Genius Required

Here at Lab49, we try to add a fun angle to everything that we do. Sure we could all crack on with our daily tasks with our heads down doing what is needed and nothing more. However, that would be more than a little boring…. We are recruiting a good number of new staff for the London office right now and rather than send out the usual email stating who the new person is and what their technical skills are, we’re asking all new staff to answer the following questions:

Name:

Technical Speciality:

Who would play you in a film?

Favourite song lyrics:

Dogs or cats?

Wine or beer?

Best night out ever?

Favourite meal?

Tell us a joke:

Best piece of advice you have ever received:

I’ve listed my answers as below.

Name:Marie

Tech Specialty: Recruiting

Who would play you in a film? Jessica Rabbit

Favourite song lyrics? “I don’t want the world to see me, because I don’t think that they’ll understand. When everything’s made to be broken, I just want you to know who I am”. Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls

Dogs or Cats? Normally dogs as they are loyal and ridiculously grateful for anything. However, next doors cat is glorious bundle of fluff.

Wine or beer? Wine, wine, wine

Best night out ever? Night before we got married, 17 of us in a restaurant in Wells, Somerset having a great time. On the next table sat Timothy Dalton and Jim Broadbent amongst others – I think that we may have imagined that they were very happy to talk to us…..

Favourite meal? There’s an excellent Indonesian stall in Spitalfields Market just behind the office – their Tofu Satay is just excellent.

Tell us a joke: A man walks into a bar, orders a pint and after serving him, the bartender goes to the other end of the bar to serve a customer. Next thing, the man hears, “That’s a lovely jacket Sir.” He looks around, sees no one nearby and convinces himself that he’s hearing things. A moment later, he hears, “What a great haircut – that really shows of your lovely eyes and razorsharp cheekbones.” Again, he looks around and sees no one. The bartender returns to that area of the bar and the man tells the bartender what he’s been hearing. The bartender says (wait for it…), “Oh that’s the peanuts Sir, they’re complimentary”. Tish boom!

Best piece of advice you ever recieved: 2 pieces of advice actually from my 85 year old grandmother. 1) Never chase men or buses. 2) If you are going for a “walk” in the woods, always take a blanket to avoid splinters…..

Over 1600 people have read this blog so come out of the woodwork and introduce yourselves!

Ironically, the only category that this fits under is “cool stuff”. On the way home last night, I had the pleasure of sitting on a train with broken air conditioning – I’m pretty sure it was actually pumping out hot air. It’s one of the newer trains operated in my area and as it is so new, I guess that they think that the A/C is pretty solid – so there are no opening windows on the train. I swear that it must have hit at least 45 degress centrigade in the carriage that I was in. They also ran the train slowly (for those who haven’t had the pleasure of using the UK’s crumbling public transport system – nothing operates normally outside of the following boundaries 15 degrees centigrade and 20 degrees centigrade with light drizzle or hazy sunshine…..

Whilst waiting to exit the train, I was standing behind a guy whose shirt was just soaked – so much so that I now know that he has a tatoo on his right shoulder! I think most passengers lost a few pounds that evening…………..

I remember an episode of Friends where Joey decided to actually learn to do some of the things that he claimed to be able to do on his CV. I think that they were speaking fluent French and being able to play the guitar. Phoebe tried to teach him to speak French but he just couldn’t get it. When trying to speak French at an audition, he just blah blah’d in a heavy French accent and sounded just ridiculous and Phoebe, who spoke it fluently, said to the guy holding the auditions that Joey was a “little backward”…Funny episode but the content is relevant.

I’ve already commented on CV accuracy in How To Lose A Job In 10 Minutes. It really is important to be accurate and honest when claiming certain expertise and experience. For example, we will always ask you to write some code in an interview – we want you to prove that you can do what you claim to be able to do.

I have been working in technical recruitment for a number of years and during that time, I and my colleagues have interviewed so many candidates who state that they are hands-on but when it comes to the crunch, they cannot write decent code. For any role that requires hands-on development, you must be prepared to write code and good code at that – you must be able to explain what you have included in the code and why. We want to ensure that you really know what you are doing and that you are thinking about what you are doing.

If you claim it on your CV someone at some point in your career will ask you to prove it – make sure that you can back up that claim….and not be considered “a little backward”

I’ve just had my third call this week from candidates who have read my blog and want to learn more about Lab49. It really is a great way for you (and me!) to get to the heart of what Lab49 are about and to contact someone directly rather than getting the third-party pitch on our company.

This blog does not in anyway tow any “company line”. It’s completely unmoderated (which is why I got away with my interview do’s and don’ts posting!) which is kind of strange in todays internet and blog-savvy world. Wouldn’t you like to work for a company who let’s you blog about whatever you like? The reason that we are able to do so is because our staff are genuinely happy in what they are doing and so the Directors of our company have complete trust in their employees to use a “common-sense” approach.

If you want to work for a company that doesn’t wrap you up in bureaucracy and red tape – you’ve come to the right place…….

A reader has sent me some links regarding yesterdays Groundhog Day post.

In timely, but obviously sad news, Puxatawney Phil’s Canadian counterpart has passed over to the great big barometer in the sky….

I was actually raised very well by my parents but they would be horrified that I hadn’t even bothered to introduce myself… tsk.

Intro’s are tricky but I’ll give it a go:

My name is Marie, I’m 30 years old and I have been working in the London office of Lab49 since the beginning of April. I work as the recruiter but as we are getting the London office up and running, there are ad hoc tasks that fall on my plate. What I am trying to do in Lab49 is to work on a direct sourcing model hence using varying media and headhunting to track down those best candidates who really want a challenge.

I came to Lab49 as I really wanted to work for a company where I would be visible and would be able to make a difference. Given that some former colleagues are also working here – it made the jump even easier. Lab49 are aiming to provide top level service to our clients but unlike many other consultancies, our developers are important too! We want to provide a technically-centric and respectful environment for our developers. We don’t “put bums on seats” or “bodyshop” – we genuinely care about the kind of projects that our staff work on and try to ensure that they will be interested and technically challenged by what they do.

Prior to working for Lab49, I worked for a global electronics manufacturer in Surrey where I was their Recruitment Specialist. Working there introduced me to the kind of frenetic environment that I am now pretty much used to! I recruited for a number of areas totalling about 600 or so staff and I worked with approximately 30 hiring managers at any one time.

I studied Russian and European Politics at university (which of course, is a natural lead into recruitment…). I graduated in 1998 when the Russian economy collapsed (both incidences are entirely unrelated) and then found myself in recruitment and HR.

Now I’m here! I would appreciate reading any comments that you have regarding recruitment at Lab49 – any experiences that you have had that you were pleased with or think could be improved – I’m all ears (not literally….).

Bill Murray’s character is a weather man who is sent to a small town to cover a story about Puxatawney Phil – a weather forecasting ground hog – or “rat” as Bill calls it. It’s the fourth year that he has been sent to cover the story and feeling unchallenged and bored, he makes no effort to hide his frustration. On awaking the “following day”, he discovers that it’s Groundhog Day again, and again, and again. At first he uses this to his advantage but then comes to realise that he is doomed to spend the rest of eternity in the same place, seeing the same people do the same thing EVERY day.

Apparently, some jobs are like that. Working for Lab49 – I can’t say that I would know

The roles that we have available right now are a real mix of opportunity and tasks. Being a consulting firm, you don’t go to the same client site to work on the same project for the rest of your career – you get variety, challenges and fun! All of the roles in our company require a fair bit of architecture, design and project management in addition to hands-on development. Unfortunately, we can’t consider pure architects/project managers/designers as the hands-on coding is essential.

The kind of candidates that Lab49 look for really are few and far between. Technically solid developers with client facing skills are not as available as they once were and so my job is alot harder!

The kicker for many internal recruiters is that we can no longer rely on job postings, internet searching and massaging our network in order to find candidates; we have to adopt a head-hunting approach. The main elements of a head-hunting approach are (simplified version!) targeting an organisation, identifying suitable candidates, contacting and piquing the interest of those candidates.

There are so many books and websites out there telling recruiters how to head-hunt; one article by Lou Adler suggests that the best thing to do is to get candidates to tell you about what they do before you tell them anything about the role that you have. My concern here is that I mostly call candidates at work and for the most part, they are unable to articulate much about what they do for fear of raising the suspicions of colleagues. I imagine that having someone on the end of the phone asking question after question can be a little embarrasing – all of those “Yes” and “No” responses may only sound suspicious to you but you never know!

The bottom line is that we want to contact candidates directly that perhaps aren’t actively searching for a new role but would be interested in learning more about what we do. What kind of approach would you favour from a head-hunter?

As we make our way to work and back each day, we are deluged with instructions:

Walk/Don’t Walk
No Smoking
Keep Off The Grass
Stop
30 Miles Per Hour Speed Limit

For the most part, we obey these signs – they are generally there for a reason – keeping people safe, not suffering due to others bad habits etc.

Okay, so why when I put on a job posting “Strictly No Agencies” does our company become a bullseye for so many agencies? I had one agent call up this morning who openly admitted that he had seen our many advertisements stating “Strictly No Agencies” but thought that his persistence would be appreciated. Why would our company work with an agent who can’t follow a simple instruction?

We are really focussing upon building our own network and database of candidates given the plethora of resources out there – LinkedIn, Jobserve, CWJobs, Gumtree, Dice, Hotjobs etc. We also actively head-hunt those “passive” candidates as the skill set that we require is in hot demand. What sources have you used in the past that have been successful? We really want to directly interact with candidates from day one so that we can accurately represent the company and to let you know why we are such a great company to work for!