Unlocking the Django Job Market: Strategies for Developers and Employers

Speaker 1: So uh our final talk of the day. Um save the best to the end.

Speaker 2: No pressure then.

Speaker 1: Yeah thanks for coming, John. Uh let's give him a

Speaker 2: Thank you very much everyone. Um it's been a really good day, thanks to all the speakers before me as well, um to the guys for organising. I'm going to talk today about unlocking the Django job market , giving some strategies for both developers in your career and for employers looking to hire. Django people. Okay. Um so a little bit about me. I um I'm John. Um I've been working for the last fifteen years as a recruiter specifically with within the the Python and Django world. The first role, the first exposure I had was in 2008 when Django was on version like 0. 96 seven I think um a couple of years ago

Speaker 2: set up Foxy talent um the business is specifically focused on um recruiting within the Python and Django world. In my career, I've helped over 350 people to actually get jobs. The number of people beyond that that we haven't helped with jobs, but have actually helped in their careers with advice or jobs. just um speaking to is probably um probably 10 times um uh community organizer i've uh I'll do a lightning talk in a bit as well about Django Social, which is something that we're we're operating and running, which is great fun. And today is my 15,000 days birthday. Yeah. It was someone I checked ages ago. I put a reminder in the calendar and I saw it when I was writing the slides.

Speaker 2: So um I could be found at any of these links at the bottom. them um probably most I've been busy all day on Twitter and at LinkedIn as well. So a little bit about Foxley um said we're um business set up to recruit just within the Python and Django world. Our goal, our mission is to become the go -to recruiter for anybody within the Python world to to reach out to to help with their their job search. I think if we say it enough, hopefully it will come true one day. The company started two years ago. We are really proud to be members of the Django Software Foundation. I have a little badge on the corner. of pretty much every slide I put together

Speaker 2: or anything I share because it's something that's really important to us. We sponsor Django Con US, which is happening next week in America which we're going out to and also Django Con Europe uh where actually there's quite a lot of faces I recognize from from these events um as well. We've got three of us in the team you'll never actually get all three of us in the same photo so I've had to um impose that one on there. And then as a business for something that's really important to me as I said is the Django itself. Without Django I wouldn't have had the opportunity My career wouldn't have had a business to set up with a USP that we have. I think a lot of people and Sarah's first talk today about giving back and using the skills that you have as developers, as engineers.

Speaker 2: engineers to to give back to Django to fix problems, to improve it for everybody else is a skill that you all you'll have. Companies will are able to spend sponsor and use and give back to Django for us as a as a non-technical part of the community to for us to give back and support the ecosystem is we we donate five percent of our annual profits to the Django software foundation as well. So any placement that we make, any fee that goes out, any invoice that is charged, we yeah, we give a part of that back to the the world that we support and that supports us in turn. Um so a little bit why am I talking about this today? I suppose it is the my uh subject matter expert, uh

Speaker 2: someone I can talk about um I've gone through my background. What I want to go through today is uh job searching and career decisions. Uh I gave a lightning talk on this at the same event last year. Five minutes wasn't quite enough. I don't know Yeah, hopefully I've got enough to talk about today. Um the then I'll talk about hiring talent and how you can go about that. Um then I'm gonna leave you with resources. One of the things I said, like we We've I've placed a certain number of people, but that's only a fraction of the the number of engineers and conversations that we have behind each placement. Um we can't we cannot we never will profess to be able to find a job for everybody we speak to. But what I like to try and do as a part of any interaction is to leave

Speaker 2: somebody with more than they came to the call with or to the conversation with. with in terms of resources to go and look at to start your own search, ideas of places to look and to make sure that you are able to you know pass that on and and go into the search with a a bit of um reinvigoration to it. Cool. So in the job search strategies I'm going to talk through the four key parts which is starting off your search um the search, the interviews, and then making your decision. Moving to starting off, we're going to talk about why. Anyone who remembers the talk from last time, why is the key part about this talk, I suppose. Then we'll talk about looking at requirements,

Speaker 2: creating your CV or resume, depending where you're listening, and then the logistics of the search, things that you can anticipate. Right. So the why and the requirements of your search. When we when we have a a conversation about your a job search, there's often been a trigger, something that has happened in work or is happening in your life that is um triggered you to start thinking about what the future holds. Is this the right place for me? Is there something better that I can move on to? Am I at a junction in my career when I want more? And understanding why you're looking is um

Speaker 2: It's something that's really is important to establish and when we speak to s um a job seeker, we will try and understand that outright so we know whether it's you uh the motivation is maybe a away from I want to move away from this company, I don't I no longer feel um in line. with the values of the company or we've changed we've got a new product or we're doing something different versus your towards motivation which is I'd like to go somewhere and work in a different industry industry, an industry maybe working in renewable energy or in tech for good or charity sector, using your skills in a in a different way. Maybe it's because you're looking at um career progression or development opportunity. which you don't get in your current in your current in your current position.

Speaker 2: Maybe it's the tech stack. Maybe your tech stack is very rigid and there's no opportunity to work with new tools. And you want to move towards an a a role and a position where where you can do so. Salary is a key part of your job search. Um it's either an away from, I need to move away from X salary towards this or I need to move. I want to work towards this as a goal in a um financial per perspective. Um and then also like the location and the remote side. Some companies now, two, three years on from being forced to work from home are asking people to come back into the office more and more. And maybe yourself, you want to work remotely as a you know longer term Or the other way around.

Speaker 2: Maybe you're fed up for working remotely, you want to go there. So having your your why established And written down, and I would say write that down at the very start. You can now write the summary part of your CV, the introduction to you to you, explain your why, why are you searching for a job at this point in your career? And any elephants. So by elephants, I mean the elephant in the room, the thing that is likely to be discussed about your CV, whether it's a short period of time with one employer, a gap between employment. Um maybe doing half a degree and then taking a career option, but they all be something that you will all know about. yourself that will be discussed. So put that in the in the summary.

Speaker 2: Try and jump get ahead of that hurdle before it becomes a hurdle. Um I think as an engineer, there's no right or wrong way in which way to order the rest of it, whether you do a matrix of your skills, the top things that you work with. Um your emplo and then go into your employment history or if you start with your education first, it really doesn't have any impact and don't listen to anybody who says that. what people are looking for are the experiences that you have, the contributions that you've made to those projects, to those teams. I think it's really important to list any community involvement that you that you have, like everybody here today in this room, anybody watching online. On your next time you write a resume, write down that you've attended this event.

Speaker 2: It shows to people that you've got a commitment or an understanding of the the wider importance of being together as a community. in the Django world. List your personal interests, any of your own projects. Like we've had so many talks today about side projects that people have been working on or things that interest you. If you contribute um to Django itself, if you if you do anything like that, jot it down into the personal part because that's really going to appeal to people when you're interviewing. Okay, um problems. Now when you go into a job search it may not be through your own choice. You may have been made redundant, laid off. Um so that that's probably your main objection uh objective is to secure work quickly.

Speaker 2: But if you're in a position where you are changing away or towards some something in your in your personal situation, the timing. It's great to almost to to look at what's coming. Look at your um your your next few months in your life, are there any key events that you're that are going to get in the way if you've got a long trip booked, if you've got a conference you're attending, if you've got um weddings, births of children, anything like this coming in the in the future. Assume that you're on a month's notice, assume that your job search is going to take a month. Can you start a job on this date? And then we can then you can work around that. Similarly, availability to interview, what we'll discuss during that stage is like the timing,

Speaker 2: the time that it takes. It's it is a commitment and can almost be a job in itself, but that's where you've got to find that balance. One thing that we do talk about up front quite a lot is that assume you'll get a counter offer. It's really hard to hire great talent. Your current employer will probably not want to to let you go. So if you can address the problems if you're moving away from something or you want to go towards something up front, then it will save you the effort of going through a job search. It will save that conversation happening. later on and you can discuss up front what opportunities there are within your company that will provide you what you want. And actually a lot of job searches can be stopped you know stopped at this point if you

Speaker 2: have that conversation. Cool, so the search. Places to look. I think that a great place to start is to talk to your friends or or colleagues, depending on the your former colleagues, people that you know within the sector, it's likely that they will have gone through a job search at some point recently or somebody who's moved jobs, ask them about the j the new job they've secured for themselves, ask them about the jobs that they interviewed for that they didn't get, that they that they enjoyed meeting people. the company seemed good. Dig down onto that and find out who either locally in your area, region, or wider are um hiring people with your skills.

Speaker 2: Um job boards um or suggest looking on LinkedIn. They've got a good job section. Python. org has a good job section. There's a couple of Django specific job boards which I'll um put links up to but they don't have a lot of traction there's not very much new updated jobs on there that's something that is being discussed in the background Conferences and events. So I suppose today we've had a list of uh companies who've supported the event who've um put their names up on the board, the speakers who've been here, everybody who's got a company or something that they're associated to. If you've enjoyed the talk they've done, check out the their company pages. speak to them today, see if you can find a a job spec in their

Speaker 2: their um business that applies to you. Equally looking at the bigger conferences, the January the um pycons and looking again either at the sponsors or the job pages associated to those events for me companies who've gone that extra step and have sponsored an event of that size with that cost to themselves are are typically going to be I suppose for open source um mindset is going to be much more relevant than for other companies who are just posting a job up on LinkedIn. But have a look at them, see who's um sponsored on there and see if you can find if even if they're not advertising, if they look like an interesting company, find the CTO or the engineering manager,

Speaker 2: message them to see what opportunities there are, explain where you found their details, and then looking around on other socials as well Um outreach, um as I said, mention or approach the CTO engineering managers of the um companies that appeal to you. Explain, look, you appreciate that they may not be hiring right now, but you're you're approaching them because of the X commitment or wherever you found them, that will stand out and maybe they'll consider you for for future um employment. Um HR and talent teams. They should always be talent pooling, which is keeping record of good engineers or interests in their company. They should be keeping a list of that's a plea appeal to uh reach to them and see what you can uh

Speaker 2: be considered in the future. Um again highlight your skills and your why if you're doing so but the key thing and this is the sort of Top tip for junior developers as well is be really specific and targeted to the roles that you're appealing to or approaching or if there's no role, have a why. Don't just throw your CV into a into a hole, um your application against the website. Try and make yourself seen and noticed but importantly follow up. Recruiters, I I think that if you're looking for transactionally, I'd like a job, I was going to speak to a recruiter, you will get a service. Um But I suppose the way that we operate as as sort of industry and uh technology specialists is we're not interested necessarily in helping you with the job search, it's about giving you the tools for your career for every job search you do.

Speaker 2: Um look at um Yeah, looking into the why, where you're where you're at, where you're moving to. And we can help give you information about the market. Any point, you know, if you were ever having those why thoughts at the very beginning. Feel free to book a call in and just ask about how's the job market at the moment? What are the trends? What are you seeing? Is there a tool that we should be working with? And just stay in touch throughout your career. It's not necessarily a transaction. Find me a job, get me a job, whatever. Cool. Interviewing. Prepare. This might be the sort of teaching to suck eggs, but it's um I think definitely research over any company you're meeting with is um story, their background, their

Speaker 2: in vet any investment. Use the product if you're um interviewing with Will at Colo, go and use Colo. Like anything like that, it's as an example Find your interviewers on LinkedIn or other socials. There's no embarrassment about connecting to somebody. If you want a message and say I'm looking forward to chatting, do so. But look through their their profile and see if you've got any common connections or common interests, something that you like outside of work that maybe they've tweeted about um in the past, whatever that is, um, see what links you can get. And if you can during a interview bring that up, often the personal connection outlast and the impression you leave has improved. But importantly create a list of specific things you want to find out before you get into the pressure of the interview.

Speaker 2: You may forget to ask the question but if you've written everything down beforehand um you've got that to refer to equally if you get to the end and they say have you got any questions and they've answered it all you've actually got a list you can show now you've answered everything that I prepared. First stages. Often interviews will have a couple of stages. You'll have a chat initially. I'd say don't take too many of these on at any time, but be selective about which. which ones that you then progress with. Book the calls in quickly. No point in booking an initial call in for a week on Friday or two weeks time. Book it in now and then you can rule the the the company in or out within your search. Take notes of any key info.

Speaker 2: Reflect on your why. So at this point once you've now met a company, do they answer? Can they tell you Take the boxes of your of your Y at this point in your search. Book more first stages if you're unsure. Make sure you've had time for test, yeah, to completing tests. Now I'll talk about tests from the company perspective, but ensure that you're dedicating time. time to this part it sometimes it shouldn't it shouldn't be a pass fail but sometimes it is so just really concentrate on on that stage um can opposite to the first stages, I think you should minimize the number of final stages you take on. Unless you're, you know, just go to those companies that you specifically want to work with that you feel where your whys are all answered. Prepare again, um, cover off your questions, and this is your last chance to raise any concerns

Speaker 2: and bring those up. Um Moving through to decision. Complete them all very similar. Complete all the processes. Don't rush. Sometimes if you receive an offer and you're lucky to receive multiple offers, check when they want a decision by. If you're unsure, you know, head versus heart, seek advice from trusted people. Um if you don't know which offer to take, maybe try and distract yourself, go outside and maybe the the thought process may um be easier when you're not focusing solely on that. Now resignation, the last stage. Do it face to face, whether that be on on call or actually in person, explain your reasonings. Follow it up in writing after the conversation.

Speaker 2: Expect that counter-offer, even though we've probably addressed it up front. But expect the counter-offer. Decide how you feel about that, but then be flexible. But stick to your contracting. notice yeah it's there for a reason um and then you can start your new job um yeah it's a celebrate so that's a good thing right Takeaways, understand your why, make sure you have a bit of a plan about who you're going to approach and why. Be thorough but act quickly. Reflect at every stage, reflect regularly. Trust your gut but seek advice. of options there. Right. Started off the search from a from a hiring strategy. This bar is slightly quicker, so don't worry.

Speaker 2: Right, again, we'll cover off. I'll just go straight into it. Um so why is the role available? Um you're a you're a company, you're either you're either replacing somebody or you're growing. Yeah, again both both opportunities to look at the internally about why. What impact will this hire have? What impact will the person bringing in have? What impact would not hire in have? You don't have to replace somebody if they leave. If you potentially got um people within the team that you can promote or move around um have a look internally in that side um decide on the the profile of the the ideal candidate in terms of a Technical, what can they offer? What will they bring? What skills will they have? What skills don't we have in the team that would be nice to try and bring in at this point?

Speaker 2: Create your job spec. When you're doing so, describe the the role, introduce the company, look at the key tech skills. Now you could write a list, you know, two pages long of all the bits in your stack that you can use, but just highlight the the few non-negotiable crucial things that people must know and everything else is a is a bonus. Um qualifications decide if or why they need a certain qualification. If you decide it's it's not necessary. Just leave it off. It might put people off applying for a job who don't have the qualification, even you know, in that sense If you can, in a job spec, lay out what somebody can expect within their first sort of three, six, twelve months in the job, what their work will look like.

Speaker 2: When they're there. Um definitely 100% put the salary or the range on the advert or on the job spec so that people know up front, is this worth me applying for? Um number of times that we've had a an agreed budget for a a hire and then found somebody who's five, ten grand over the the salary, but they've still been hired. Well that's then your budget, isn't it? Like let's let's have a look. We would go five grand higher for uh for for the right person. Cool. Well that's your budget you will find the right person if you target target that um and then highlight your um your location working pattern um and any flexibility around that. Time scales and costs work backwards from that ideal start date. If it takes you a month,

Speaker 2: someone's going to have over a month's notice and you want them to start on the 1st of December so they can be at your Christmas party. you know, first 1st of November that they need to be handing the notice, which means you've got like three weeks to interview somebody um and offer and secure that person so they can be working from your ideal again plan around any holidays or events within the business you know what your calendar's like make sure that you've got that time dedicated to to interviewing, testing, making sure that you've got a process there, and ensure that the people who you are selecting to go into interviews are around. They know it's an important important um aspect for the business because you want to make sure that people are having a good experience. Diversity, I think the you've got to have a look at um

Speaker 2: where you can attract a diverse range of candidates that it's to apply to your role, looking at specific job platforms which are created for the groups that you want to attract or you want to look at, you hope to receive. applications from whether that be um user groups or organizations you know look at where you can go to broaden your outreach for the for the role. If you can write unbiased job descriptions, taking out any phrases or um parts about the business and it probably links more to having that inclusive company culture. if you want to encourage a diverse application, you want to have a diverse business already, um structuring your interviews reflect that. And trying to standardize your question, the way that you question and evaluate.

Speaker 2: I think every interview will be slightly different, but if you can standardize the majority the way that you ask the questions and how you evaluate people, that any sort of biases should be removed Right, searching. The job advert. Now you've got your job spec already written. You probably want to rewrite this in a way that is going to Become an attractive advert, assure it appeals to that diverse candidate pool, and decide where to post your advert, whether you're going to post on job boards and pay for those. subscriptions, whether you're going to post it onto your website, if you put it on your own website, how are you going to get people to look at that careers page? Is it by sponsoring events? Is it by um doing talks? Is it by asking your whole team to share that job spectral their uh

Speaker 2: networks as well. Posting up onto LinkedIn and socials. Now if you're gonna post a job You'll hope that people will see that and apply directly as well. Plan how you're going to respond to applicants. Nobody likes being ghosted, so make sure that you're you've got a plan about how, when, and why you're going to apply. Recruiters, again a key part of any um hiring process is deciding whether you want to partner with uh an external company to help you with the search. Um there's no harm in speaking to people, to booking a call, to finding out about the steps and the process that will happen. Sometimes people will think that having more agencies looking at a job is going to be more beneficial.

Speaker 2: I think actually in in reality, securing the services of one company, retaining their retaining on a search basis. to go out and look at the market just for you is a far better way of looking at it. Agree on the timescales to receive your shortlist, when you're going to review that, who's going to get back to candidates who's going to pass on the the news of interviews um give prompt feedback um and if you are um looking provide a competitive list for your head for a headhunt. If there's a somebody you want to you know you know good people come from share those company names. Interviews right um first stages I think if If I just go back one. I think a a good interview process can

Speaker 2: be completed within three stages. It can be thorough and cover enough that you um will know whether this is the person you want to hire or not. Adding more stages is possibly more of a reflection on you and your ability or confidence to identify a good candidate. I think if you can do these three stages well, you'll be able to hire hire good people for your team. First stage calls, 30 -45 minutes, Max, book them in promptly. If you see a CV or a resume that you like or you've agreed a certain time scale to be doing this, get on it. Just get the first calls booked in. If you're unsure about somebody off their CV, there's probably a reason why they've applied to you or they've been forwarded to you by the recruits that you're working with. Interview those 50-50 people.

Speaker 2: You may surprise yourself about what what they can offer. This call you should be checking the technical background that they can do, they've got a fundamental understanding of the basics of your key skills that you need. Gauge at this point the cultural fit that they're going to fit in your business again they're gonna add more to your business um sell your opportunity now not a lot of enough people do this um at this first stage is you've got to remember okay the the the market's slightly the other way at the moment where there are probably more um more candidates and jobs than the other way around but you should be Making sure that every candidate leaves your interview process wanting to work for you, for your company, regardless of the outcome. Okay.

Speaker 2: The technical tests when you're setting these. Now there's so many different ways that you can give a technical test or you can test somebody, whether that be a code review, a code project, a a live session of paired programming so many different ways is almost at the very start when you're planning your search check with your team how they like to be interviewed check what's worked in the past what people like and then give your candidate the options How did they prefer to be tested, which is more real life? Do not set this stage to pass or fail. If somebody has got through your initial screening. And you're asking them to spend time on a test, the right thing to do is to then to discuss the test with them. Even if they haven't done very well, you can then

Speaker 2: go through it in like a an opportunity to teach them. Even if it takes you 15 minutes, um leave that candidate wanting to work for you regardless of whether you're um gonna hire them or not. Um that's important because we spoke about start of your own job search, asking your friends what companies they work they interviewed for that they didn't get into but but really liked and would like to work for in the future. Final stages again book impromptu at this point really only speak to the people who you want to work with um if you've got concerns and that you you you know that's you're not going to be able to get over that um Address it, but then decide whether you want to take them forward. Confirm in this stage that team and cultural fit. Sell your opportunity.

Speaker 2: You might not be the only thing that people are looking for agree a timescale for your follow-up and for a decision whatever happens leave the candidate wanting to work for you and your business Um cool. Right, now you're going to review your process. Does the can this is basically what we just spoke about. Can they improve your team and all of that? Yeah. Um Now, what to offer? So you found somebody that you like that you want to secure. You've got to decide how much you want to secure this person. So what was your budget? Where in that budget range is the person's salary? Are they at the top? Are they middle? If you're going to offer them a salary on par with what they're on or slightly under or around what they're asking for, could you increase that salary based on performance?

Speaker 2: And if so , If they can't do that, why not offer the salary in the first place or set a milestone for them on completion of probation? Your salary will jump to this. Something like that. But whatever you offer. Leave a candidate wanted to work for you. Now positioning the offer, this will depend case by case. If you've um engaged with a recruiter, um From from my perspective in my experience, we've been talking to the the candidate maybe on a slightly different level with a different line of questioning the whole time. We know how they will feel about your offer. When we see companies offering directly straight after a final or calling the candidate out of the blue to make an offer, it's often

Speaker 2: those are the times when it's more likely that it's rejected because it's not been delivered in the right way, they might not have addressed the certain concerns the candidate has. But after you've offered, formalize that in writing. Give a timescale for a decision. You want that person to want to work for you. Hopefully you've done that all the way through. But they may have some parts of their life that they need to discuss. And then open your diary to them for any further questions Um so if they want to chat through anything, you can they can come back to you at any point in that timescale. So after they've accepted, so you've made a great high for your team, um send them their kit early. That's a commitment from you if you've got to send them a new laptop or you want to order them. something send it the straight after they've accepted. Don't wait to the couple of days before they've they start.

Speaker 2: Try to meet them if you can in that period. Get them in to meet the team if everyone's in the office or whatever. If you're doing a uh an away day try and get people together. Um catch up um and speak to them regularly before While they're working their notice, remember the counter-offer is quite a big part of any job search for a candidate. Their company might be coming back with multiple offers during their notice. But stay in touch and stay front of mind. Catch up most weeks during the probation because actually the hire doesn't really necessarily feel secure until they've passed the probation. Make sure that every concern they've got you're answering and really crucially be honest with any feedback that you you've got for that person within that first three, six months, whatever your probation may be, so that they can work on it, so they're

Speaker 2: uh aware of it. You don't want to be getting to a point where You're gonna extend probation. That doesn't make anyone feel great. It triggers a why should I be moving? Is this the right place for me? Have I made a bad decision? So if you can cover that off while they're they're new, it it helps you to retain talent, which is a whole nother uh sec uh conversation. Right takeaways for for hiring understand why why you're hiring have a plan about how you're going to go about it be thorough but act quickly Partner with a specialist recruiter if you can. And then I suppose last will they leave the candidate wanting to work for you regardless of the outcome. Thank you.

Speaker 2: Um this is me, this is how you can get hold of me. Um before we've got any questions, I just wanted to leave this list of resources up. as places that you can go and find Django or Python based jobs. There are a couple of others, but that's one of those um and the I'll fully come back to this in a second. As I said, there aren't many Django based options that are that really work. At the moment you've got Django gigs and Django jobs. Django Gigs gets maybe one advert every three months posted on it of a new role. Django Jobs does get jobs posted on it, but it's not uh I I don't know how often it's updated or how regular it is. So one thing that I'm trying to work on in the background

Speaker 2: um is Django Careers. Um Still it's it's it it's an idea and a thought process at the moment, um, but we're looking at creating a jang a job page free to use for Django job seekers. Um uh obviously by companies posting on their heart to um to hire great people any money taken to raise fun you know to advertise or to promote a job um will just raise money for the DSF. as a way to sort that out. So but it's a it's an idea in mind at the moment, but time will tell. If anyone wants to help with that, just shout. Cool, I'll leave that.

Speaker 1: Very cool. Uh let's give a big hand for uh John. So I gave you a bit of uh or there was a bit of extra time. Uh you used it.

Speaker 2: Yeah, probably yeah, sorry. I just get passionate about this stuff, so I'll just keep going on. Um

Speaker 1: Yeah, super understandable. And uh uh I think that uh you'll you'll be staying around.

Speaker 2: Yeah we're here we'll not

Speaker 1: yeah yeah um and uh this was the final talk of the day

Speaker 2: yeah

Speaker 1: uh great one and um Not the final final talk. It's been a very long day.