The year is finally coming to a close, and you’re really looking forward to collecting that end-of-the-year bonus. Considering all of the challenges that you faced at work over the past 12 months, you feel that you really deserve it.
But at the same time, the situation at work has made you realize that it might be time to start searching for a new job. From what you’ve read, there’s never been a better time to look for a new job, especially in the tech industry. Employers are fighting for top talent.
What do you do? Do you stick around for your annual bonus, or take advantage of the fact that there’s hundreds of thousands of open positions that employers are desperate to fill?
My knee-jerk reaction would be that if you’re waiting on a sizable bonus and don’t have an urgent reason to leave, then you should simply wait it out. That said, there’s a couple of things to consider:
Is the bonus really coming? Am I really going to get a bonus, or is my employer just dangling a carrot in front of me? A lot of cash-strapped companies didn’t give out bonuses last year. Although the economy has improved, it hasn’t been across the board. Clues that a bonus might not be coming include positions that remain unfilled or are outsourced — signs your company is trying to save money.
Is it worth waiting for? If we’re talking about a substantial bonus, that’s one thing. But if it’s not, you could bring in just as much at a job where the salary is higher than you’re making now. Spend some time crunching the numbers.
When will I get the money? Many companies announce bonuses in December and don’t get around to paying them out until well into the new year. Does waiting several more months change how you feel about staying? If that’s the case, you might consider starting your job search now.
Why do I want to leave? If you’re not getting along with a manager or don’t feel like you’re a good fit for your team, you have to weigh whether it’s worth it for you to stay for a couple of months and collect that payout. Your bonus might not be worth a few more months of mild frustration.
If you’re generally satisfied where you are but think you aren’t being paid what you’re worth, ask for a raise. Keep in mind that it’s rare for a current employer to be able to match the salary and benefits that a new employer offers. Another thing to remember is that the majority of people who decide to stay for a higher salary end up leaving within a year anyway.
If you’re not happy with your current benefits package (including things like the flexibility to work from home), if you don’t see opportunities for advancement or growth, or if you aren’t being challenged by the work, speak to your manager. Companies are working hard these days to retain their top talent. Especially if what you’re asking for doesn’t include a salary increase — something that often requires approval at multiple levels — you might find that your manager is more than willing to make changes in order to keep you.
If your decision about whether to look for a new job is just about timing — Is the end of the year really a good time to be on the job market? — let me reassure you. As I’ve written about in this column before, Q4 is an amazing time to be a job seeker. The candidate pool is smaller, so your resume will get additional attention. Hiring managers are desperate to fill positions before the end of the year because they will lose that budget line. The hiring process is less stressful because it doesn’t drag on for months.
At Averity, we’re busier than ever before. We’re being asked to fill opening for positions ranging from entry level all the way up to executive level. We can assure you that there are lots of great-paying jobs out there for ambitious people in the tech field.
When people ask me about starting a job search during the holidays, my answer is always the same: Don’t wait until after the first of the year, when job boards are overloaded with people competing for the same positions. You might end up feeling frustrated with the search process and put it off for six months or a year, when you’ll be in exactly the same situation you are right now.
If you’ve browsed through any of the leading business publications over the past few months, you’ve noticed an increased reliance on military metaphors. In today’s tightening labor market, companies aren’t just facing challenges, they’re “under siege.” They’re urged to put together an aggressive “battle plan” if they’re going to win in the “war for talent.”
It might make for compelling headlines, but declaring war isn’t going to help in your recruiting efforts. Today’s tech professionals aren’t swayed as much by the high salaries and generous signing bonuses that experts have insisted for decades are the only way to attract the best people in their field. And the perks of the last 10 years or so — like installing a keg of beer in the lobby — won’t convince them, either.
During the Covid-19 crisis, tech workers rearranged their priorities. There’s a reason why we’ve been seeing a record number of people quit their jobs in the tech sector in the past few months. If they were only looking for better compensation, they would have accepted other positions right away. But despite unprecedented growth in the IT sector, applicants are taking their time to sign on the dotted line.
Here at Averity, more and more job applicants are telling us that they are waiting for the right fit. They are looking for a great company culture, corporate values that align with their own, or a work schedule that considers their changing needs. The companies these IT professionals eventually join will be those that can best articulate why they are the best place to work.
Today’s applicants are asking a lot more questions than they used to. The most common ones these days are about what it’s like to work at your company. If an applicant asks you a question about your corporate culture, you’d better have an answer.
The trouble is that a lot of organizations know how to sell their product, but they have no idea how to sell their company. No matter whether you’re a startup or a major corporation, you still have to give them good reasons they should join your team. But how do you accomplish that?
Start off by talking about your company’s values. If you are committed to a diverse workforce, talk about the steps you are taking. If you are passionate about climate change, prove that you put your money where your mouth is. You’ll definitely see a difference. A recent study showed that 9 out of 10 people are willing to accept a lower salary to do work that they believe in.
Flexibility has become one of the most important incentives for those looking for new jobs. A recent survey of 1,100 engineers found that more than 75% want to work from home all or most of the time. Only 2% wanted to be in the office full-time. Companies that have announced that employees will eventually have to return to the office — even tech powerhouses like Apple — are getting serious blowback. If you offer more flexibility in terms of where and when your employees work, that’s a huge plus.
Your future employees want a chance to hone their skills. In fact, a survey conducted by the cloud computing company Citrix found that 88% of respondents say they look for the availability of learning opportunities when hunting for a new job. During the final interview, your team should map out a growth plan for the candidate. Give them a 30-, 90-, and 180-day timeline that shows what they can expect to learn at your company.
When IBM recently polled 14,000 workers about what they wanted from an employer, 43% put career advancement opportunities at the top of the list. Less than half of those reported that they were actually getting a chance to advance within their company. Talk about how you define success for your company, for your tech team, and for each employee. If you can demonstrate that you’re a company that promotes from within, it will set you apart from competitors.
Organizational impact is a term we’ve been hearing about more and more these days. Top-tier engineers want to make an organizational impact with their skills. If the interviewer talks about how the candidate can make an impact on the company, they are more likely to want to work there. Who doesn’t want to feel that their skills are valued?
It’s especially important that the interviewer be prepared with a story about why they accepted a job with the company and how it helped them grow on a personal or professional level. Telling their own story adds the human aspect, and it’s something potential employees really connect to.
Finally, the interviewer should leave plenty of time for questions. Give the candidate space to ask about anything so that they can make an educated decision.
Everyone on your team, from the CEO on down, should be able to articulate your company culture. Team leaders should discuss your company culture with potential hires. It should figure prominently on your website and in your social media posts. You’ve already got everything you need to attract top talent. You just need to get the word out.
Just about every article offering advice about when to look for a job tells you to avoid November and December. As the holidays approach, there are fewer and fewer openings. Human resources teams stop scheduling interviews. You might as well wait to start your job search until the new year.
Except that none of the above is true. In a normal year, October, November, and December are great times to look for a job in the tech industry. And in 2021, there’s never been a hotter job market than right now.
How hot is it? Experts say that we are currently in one of the “hottest tech job markets since the dot-com era.”
As I wrote earlier this summer, the number of listings for tech jobs, especially top-level talent — keeps rising. The tech sector added 26,800 jobs in August, more than any other month in 2021. The number of jobs now exceeds its pre-pandemic peak in March of 2020.
At Averity, we are being asked to fill tons of openings for Back-End Engineers — so many that we can barely keep up with the demand. We’re seeing a huge rise in listings for Data Scientists, Machine Learning Engineers, and Data Engineers as well. And if you have experience in specialties like DevOps, DevSecOps, or SRE, you have your choice of open positions.
What I’m saying is that if you’re in the market for a new job, or even if you’ve been thinking about testing out the waters, the time to do it is right now.
Reasons to start your search right now
Contrary to popular belief, it’s never been true that the last quarter of the year is a bad time to start a job search. An analysis of more than 10 years of data shows that October and November have a higher than average number of job listings.
Positions that are open in Q4 are often those that fulfill business-critical functions in an organization. For most companies, this includes key jobs in the tech department. When companies find a qualified candidate for these jobs, they are often quick to seal the deal.
Toward the end of the year, companies know exactly how much money they have to spend on new positions. They are often eager to make their last few hires before the close of the calendar year because they risk losing that position in the next year’s budget.
Reasons not to wait until January
It’s true that there’s often a dramatic increase in job listings in the beginning of the year, but the numbers are a little deceiving. Part of the reason is because comparatively fewer new hires are made in December. In addition, many people choose to leave their current job in January so that they don’t miss out on an end-of-the-year bonus. Those newly open jobs are posted in February and March.
The biggest reason for not waiting until January to start your job search is because everyone else does, too. There are more job listings, but also more competition. Your chances for landing your dream job actually start to diminish after the beginning of the new year.
In Q4, talented engineers have a lot more leverage. When competitors flood the job market after the first of the year, they lose much of the leverage they would have had in terms of negotiating salary, benefits, and much more simply because the supply of candidates went up.
When you’re looking for a job in Q4, here are a couple of things that you should keep in the back of your mind:
Be ready to pull the trigger. As I mentioned above, companies with open jobs in the last quarter are usually eager to make a hire. Don’t take too long to make up your mind. If it’s clear that you’re just shopping around, employers are likely to move on quickly to the next candidate.
Keep an eye on your calendar. Before your interview you should know your potential start date, any days you need to be out of the office, and any vacations you already have scheduled. Bring them up during your interview.
Don’t let a bonus stand in the way. If you’re one of those people waiting to receive your annual bonus from your current employer before you give notice, don’t be shy about mentioning that during your interview. If a company wants you bad enough, they are likely to adjust your compensation to reflect any lost bonuses.
Don’t put off the job search because you heard that nobody gets an interview in Q4. This year we’re seeing month-over-month increases in the number of job openings in the tech sector, and we don’t see it slowing down anytime soon.
If you’re feeling stressed out about that gap on your resume, take a few deep breaths. The truth is that a few months here and there are less of a strike against you than they were just a few years ago.
The coronavirus made employers more accepting of time periods where you weren’t working. According to a survey released earlier this year, 49% of employers said that resume gaps are becoming less of a red flag because of current market conditions, and 47% said the same thing about job hopping. Hiring managers are aware of how the pandemic has affected workers and will likely be sympathetic about any associated employment gaps.
That’s especially true if you’re looking for an IT job. So far this year, job growth in the tech industry has more than made up for the losses racked up during the pandemic. In June, employers posted listings for more than 365,000 tech jobs, the biggest monthly total since 2019. There just aren’t enough experienced engineers and analysts to go around. That means if you have experience in tech, companies are likely to be a lot more forgiving.
But trust us, that gap will come up during an interview. Your best tactic is to be upfront about it. Don’t wait for an employer to ask what you were doing for the last few months. Bring it up yourself in an interview. Better yet, mention it in your resume. If possible, talk about the time as a positive for you.
How can the time you spent looking for job be a positive? Make it clear that you were using your time in a constructive way. Hiring managers like to see forward motion, even if you weren’t employed full-time. And that growth can be personal or professional.
Remember that you control the narrative. Here are a couple of ideas to help you gap-proof your resume and ace the job interview:
Consulting work. Did you pick up projects here and there while you were searching for a job? You were a consultant, and this should be highlighted on your resume and emphasized in your interview. If you were working consistently, consider adding the name of your own company — even something as simple as Jane Doe Associates — to your resume and listing your major clients and the work you did for them. Being self-employed is no longer a negative for most companies. It can even be a major plus if the work you were doing is relevant to the position you’re applying for.
Building your skills. This is an important one, especially in the tech field. Taking an online course in a relevant area — such as Tensorflow, Keras, or PyTorch if you’re a Data Scientist, or Terraform if you’re in DevOps — should be front and center on your resume. If there’s no obvious place to put it, consider adding a separate skills section. Employers will be impressed that you’re making sure to keep your skills up to date.
Career development. If you’ve been thinking a lot about where your career is headed, that’s definitely something to bring up with a hiring manager. Spending time with a career coach or an employment counselor or working with a tech-focused recruiter like Averity shows that you’re serious about making sure your next job is right for you. Discuss how the experience convinced you to apply for a position at their company.
Family leave. If you were a caregiver during the pandemic — whether it was home-schooling your kids or taking in an elderly relative — it’s okay to bring it up. Tens of millions of people were in the same boat, so hiring managers are likely to be sympathetic. (If they were in a similar situation, it might even be a bonding experience.) Talk about how you were lucky to be able to do it, that you learned a lot from the experience, and that you’re excited to get back into the job market.
The point is that no matter what you did during those few months — whether it was taking courses to further your skills, doing volunteer work in your community, or taking care of family members — be prepared to talk about it. Express it in a way that reflects well on you. Stay upbeat and focused on the future. The only thing that is a complete negative is if you have absolutely nothing to say about how you spent those few months.
The number of tech jobs around the country has been steadily increasing for most of 2021, with the total number of job postings surpassing 365,000 in May. We haven’t seen those kinds of numbers since September 2019. And it’s not just in the traditional tech hubs like New York and San Francisco. We’re seeing impressive numbers in places like Austin, Milwaukee, and Raleigh.
At Averity, we’re seeing an increase across the board from tech companies in search of top-level talent. There are tons of companies out there looking for Back-End Engineers, and barely enough job-seekers to keep up with demand. The three most popular roles that companies are hiring for are Python Engineers, Golang Engineers, and Node.JS Engineers. There are more Python Engineers than Go and Node Engineers combined, but the demand still greatly outweighs the supply of talented Back-End Engineers.
Below are some of the other areas of expertise where there’s a tremendous amount of growth:
Data Scientists, Machine Learning Engineers, and Data Engineers. Companies know the value of data. Moving forward, companies that exploit every potential facet of their data will come out on top. By extracting the true meaning of data, Data Scientists help companies maximize their performance. Data Scientists need to have a combination of excellent technical skills, business acumen, and effective communication skills to ensure they can convey their findings to non-technical stakeholders. The skills employers are looking for most include knowledge of Python and its accompanying ML packages and the ability to apply machine learning models using a variety of techniques. They want a minimum of a master’s degree in a quantitative or STEM field, experience with deep learning, and knowledge of such tools as Tensorflow, Keras, and PyTorch.
Data Engineers create an organization’s overall data infrastructure, with the primary function of building data pipelines and data warehouses. They collect the data, clean it, validate it, and prepare it in a format all other stakeholders can easily use. You probably know the term ETL — Extract, Transform, Load — and this accurately describes what Data Engineers do with the data. The skills employers are looking for most in Data Engineers include familiarity with multiple languages used to build data pipelines (Java, Scala, Python), multi-cloud experience (AWS, GCP) and knowledge of building data warehouses (RedShift, Snowflake, BigQuery). A degree in computer science is very desirable, and experience with big data and tools such as Spark can set you apart from the crowd.
A bridge between Data Scientists and Data Engineers, Machine Learning Engineers have skillsets that overlap with each. They take the data from the pipelines created by Data Engineers and feed it into the models built by Data Scientists. Their goal is to create automation between the extraction and implementation to improve scalability. The skills employers are looking for most include fundamental software engineering skills (especially in data engineering), knowledge of languages like Python, experience with big data processing tools like Spark, and familiarity with cloud platforms like AWS and GCP.
DevOps. DevOps is a mindset and a culture that was adapted to speed software to a production environment. The hottest technologies in DevOps are microservices like Kubernetes. Service mesh tools like Istio, which help you map and understand the health of your containers, are also more and more in demand. Lastly, IaC tools such as Terraform are critical because they can tie in all your infrastructure and are cloud agnostic. That’s important as more and more companies run hybrid cloud models.
SRE. Traditional SRE — site reliability engineering — diverges a bit from DevOps. A lot of the technologies remain the same, but the purpose of SRE is reliability, scalability, and observability. The ability to code is becoming integral in SRE roles. Go and Python are what we are seeing at the top of the food chain. Other technologies that come into play are monitoring tools like Helm that help you define, upgrade, and install your K8s clusters. Solutions engineering is becoming a bigger part of SRE because it’s less about owning the infrastructure and more about uptime, maintenance, and upgrades to ensure everything is running smoothly.
DevSecOps. There’s a reason why spending on global cybersecurity is expected to skyrocket to more than $60 billion in 2021. Since vulnerabilities can pop up in a system at any time, DevSecOps is a way for DevOps teams to have a security liaison who understands systems, how they talk to each other, and the threat surface that exists. The three top skills companies look for include experience securing a cloud presence, an ability to run and scan for vulnerabilities after each deployment, and experience securing microservices using tools like Twistlock.
Cloud computing.According to a recent survey, companies are allocating close to a third of their tech budget to cloud computing. As more and more companies adopt a “cloud-first” strategy where they analyze which workloads they should move online, they need cloud computing experts to advise them whether it makes more sense to use a public cloud, private cloud, or a hybrid that combines them both. They also work on cloud-native applications, meaning they are developed and run completely in the cloud.
When you decide to quit your job, you’re probably going to have some second thoughts. And so will your employer.
After the initial shock of your imminent departure wears off, your current bosses may realize that you’re a valuable part of the team. They might decide that they don’t have the time or resources to conduct a search, or that in the current economic climate it will be very difficult to replace you.
Whatever the reason, they’re likely to come up with what’s known as a counteroffer — a package designed to entice you to stay. They may make you an offer of better compensation (a salary increase or stock options), increased benefits (such as more vacation time) or more flexibility (letting you work from home a certain number of days a week). A promotion, a title change, or increased responsibility might be on the table. It can run the gamut — anything that they can think of to get you to stay, even for a short time.
At this point, you might be feeling pretty good about the place. You might romanticize your time there, remembering the good times and wondering whether the reasons you gave notice were the right ones. You start to second guess your reasons for leaving in the first place.
At Averity, we’ve seen this scenario play out frequently. We’ve come to the conclusion that it’s never a good idea to accept the counteroffer. Here are some of the major reasons why:
It won’t solve your problems with the job. There was a reason you decided to leave, remember? Chances are it wasn’t just about the salary. You didn’t see a chance for a promotion, or your skills weren’t being used, or your input didn’t seem to be valued. Most of all, you probably didn’t think the job was taking your career where you thought it should go. All those things are going to creep up again.
You’re likely to leave anyway. Study after study comes up with the same results: Employees who accept counteroffers don’t stick around for long. LinkedIn reports that 80% of those who accept a counteroffer are looking for a job after three months. They’re not just absentmindedly scrolling through job posts — they’re sending out resumes or working with a recruiter. About half of those who take a counteroffer end up departing within a year.
You won’t be seen as loyal. Because you announced your intention to leave, your employer will question whether you’re in it for the long haul. (Harvard Business Review reports that 80% of executives say that employees who accept a counteroffer have a diminished reputation in the company.) Your supervisors think of you as disloyal. Colleagues look at you differently. Giving your notice, even if you change your mind, forever alters your work environment. If any budget cuts happen in the future, you’re likely to be on the block sooner than others. Also, if an opportunity arises for an interesting project that everyone wants to work on, you will likely be the last to be considered, since you will be seen as a “flight risk”.
You won’t move up the ladder. If you felt that your career was stalled before, wait until you take that counteroffer. Since they wonder whether you’ll leave in six months or a year, your supervisors aren’t going to consider you for a promotion. Here’s a good exercise: Think about the highest possible position you can realistically reach at your current company. Then consider the jobs you’re qualified for at other companies. If these put you farther along your career path, you’re making the right decision to leave.
So what should you do if you get a counteroffer? Be friendly, but firm. Thank your employer profusely, but explain that you’re ready to move on. Resist the urge to offer any critiques of your team or your supervisor, even if you’re asked to do so. And don’t badmouth the company with coworkers. Things like that have a way of getting back to the boss.
Leaving a company won’t necessarily reflect poorly on you, but 84% of HR executives say that leaving on bad terms will adversely affect your career. There’s a chance that you’ll work at this company again in the future, or that you’ll work alongside some of the same colleagues elsewhere. At the very least you’ll want to reach out to someone as a reference. Do the best you can to not burn bridges.
It’s never an easy choice to leave your current employer and move on to a job at a new firm. But once you make that difficult decision, stick to it. At the end of the day you’ll find yourself happier and have fewer regrets.
We’ve all heard it so many times that we assume it must be true: Hiring slows down in June, July, and August. Stacks of resumes sit around unread. Interviews are few and far between. Follow-up emails get the dreaded “out of office” reply. It’s so bad out there that you shouldn’t even bother.
But it’s just not true. Hiring doesn’t necessarily come to a screeching halt in the summer — especially this summer. This year the tech market is hotter than a sweltering July afternoon, and now is the time to take advantage of it.
It’s true that for many companies the biggest recruitment drives come in the spring (when they snap up recent graduates) and fall (when they make sure they are fully staffed for the holidays). January and February are usually the busiest months because managers finally get a budget for new hires.
But when it comes to tech jobs, these rules don’t apply. When companies need to fill a position in fields like software engineering, data science and engineering, or DevOps and security, they need it to happen now. Nobody’s going to delay a crucial hire until after the first of the year.
All the data I’ve seen backs this up. According to a recent report, the number of tech jobs has increased steadily every month so far in 2021. There are currently 47,700 more jobs than at the beginning of the year. Companies are competing with each other to fill many positions, leading to a steady rise in salaries.
We’re seeing those stats reflected here at Averity, where our team is fielding more calls than ever before from employers looking to fill tech positions. We’ve found ourselves hiring new recruiters to meet this increased demand. It’s the type of boom that we haven’t seen in a long time.
What kinds of positions are currently open? We’ve seen everything from entry-level data engineers and full-stack engineers to directors and senior directors of entire software development or marketing analytics teams. Industries range from technology to media, finance, healthcare, and beyond. You can check out our job board for a look at the positions that are currently available.
I’m mentioning all this to make the point that there are no slow periods for tech professionals. There are plenty of jobs out there at the moment, so there’s no reason not to start your job search now. Here are a few things that you should keep in the back of your mind as you begin the process:
Hit the ground running. In times like this when talent is at a premium, you have to strike while the iron is hot. As soon as you are sure you’re in the market for a new job, reach out to a recruiter who specializes in your field. Update your LinkedIn profile to reflect your most recent job and to refresh your mind about what you accomplished previously. (You’d be surprised how many people completely blank about their last job.) Perfect your elevator pitch so you know what you’re going to say when someone asks: “Why are you the right person for this position?”
Cast a wider net. Having their entire workforce working remotely over the past year convinced many companies that they could be more flexible about when employees come into the office. Some tech giants — including Twitter, Spotify, and Square — even announced that their employees can keep working from home forever. That’s especially good news for job applicants who don’t live on the coasts. Employers are much more open to hiring people who live in other parts of the country. We’ve been assisting them in finding the top-tier talent they’re looking for.
Full-time isn’t the only option. Not sure about going back to the office full-time? There are a good number of contract-to-hire positions available, especially in the summer when permanent staffers take time off for vacations. If the job or the company ends up not being a good fit, nobody raises an eyebrow if you decide to leave once your contract expires.
And one more point: Interviewing has never been easier. When you’re working remotely, you don’t need to slip under your desk, hide in the stairwell, find an empty conference room, or talk in cryptic language because you’re worried that someone can overhear you when you’re talking with a recruiter. No need to sneak out on your lunch hour or take a sick day. And when you need to go in for an interview, no one will think twice if you take a vacation day at this time of year.
Everybody believes the myth that summer is a terrible time to look for a job, so the number of applications go way down. Hiring managers have more time to actually read your resume. Interviews are often more relaxed. Don’t be afraid to take advantage of the fact there are fewer people competing for the job that’s perfect for you.
Experts called it “the biggest world-from-home experiment in history.” At one point, about a third of the world’s population — and nearly as big a chunk of the workforce — was under strict stay-at-home orders because of COVID-19. They were, in a way, all participants in one massive study about remote work.
The data has been rolling in since then. One of the most interesting findings is that 72 percent of knowledge workers — programmers, engineers, designers, and others whose job is to think for a living — would prefer a more flexible work environment moving forward. Only 12 percent want to be in the office full-time.
At this point, with almost half of the country at least partly vaccinated, business leaders seem to think that the experiment is officially over. Banking giant Goldman Sachs is bringing 20,000 employees back into its gleaming towers in New York, San Francisco, and Dallas this month. JPMorgan Chase will follow suit in July. They acknowledge some pushback — JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon was perhaps a little too honest when he said: “People don’t like commuting, but so what?” — but say that preserving the corporate culture is most important.
At the other end of the spectrum you’ll find tech companies like Twitter, Spotify, and Square who say employees can keep working from home forever. Amazon and Microsoft won’t be bringing employees back until October, and Facebook now says its staffers won’t return until after the first of the year. (“I think we have a responsibility not only to adhere to the public health guidelines, but to be slower than others in bringing people back simply because we can,” said Microsoft President Brad Smith.) Google actually walked back its previously announced policy, giving employees more leeway to work from home.
And most of us are somewhere in the middle, wondering whether we should bring employees back into the office, what the best timing would be, and what it would even look like. We’re in a sort of corporate limbo.
If you are racing to get your people back in the office, here are a couple of things to consider:
Finding the best applicants. The most qualified person for the job doesn’t necessarily live within a couple of subway stops of your office. Your competition is casting a wider net, and so should you. At the one-year mark of the pandemic, Averity is busier than we’ve ever been. We are hiring new recruiters to meet this increased demand, and we have fully embraced the remote culture now employing top tier people from all over the country that we never would have been able to work with prior. No disrespect to the tech person in New York City, but it’s great to talk to candidates with different skills, backgrounds, and personalities.
Sparking more creativity. There’s a strong belief that remote work saps our creativity because we can’t bounce ideas off each other at in-person brainstorming sessions. Our teams are definitely feeling the strain. A recent study found that one in four employees report that working from home has made them feel less creative. Trouble is, there’s not a lot of data to back this up. But there is research showing that remote teams have some advantages. Teams that are more diverse, including from a wider geographic region, are more innovative.
Ramping up productivity. If you think that your team’s productivity suffered during the pandemic, think again. After an initial dip right after the start of the pandemic, productivity skyrocketed. There’s a very interesting study that showed when employees opted into a work-from-home program, their productivity increased by 13 percent. When they later were given the choice to continue to work from home or go back to the office, those who stayed at home showed an additional 22 percent in productivity.
Retaining more women. It’s not a secret that Covid-19 has hit women harder. Data shows that 400,000 more women than men have left their jobs since the beginning of the pandemic, mostly because of the need for things like childcare. This means a decade of gains made by women in the workforce was completely erased by the second month of the pandemic. Maintaining a flexible work-from-home policy is one of the easiest ways to keep women of all levels from leaving your companies.
There are plenty of good reasons to invite your team back to the office. Onboarding has been hit and miss during the pandemic. Employees reported that collaboration has suffered, as has a sense of camaraderie. But remember that all of us transitioning to work from home was uncharted territory a year ago, but so is getting back to normal today. It’s going to take a lot of trial and error before we get it right.
In the first two parts of “Win the Offer,” we discussed the importance of research and preparation, both for the job search and the interview. Putting in that effort ahead of time will increase your chances of success. But no matter how prepared you are, it’s how you do at “game time” that counts. Here are the most important steps you need to take to nail the interview (and post-interview), so you can move up from a name on a resume to the person they most want to hire.
Five minutes after a job applicant walks in the door, more than a quarter of interviewers have already made a decision about whether they’re the right candidate for the job. By the time 15 minutes have passed, more than half have made up their minds.
They aren’t sizing up your qualifications. If you’ve gotten this far, you’ve already convinced them that you have the right skill set for the job. They know all about your experience, your background, and your education. So what are they looking for, and how do they know that they’ve found it in just a few minutes?
They are sizing up whether you are a good fit for their organization. They’re looking for what’s not on your resume, things like how you approach solving problems and how well you work on a team. They’re the kinds of qualities that are hard to put into words, but “you know it when you see it.”
The good news is that once you get to the interview stage, you have an idea of what they’re looking for in a candidate. Now it’s your job to show them that they’ve found it in you. Here are some things you should keep in mind:
Set the right tone early on. You want to be upbeat and personable. If the meeting is in the office, step forward and greet everyone individually. If it’s on Zoom, leaning forward a bit as you speak to each person has the same effect. Be especially aware of how you present yourself on a video call. Make sure that you’re well lighted and are dressed appropriately for the office. Examine your workstation and your immediate surroundings and get rid of anything that makes you seem less professional.
Establish a rapport. If you read my last installment of “Win the Offer,” you have already done some research on the people who are interviewing you using LinkedIn or other resources. Now’s the time to put that information to use. If you discover that you previously worked at the same company, or that you have focused on similar projects, don’t hesitate to bring it up. These kinds of commonalities show that you already speak the same language.
Differentiate yourself. Companies are looking for new hires who check a lot of boxes: They want someone with teamwork and collaborative skills, someone who is great at time management and is a good communicator. As you talk about your own experience, give examples that also show how you work equally well on your own and as part of a team. And make sure to ask thoughtful questions along the lines of: “What challenges did your team face during the pandemic?” or “Do you think any of the changes you made during the pandemic will be permanent?” This shows you’d be the type of employee who is invested in the company and its success.
Look to the future. Don’t only ask questions about what the job is now. Show a real interest in where the team is headed. What sorts of projects are on the horizon? What is the job going to look like on day 30, day 60 or day 180?
Give a strong closing statement. Just like a lawyer wrapping up a case, you want to reiterate your main points. After making it clear that you are excited about the chance to join their team, bring up one or two of their current projects that you’d enjoy tackling. This shows that you’re already thinking about the ways you can contribute to the team. It’s this kind of enthusiasm that people don’t forget.
Don’t forget the post-interview. The process isn’t over when you walk out the door. It’s good to send a thank-you note, but even better is to keep the conversation going. Ask a follow-up question about some aspect of the job, or bring up a potential solution to an issue that came up during the interview. Make it clear you’re serious about the job and you’re more likely to be the top pick.
If you need a refresher on what to do before you start job hunting or how to prepare for your interviews, check out my two previous installments of “Win the Offer.” And be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss other great advice!
In the first part of “Win the Offer,” I shared some insights on the importance of preparation and laying the groundwork before you even begin the job search. The same rules apply when you’ve been selected for an interview. Interviews are arguably the most important part of winning the offer, so you need to put in the effort to match.
First off, if you’ve made it to the interview stage in your application process, take a moment to congratulate yourself. You’ve succeeded in standing out from the faceless resume pile. That means the company sees something in you, and they want to know more. But don’t get too comfortable yet. There’s still a long road ahead.
Without a doubt, the single most important task you can do to stand out from your competition and win that job offer is pre-interview preparation. If you aren’t prepared when you sit down for your interview, plan on doing a lot of interviewing.
Research the company
It cannot be stressed enough that interviewing is a two-way street. You need to determine if you’re interested in working for the company you applied for, just as much as they are trying to determine their interest in you. They are going to want to know how enthusiastic you are about working there. Show them that you know them well and the work they do, and they’ll see you as knowledgeable and prepared. Anything else is an unforced error.
Hopefully you already know them from your experience in the industry or else you familiarized yourself with them when Averity submitted you. Now it’s time to do a deep dive. At a minimum, spend time getting to know the following sources:
• Company website: This is the top resource for learning how the company wants to present itself. Pay attention not just to the words, but also make note of how they organize the information, so you can see where your role fits in the bigger picture.
• News articles and press releases: You can be sure that the company’s latest developments are going to be on the interviewers’ minds, so you should be prepared to discuss it if the topic arises. Read both articles and the company’s own releases, so you can get the outsider and the insider perspective.
• Company blogs: Many companies have blogs on their site, but these days they can also appear on sites like Medium or LinkedIn. The best offer insights you won’t get anywhere else.
• Company stock: Pay attention to highs and lows. This isn’t just for curiosity about stock options. You’ll get the market’s interpretation of the company’s performance, and it can be a helpful hint about sentiment inside the company too.
Know who you are interviewing
Be sure to research the person interviewing you as well. Knowing a little bit about them will give you a leg up when the interview starts. Google them. Check out their LinkedIn profile. Learn something about them that will impress them. Showing interest in someone as a person never hurt anybody. Besides, maybe you went to school together and didn’t even know it.
If you are interviewing for a development or engineering position or sitting for a technical interview, read up on the company’s tech blogs. These are written by the engineering team and make a good window into the issues most important to them right now. Likewise, familiarize yourself with any Stack Overflow posts and your interviewers’ GitHub profile.
Ask intelligent questions
Always show up to an interview prepared with questions to ask. It shows that you are interested, and the level of questions you ask shows your intelligence.
Be mindful, though. Be sure not to ask a question that’s already been answered. And know which questions to ask which people. Don’t ask the HR manager questions about tech, and don’t ask the VP of engineering about the company’s PTO policy or 401(k) matching. At best, they won’t know the answer; at worst, you may sound like your priorities are in the wrong place.
The interview is your opportunity to shine. Take the time to prepare beforehand. Do the research, know who you are talking to, and have intelligent questions ready. Make sure to put in the effort it deserves, and you’ll stand out from the rest of the pack.
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