Technology

Strategy Vs Tactics – a job hunting example

One of my pet peeves is when people use the word strategy when they are talking about tactics. According to “I have a strategy (no you don’t)” a visual guide on understanding strategy; a strategy is a planned/doable sequence of actions/tactics designed to achieve a distinct, measurable goal. Strategy is an idea in my head, I have ideas on what tactics I can implement that will help me achieve a particular goal.

book cover for I have a strategy no you don't

I have a strategy to find a job I’m happy with. Now my success metrics will look different to yours even thought it may sound like we have the same strategy. My success metrics look like; find a good team that is passionate about the products they are building, they have a respect for software engineering quality practices and to receive support for public speaking at technical conferences. Ideally I’d like to have a small gap as possible between my current employment and the new job. I would also like a 10-20% pay increase from my current salary. Through going through a few interviews/having conversations with my partner I have discovered that I want a role based in Sydney so I have adapted my success criteria. A strategy is an evolving thing, the words I write today are an attempt to formalize that strategy but it is just a snapshot. I’m leaning towards a software tester role too because it is my most marketable skill/expertise.

The tactics I’ve used thus far to help support my job hunting efforts have been:
Enable the “open to new jobs” label on my LinkedIn
Reaching out to recruiters who’ve I’ve had good experiences with before
Reaching out to old colleagues
Reaching out to people who I’ve met through the tech/meetup scene
Applying for roles on LinkedIn
Browsing the careers pages of some known companies and applying that way

I’ve had different levels of success in scoring interviews with these different tactics. So hopefully you can see I’ve employed a diversity of tactics that are meant to help support me in finding a new job that fits me

I’ve also been constantly reiterating on my CV. Other tactics that people could use are; create a custom CV per role you are applying for, seek feedback on CV, practice mock interviews for a particular role, build up connections with the company you are looking to get hired at

But all of these tactics are just that, they are actions that help support the strategy,they aren’t “a strategy” on their own. Strategy is steeped in battle, I’ll leave you a quote from Sun Tzu about strategy.

strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat - Sun Tzu

Categories
Job hunting mental health Technology

job hunting diaries

I’ve been job hunting now for nearly 4 weeks. I’ve had face to face interviews with 6 companies, done 3 technical tasks, have 2 more interviews scheduled, have 3 more technical tasks to do and 3 more leads I’m chasing up. And I’m exhausted. I’ve been rejected by 3 of those interviews, I turned down progressing further for 1. All of this on top of attempting to work a full time job, speaking at EuroSTAR in Copenhagen and having a life. It’s getting to me mentally. I really struggled to get out of bed this morning. I even sat in front of this computer for 10 minutes struggling to start this blog post. But I’m doing this for my own therapy.

My tactics for job hunting have been;

  1. Enable the “open to new jobs” label on my LinkedIn
  2. Reaching out to recruiters who’ve I’ve had good experiences with before
  3. Reaching out to old colleagues
  4. Reaching out to people who I’ve met through the tech/meetup scene
  5. Applying for roles on LinkedIn
  6. Browsing the careers pages of some known companies and applying that way

In terms of tactic number 1, I was concerned that I would be swamped with recruiters. I’m glad I wasn’t, in fact I’ve only had 1 lead get generated this way. Tactic 2 has been the most successful in generating leads, it makes sense because these are guys who are literally in the business of recruiting tech talent. Every other tactic has generated a lead or two, tactic 5 has had the lowest lead generation rates.

The feedback I get is that I interview very well, I pride myself on my skill in testing and I enjoy talking to people about it. This passion comes off in my interview and often my interviewers walk away saying they actually enjoyed the experience. One role I was rejected for was because they thought I would actually get bored in the role, that’s a far call to make and if they aren’t willing to be flexible to accommodate my skill set that is the best call to make. On a side note this is actually the third interview I’ve had in my lifetime of testing interviews to come back with that feedback. I have huge respect for companies who can be open enough to make this call.

One role I didn’t do so well with the technical task, basically they asked me to automate some tests using visual studio, c# and Selenium. I said automation is not my strong point, I haven’t touched windows in over 2 years but give me enough time with google and stack overflow I can work something out. After tackling with the tools for 3 hours I submitted the task, I hadn’t completed it 100% but I thought it would be enough to help them assess my coding styles and thought processes. I wasn’t successful and there weren’t any surprises there. I interviewed well but I was being tested on tools I had barely touched. I can code, it just takes me a ridiculously long time to do so because it’s not a skill I practice every day and I’m not going to mislead anyone about my skills here. I could have sunk more time into the technical task but for my mental well being I drew the line at 11:30PM. Lack of sleep is one of the easiest things I can do if I want to experience a relapse of depression. I got to the point where in the workplace I would ask a fellow colleague for some assistance or looked at similar tests to get inspiration but I didn’t have access to those types of resources. In terms of assessing my technical chops, I think a pair programming exercise is better suited for me.

I’m a little annoyed at what feels like wasted mental energy but I should try not to dwell on the past too much. I have a few more leads that I’m more excited about so I hope they turn up more promising results. An example role that gets me excited to apply for is Quality Coach, an example job ad can be seen here. Anything that has an emphasis on automation testing over people skills is a little bit of a red flag for me because I’ve been burnt a few too many times now. How do you handle rejection in the job hunting process?

Categories
Job hunting Software Testing

Where’s your local experience?

We had an amazing Sydney testers discussion group today on sharing stories around our job hunting experiences. One comment that came up was on local experience and I wanted to elaborate a little more on it.

I would say there are atleast two ideas behind why someone would care about local experience. Unconscious bias and culture fit. I have helped with interviewing some people in my last company so I have some insights to share. I would say that unfortunately there is some bias against people who don’t have English as their first language. People will use the rationale of poor culture fit to justify their unconscious bias.

I would say that unfortunately in Australia we have a bias against people from India, the massive call centre outsourcing efforts have not left us with great impressions. So there is an association with strong accents and having many issues with communication. Someone who’s applying for a job here with an Indian background just has a few extra hurdles to overcome, it’s not really fair but by asking for local experience we can justify to ourselves that you wouldn’t be a good cultural fit. We also imagine that you might be coming from a larger hirachical corporate structure, where there is a lack of innovation/self motivation. We imagine that if you did have an issue with your boss here you wouldn’t let anyone know about it because that’s what we understand about your culture.