5 Steps to take at a Career Crossroads

I'd wager very few people know from a young age what they want to do with their lives and sometimes, even if they do, the path towards that goal can be unclear. After two years in Recruitment helping people take a step closer towards their ideal role, I actually found myself at a career crossroads. I didn't want to work in agency recruitment again, but I also suspected from my six month spell in Operations that this wasn't my dream job either.

For all those people who are trying to break into new sectors, new responsibilities, or if you just have no idea what you want, I can honestly say that I sympathise. Feeling under-stimulated at work can be one of the most frustrating feelings. For all you people, I wanted to shoot out some ideas based on what I've experienced recently, that might help steer your minds. I'm only just starting out, I realise, but I think these things could apply to anybody, wherever they are in their career.


1. Try and forget about it 

I'm not joking. Counter intuitive as this may seem, if you've been getting frustrated about your path in life it can help to just strip everything back. I found I was obsessing over it, feeling miserable, lost, confused, and I stopped doing the things I enjoyed. You quickly find yourself in a position where you can't recognise what you enjoy - and I'd consider this recognition the springboard for career inspiration.

I'm not saying if you like to bake cakes you should become a chef, but I think giving yourself space to just be can give you the opportunity to realise what sort of person you are. Do you like creating things, do you like learning, do you analyse, are you driven by being around other people, do you like being active and outdoors? All the things you'd naturally do once you give yourself some space will help you determine what elements make up your ideal role.

I also believe job hunting is tough and you need to be in a frame of mind that's positive and refreshed. Giving yourself some time out or just some time off from thinking about it will help you get to a more positive place. It's okay, and actually can be very helpful, to give yourself permission not to think about it for a while!


2. Make a list

It's much easier to list what you hate than what you like, so start with this. Think about all the work environments you've been in (or, if you're new to the workplace, think about your life so far): what annoys you, what bores you, what sort of situations make you unhappy, what personalities drive you crazy? If you can think about times you've been happiest and most fulfilled, list them too. If, like many people, you've been in a job where your feelings about it changed over time, really analyse what changed to bring that shift in mood about. Once you have your lists of positive and negative, try and find commonalities, similar situations in which you reacted in the the same way.

You can't always know what you're stepping into with a new job, and I believe it's largely a path where you're always filling in more blanks, but if you refuse to really acknowledge your own preferences you'll keep making the same mistakes. I mention this (seemingly quite obvious) point, because I definitely realised that what I wanted in my head was very different to what I actually enjoyed in practice. I think I've always been a bit of a dreamer, and in my head at school I think I had a picture of my future self as some sharp corporate over-achiever, working all hours. Thinking about it now that I've actually worked, I like relaxed environments, and I want to create things. I want to wear jeans, not a suit. I want to choose how I work, and I want to work with people who genuinely care about the things they do, not just chase big fees.

Get real about what actually makes you happy and unhappy based on your experience, not what you think will make you happy.


3. Read, Talk and Listen

Let's face it; often the problem comes down to just not knowing what is out there. You have reached the place where you know what you like and dislike, but you have no way of knowing how this fits into a job role. Does a job like this exist? Are you being far too idealistic? You need to start being more curious - tell people what you like, get their ideas and input. Start listening to the world around you and being more receptive to information about the jobs available and who is hiring. And research; you'll have to do lots of reading. I found some really great material whilst in this phase - one blog I really loved is a guide for people who feel a little lost in life, check it out.

Research different jobs. Use LinkedIn to search for different keywords and see what comes up. What do people with similar backgrounds, skills and interests to you end up doing? However frustrated you get, keep being curious. If you see a company you like the look of, just write to them. Explain what you're looking to do and why you would love to be a part of what they're doing. Many people don't do this, but it can open doors for you, and what do you have to lose?


4. Always say 'yes' to a conversation

I cannot stress this enough - approach your challenge positively and always say yes to conversations if people are willing to give you their time. This is especially the case when you're job seeking or looking to change job area. If you're asking people to take a chance on you, then impressing them with your drive and passion can go a long way towards making this risk seem less severe, especially if you lack some of the skills required for the position.

In addition to that, every conversation sparks something, whether that's an introduction to somebody else, or teaching you or confirming something about yourself or the world. Change is slower if you keep doing everything the same - going out of your way to have new experiences will help spark the change you want. And many people are genuinely lovely and sincerely do want to help you. As I said at the start of this article, most people have been in your shoes at some point in their journey.

5. Reach out to your contacts

Assuming that you already embrace point 4, you'll have quite a nice base of contacts. Talk to the people you already know, let them know what your position is and ask them for inspiration. Conversations are much easier if the relationship is already warm so, if you have a good contact somewhere you'd like to work and you know they like and respect you, it might be worth asking for help. As a recruiter one of the major things I learnt is that the majority of roles are never officially advertised, and many are filled internally before you would ever hear about it.

If you know any good recruiters, talk to them. Anybody really committed to candidate care and long term relationships will take the time to give you some pointers and ideas. If you're looking to take a change in career direction I wouldn't bother sending out your CV to new agencies. People are very blinkered when it comes to CV screening and from my recent experience will not spend time helping somebody who doesn't already tick all the boxes for the role. Seek advice from recruiters you know and trust though, and see what comes of it.


That's it

I could say much more, but I'll leave it at this: if you find yourself in the position I describe and you'd like somebody to mull things over with or to get some informal advice them my inbox is always open :) Reach me at char.poynton@gmail.com

Why Investing in Culture Should be Your Most Important Business Objective

I was having a discussion recently about company culture, something often talked about but rarely truly captured and lived by companies.

Have you ever worked somewhere where the culture seemed riddled with contradictions - website slogans which only ever seemed to be given voice in client meetings or interviews with prospective candidates? Colleagues who all knew what they were 'supposed' to feel about the company, but who really were all disconnected. Or perhaps you're a founder who knew clearly what your intention for your company culture was, but growth phases were met with clashes and high turnover.

Culture determines the people you attract, the quality of the people you attract affects the quality of the work you produce, which affects the clients you attract and the value of your work to them. Even if, like Amazon, who recently came under fire in the New York Times for their aggressive, relentless and somewhat merciless approach to their work and their employees' welfare, your culture is not as warm and fuzzy as many founders aspire to, at least it is defined and anticipated by new employees. People choose to work at Amazon because of the buzz that comes with a somewhat brutal work hard, play hard culture. I'd posit that this is better than having that culture but not being upfront about it, and thus not having the same high quality of employees looking to make their name.

The worst kinds of environment are those that fall in between an Amazon (cut-throat but ambitious and high quality) and those like Google who offer the same excellence with a seemingly warmer culture, an on-site doctor, and months of fully paid parental leave. Because having a clearly defined culture, whatever its nature, is better than having no culture at all, being bland, sounding like everybody else and being all talk.

Do not write down some words, send out a memo, and leave it at that. 

You literally need to live your culture from the top down. You need to reward people who demonstrate it. You need to invest significant amounts of time and money to help educate people about what you're trying to do, what your mission is and what your values are.

Most importantly, you need to embody them, and in public, visible ways. You need to make sure that everything you do, and everything you produce, has a coherent message and embodies what you stand for. When you hire, don't write a generic boring job spec with the same words everybody else does; market your company in such a way that you attract the kind of people you want to hire (like Google, embedding a secret coding challenge in their search engine).

Do not underestimate the importance of culture.

It runs throughout and affects everything you do, and everyone you come into contact with.

In a recent course I viewed on Udemy I saw this statistic: "57% of a typical purchase decision is made before a customer even talks to a supplier (B2B)".

This is because a customer's impression of you is coloured by what they see, and what they hear, and if you establish and live a truly clear culture, your employees and your clients will do all the positive talking for you. If you don't, you fight twice as hard for each sale.

How to Find Offices in London

A key part of a great company is often having somewhere centralised where people can come together into a creative and relaxing space and share their ideas but, in London, it's usually not that easy to find. In fact, if you're doing all the leg work yourself, it probably feels like you're ramming your head repeatedly into a wall. 


At YLD (where I'm now helping out with Ops and HR) we’re currently in the process of finding somewhere to lay our hats, and so thought it would be worth sharing some of the sources we’ve found useful (especially if you’re a start-up and/or have limited funds).

An important point to bear in mind, as with house hunting in London, is that if it’s on with an Estate Agent it’s probably already gone. For commercially licensed property there’s not too much advertised on mainstream sites like Rightmove anyway, but worth knowing.

Tips:

• Start looking early - probably a good 6 months before you actually need the space, if possible, as this will give you more choice.

• Decide what you need - is a private office essential, or could co-working space be an option? There are some great accelerators and co-working buildings you could look at, and these probably have a lot of facilities/infrastructure already in place which you can start using immediately.

• Decide how much work you want to do - if you want to use your existing network to find out what might be coming up (ask friends, colleagues, spread the word about what you’re looking for) or if you want to use a specialist to help with the search. They promise to take a lot of the pain out of the process, but they will charge a fee.

• Budget - have a clear idea of your budget and start to get a feel for different areas of London and what they cost. Some are very pricy but may not actually suit you best in terms of your travel needs. Something in Zone 2/3 might be more convenient and much cheaper. Think about Service Charges (charged for maintenance of your building) on top of Business Rates (payable to your local Council), electricity, gas, cleaning, internet and phone lines, as well as installing any desks/features. 

• Consider residential - decide if you want to go for a pre-licensed commercial property or get your own residential space and go through process of getting it licensed. May be easier to find.

Resources:

• General info: Government advice 
• Co-working space: Bathtub2Boardroom, WeWork, MinistryofStartups
• Agents/Consultants: MakingMoves, EstatesGazette, WorkSpace

Happy hunting - feel free to post your tips below :)

Where are all the front-end developers?

I found this brilliant blog post by Jose Aguinaga (here) and it got me thinking about the reasons behind the shortage of software developers in London - especially in front-end. I want to reflect on and summarize some of Jose's ideas and add a few of my own.

Context

I don't have the frustrating experience of many recruiters - when I speak to most companies, they tend to struggle to find developers, which makes it a much easier conversation for me! Often, they are happy to talk about the difficult condition of the market, and how I can help. That's a nice position to be in! But it leaves me with a problem to solve; I need to know where the front-end developers are...

It's Not as Challenging?

Jose quotes a user who points out that, since front-end development is easier than other fields of engineering, the shortage seems odd. It's a premise that I've come across in many conversations actually - particularly when speaking to back-end developers who believe their job is harder or, at least, more 'serious' engineering. I've also had clients comment they'd like 'a back-end developer who has turned to the front-end - but that never happens', as if front-end development is just a step one takes in the journey to becoming a 'proper' programmer. Perhaps this stigma (though diminishing quickly I would say) is still a reason why many developers don't focus on the front-end, abandoning it completely to move into back-end or choosing to use it as part of their full-stack skill set.

It's Misunderstood?

I think the big problem is distinguishing between being a 'front-end developer' and a 'front-end engineer'. Another of Jose's arguments is that front-end engineering is a relatively new area, with the 'engineering' part being added only recently. No longer is the front-end just visual design (not to undermine that, either), but what is technically demanded of the front-end is getting so much steeper. What many people might believe a front-end developer does is vastly underestimating the role, if you're looking at the responsibilities of a front-end engineer. Which skill set does a company need, what is it really looking for?

There is a Low Barrier to Entry?

One of my favourite points from Jose's post is that, because it is so easy for anybody to learn to code now (free online courses), anybody can learn HTML and CSS (a bit like I did...) and then call themselves a front-end developer, indistinguishable from a hard core front-end engineer. The fact that there are many bad or perhaps inauthentic front-end developers means that it is much harder to identify the good ones who have sound engineering principles mastered.

Lack of Exposure

There are, of course, many ways into programming, but it seems from my experience that a large number of the most passionate programmers I've met wrote their first lines of code at a very young age. Granted, this kind of personality was probably more likely to look in the right places to stumble across programming but, for many children, perhaps they just didn't have the exposure. I think this is something that will be changing over the next decade. Children are being taught programming now in the UK from as young as 5 years old. Besides this increase in audience engagement with the young, I also think the image of IT has changed drastically. No longer are programmers the humorous but socially awkward geeks of shows like The IT Crowd - they're millionaires, CEOs, Entrepreneurs, Game Changers. Brands like Facebook, Apple, Google, are sharp and attractive to young job seekers. If we, the general public, are to understand how our technological world works, then we need to step up and take an interest in how it all fits together. We know how to write in English, why not JavaScript? 

Becoming a true front-end engineer, master or mistress of your craft, demands time, practice, dedication and patience. The exciting thing, though, is that the front-end developers of the future are everywhere - they're children and students, they could be me; they could be you. 

Want to Work in a Start-up?

The start-up scene in London at the moment is booming.

Boris Johnson recently said there’s “nowhere to rival London for start-ups looking to thrive and grow", and it certainly seems the ‘Silicon Roundabout’ as well as the numerous incubators and accelerators are doing a good job of nurturing London’s new digital businesses.

There’s a large and buzzing community around start-ups, and often these are the kind of people who don’t need a recruiter’s help, as they already have plenty of contacts. Normally, I’ll only be brought in at about the second round of funding, when a lot of hiring needs to be done in a short time frame, and the founders have worked through most of their existing contacts, or when the founder is not technical.

If you spend a lot of time at events, and you network with the right people, then you probably know a lot about the start-up scene, and you know people who can fix you up with a great job at one.

If you don’t, though, then it can seem like a daunting move to make from the more corporate, hierarchical 9-5, to the world of the start-up.

What do start-ups look for?

Obviously every company is different but, if I were to sum it up in one word, I’d say ‘passion’.

If you were starting a company from scratch, spending (initially), 60+ hours a week with a handful of other people, uncertain if it will pay off, then you need to be confident about those other people. You need to know that they, like you, hunger for your idea to work and be successful. You need to know that they are 100% behind your idea. This doesn’t really change even when the company reaches 50+, sometimes even 100+ employees, especially when this growth can happen within a short number of years in a fast-growth start-up.

When I screen candidates for culture fit in start-up tech roles, passion is one of the key indicators for me. This is everything from what a candidate does in their spare time, to the way they talk about their work, and if their eyes light up.

Does a corporate background count against you?

No, not necessarily, but I would definitely look at what the candidate has been doing outside of work – side projects, meet-ups etc. By the way, by ‘corporate’ I don’t just mean a large company – I mean the traits that unfortunately tend to come along with being a larger company – technically set in its ways, very hierarchical, slow moving. 

I think it’s a much more natural move to transition from an SME, because the start-up world is dynamic, evolving constantly, and usually very flat structurally, but it depends entirely on the individual, and it’s never too late to make the change.

I’d say the key thing here is to make sure you’re coding in your spare time. Swot up and make sure you know all the latest trends in your chosen technology. The tech space moves fast and if your company isn’t sympathetic to that then you need to be.

Is joining a start-up risky and time consuming?     

It can be, but you just have to be smart about it. I think it’s quite easy to tell if a start-up has legs or not. Look at where the money is coming from; if they have a concrete business plan beyond big dreams; if they have done their market research and have a track record in the space; who the other people working there are and what their backgrounds are.

I think when you consider what recently happened to Tesco, it’s clear that any company can fail, big or small. It’s only as big a risk as your research is careless.

If you think you'd like to work for an awesome London start-up message me :)