Following up after an interview

Once you’ve completed the dreaded interview, the next thing to do is send a follow up. This shows your interest in the company, provides you with valuable feedback and highlights to the interviewers that you respected their time.

The best is to follow up as quickly as possible with an e-mail. You should follow up for both in-person and telephonic interviews. The e-mail should be addressed to everyone who interviewed you and should:

• Thank the interviewers for taking the time to meet with you.
• Reiterate your interest in the company and position.
• Highlight your relevant skills.
• Mention anything you wished you had said, but didn't, during the interview.
• Provide feedback on the interview.

The e-mail should be short and professional. You need to proof read it to ensure that there are no spelling or grammatical errors.

Another possibility is to ask the interviewers to connect via LinkedIn. This may serve you later even if you didn't get the position.

If you haven’t heard back in a while once you've sent your follow up mail, send a second follow up enquiring if your first was received. Don’t start to harass the interviewers as this creates a negative perception of you as a candidate.

With all your follow ups, don’t:

•  Harass the interviewers. Respect their time and possible workload. 
• Go over their heads to someone more senior. You’ll make yourself and the interviewer look bad. 
• Be aggressive or disrespectful. 
• Be long winded. 
• Beg or plead. 
• Leave grammatical errors or spelling mistakes.

Here are some links to help you with your follow up:

http://www.forbes.com/pictures/ejjl45eekh/how-to-follow-up-after-a-job-interview-2/

http://lifehacker.com/5905427/how-to-follow-up-on-a-job-interview-without-being-annoying

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/effectively-job-interview-135630698.html

http://www.best-job-interview.com/job-interview-follow-up.html

http://www.theladders.com/career-advice/how-not-to-follow-up-after-job-interview

http://jobsearch.about.com/od/thankyouletters/Thank_You_Letters.htm

Approaching a New Dev Job

If you’re starting out in a dev job, you should definitely read Joel Spolsky’s excellent article Getting Things Done When You're Only a Grunt

Some of the advice may be a bit idealistic, but the crux of the article is spot on – just do it. Strategies 1, 3 and 6 in particular give some great advice – these will definitely help you get noticed, but will also help improve the environment in which you work.

Intra-Company Leadership

Positively standing out above the rest as a leader is the fastest way to move up in a company. 

How soon should you become a leader? As soon as possible! Obviously the easiest way to signalling that you are a leader is to get people to follow you and engage in your cause. In software development, this could be an initiative or a deliverable project. 

Now not everyone is a born leader, and critical introspective review of oneself may be required; for this I recommend completing 3 simple topics for a self-review: 

In terms of leadership capabilities, 

• Catalogue what you do best 
• Document what others think you do 
• List things that you should be doing. 

After this review, you may find that there are key areas in which you excel or fall short. Some simple processes can help you gain leadership abilities – and don’t forget: Practise makes perfect. 

• Identify the project or initiative requirements and position yourself as the go-to-person. It also helps if you can provide an (on-going) explanation of the project on demand. This act of explaining, often in layman’s terms is a core element of leadership. To put something in layman's terms is to describe a complex or technical issue using words and terms that the average individual can understand. 
• Identify tasks that your line-manager completes daily, weekly or monthly – perhaps you could volunteer to do these? 
• Understand your team. We are all human, make mistakes and respond differently. These traits should not be seen as weaknesses, but should be handled with sensitivity and discretion (where applicable). 
• Understanding your environment, deadlines, key reporting individuals and if possible, risks and finances.
• Celebrate successes as a team and give credit where due. 

Leadership is not simply performing your standard work items (these are expected by management), but stepping up to the challenge and adding value above whilst empowering your team to deliver their work items easier, on time and with positive/happy thoughts. 

Here are a few things for an employee to consider about leadership: 

• Leaders are made: Consider identifying a mentor to answer questions. Refine your skills. Refine again. 
• Research first, then ask: you’ll remember the answer far easier if you understand the question and the domain. 
• Grab an opportunity to lead: If you wait, that seat may be taken. 
• Peer review: Ego will only get you so far, colleagues will help keep you on target. 

The act of leadership is a complex and continual process and while there are no easy solutions, your growth as a leader will be impacted by how you take your first steps. I recommend reviewing and refining your approach often.

Choosing the right company for you continued

In continuation to the last blog, there are many factors that need to be considered when looking for that perfect company for you – and again yes, IT professionals are in demand so you can be picky about the company you choose to work for. So in addition consider some of these factors when choosing your next position.

Growth

When looking at Small and medium sized companies it is important to look at their growth (head count and client base) over the last few years (where possible). Joining a company that is experiencing an accelerated growth can be very beneficial to your career in the long term.
On the flip side a company that is losing customers and shrinking its business may not have room for you in the long run. Look for companies that lead in their industry and are performing well, acquiring new clients and retaining the business and loyalties of old ones.

Reputation of the company and its staff

Do some research; try understand the image a company holds in the industry. Working for a company synonymous for quality and delivery will be seen as a very positive reflection of your abilities and attitude on your CV.

Culture and values

The company culture and company values are very important to your happiness and growth within the company. Ask about the company culture, the team structure and try to ensure that the ethics, values, team dynamics, management style and atmosphere are in-line with what you would like.

Finer details

In the interview try get a better understanding of exactly what your day to day job entails. This normally happens within larger companies, where developers are pigeon holed into certain components of a project or within certain internally developed frameworks. Make sure you know what type of development work you are committing to. Make sure you are acquiring transferable skills. Will you be working on challenging new development or are you going to be confined to maintenance work?

Management team

Management teams and styles vary from company to company. In my opinion a development manager/team lead/project manager is most effective if he/she has worked their way up from developer or analyst and therefore understands the interests/dynamics/intricacies of all parties and components as well as the business motives behind the decision he/she makes.

Employee turnover

It is generally accepted that developers, analyst, project manager etc. are in high demand and will move between companies in the search for better career opportunities. So resignations in an IT company or division are natural and organic but be weary of companies with higher than normal employee turnover. Generally companies with this effect have underlying issues that may not be easily seen. Try ascertaining what the management’s attitude is toward employee development and retention before making this important decision in your career.

These are not blanket rules and there are exceptions in every case but hopefully they have given you a better basis to make a decision on your next career move.