How does recruitment work?

Recruitment for development jobs is very similar to recruitment in other industries, except that there is likely to be a programming task as a part of the process.

Development jobs are listed in many places; they can be found on job advert sites, through companies’ websites, or by word-of-mouth through your network. Social media sites such as LinkedIn can also be useful when job hunting, as recruiters are always looking for developers to fill roles!

Applying for a Job

Once you’ve found your perfect job, it’s time to fill out the application.

The important part of this process will be when you are asked to provide either a supporting statement (sometimes also called a cover letter or personal statement), or to answer a series of questions related to the skills needed for the job.

This section will be the part which is used to shortlist applicants, which is the process of deciding who will be interviewed, so this is where you need to focus your effort! You should re-read the job advert or the person specification, and look for any essential skills, as you need to evidence these. There will also be desirable skills listed which you may also be able to evidence.

Some people find it helpful to plan out their answers before they start writing, making sure you have one or two examples for each essential and desirable criteria.

A trick to writing effective statements is to always include the impact that your actions had. If the new spreadsheet you designed saved everyone in the team an hour every week then make sure that you mention that; always mention why what you did was useful.

Some top tips are:

• be concise: you should keep your statements short and to-the-point.
• avoid vague or unclear statements: as with the first point, try and avoid padding out your application with sentences which sound good but don’t really add anything to your statement.
• always talk about you: even if something was a group effort, for example a project you did with your team, you should try and avoid ‘we’ or ‘me team’, and instead focus on what you did.

The interview and the task

Once you’ve been shortlisted, you will be invited to an interview, and at this point you may be given a task.

The task can be a whole range of different things, such as:

• a programming task: you will either be given this in advance and told to present your code at the interview, or you will do this on the day of your interview.
• a presentation: you might be asked to present something to the panel, using PowerPoint or Prezzi; the topic will either be given in advance or you will be given the topic and time to prepare on the day.
• an ‘inbox’ task: these are common in jobs in very large companies, particularly in financial services. You will be given a fake inbox and a set of tasks will be emailed to you. These tasks are often impossible to finish so the challenge is to prioritise and respond to them in the best way.

Whatever the task is, the panel will be looking at how you respond and how you handle pressure. These tasks are often designed to be very hard to do within the given time, so don’t panic if it feels like you’re not going to finish it. Prioritise, make a plan, and be reflective. You will usually answer some questions about the task during the interview so make some mental notes about what you did well and what you would do differently!

Next step

In the next step you will complete a short exercise with your fellow learners which will help you to to develop your skills when applying for jobs.