Posted: 09/04/2021
Job Search 2021 _ Choosing The Right Role
So far in my current search I have been flooded with calls by recruitment agents with tantalising roles (reed.co.uk is the primary source of these, but LinkedIn & Indeed are candidates too)
As the recruiters are not all offering the same roles, there seems to be a lot of roles to suit me out there. In fact on LinkedIn I see roles popping up every few hours!
I have been working in the industry for a few years now and I have been both an interviewee as well as an interviewer, so this tells me that the market is very active at the moment, and therefore is in the job hunters favour. Good for me!
So for someone like me, it gives me the flexibility to pick the right role. I'm lucky enough to have saved up some money and use that while taking my break from working, and I have started looking before it runs out too, si I'm not pressured into taking the first offer I receive.
This is why I have pulled out of a role after the second interview this week, and most egregious of all, declined a job offer!
So let me explain: the first role wanted a huge plethora of skills which I mostly have, but also those skills are behind me in my career. I want to focus on the cloud, dotnet 5 and Blazor. Therefore I didn't feel I could learn much from them.
The second role had 2 stages of interviewing, the first a
coding test, and the second a face to face interview.
Both went well and I was looking forward to an offer which was gratefully received.
But when I asked for full paper work and details of the package on offer I was upset.
One of the major asks I have with this job hunt is to maintain a good work life balance. To me this means flexible working, remote first, 35 hour weeks and a generous holiday (25 at least right!) allowance. I want to take my son to school or pick him up, and with just these simple things, I can do that. To me, taking him to school is more important than getting paid large amounts of money. I have worked very hard in my career to get to the point that I can make that statement.
Studies have proven that shorter working hours make us more productive, and flexible hours improve that too. Microsoft Japan saw a 40% productivity improvement with a 4 day week
So with a Job offer of good money, I turned the role down because the flexibility with hours and holidays was not available even if it was remote first.
I'm lucky enough to have the skills that lots of companies are screaming for, so I have the luxury to say no and keep looking.
At time of turning it down, I had 6 interviews still lined up and had turned off Reed.co.uk so I would stop getting recruiter calls.
Let's see how they turn out.
In conclusion you have to know what you want to get out of a role, what it's going to help you do, but also does it suit your life choices too.
An interview is a 2 way street, you are interviewing the company too. But when an offer comes through, make sure you have all the details before you agree, some of these concerns only came to light when the contract was seen, don't rely on what the recruiter (or website/job ad) tells you, they get things wrong too, remember they are dealing with a lot of companies and roles and candidates, so they may have been mistaken.
Also look for definite figures on Job ads. What does "generous" really mean to you? In my case generous was very different.
The hunt continues, but I know I will find the right thing for me!
Thanks for reading this post.
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