I have been contacted by recruiters hundreds of times in the past few years. After a while, I updated my LinkedIn profile with a series of basic tips, and simply stopped responding to the worst messages. I have a “recruiter trash” folder where, sadly, most messages go unanswered.
Sometimes, I receive an email with a truly promising offer. I always feel a little sad when that happens, because I know I’ll still probably turn it down. But I feel hope, too. And I reply, and often I get as far as doing some interviews. In fact, on several occasions, HR people at those companies thought I wasn’t motivated enough by their business.
Let me clarify that first : if your offer sounds genuinely promising, and follows my basic rules, I consider it a point of honor to give you a chance to further convince me. So yeah, I probably won’t turn up at the interview all hyped up about the job.
I’m not the sort of person who’s easily hyped anyway, especially at first sight. I will turn up with an open mind, and foremost on my mind will be the question : do I want to work here, with these people ?
. And I know I won’t have the full answer until I’m a few months into the job. By the way, that’s exactly what I told my current employer, over seven years ago.
A frequent conundrum is when you write to me, and you’ve got enough good points in your message or links that I feel I owe you an answer, but there’s not enough to motivate me to move ahead and agree to your phone call or meeting. And I try to explain that over one or two emails. And sometimes, it turns out ot be a waste of time, because you don’t give me the additional information I require.
That is why I am writing this document. I want to publish, once and for all, available to every recruiter out there,
The word crafstmanship has become popular to describe technical and organisational practices for developers. I do think of myself as a craftsman. Not a factory worker assembling basic crap and loading it into containers. A craftsman can do that, but that’s not what he wants to be doing — you know ?
I think a craftsman needs to be proud of his work. Not just his skill, and certainly not how much he gets paid or how many people follow him on twitter. A craftsman is someone who works for the sake of making and advancing the craft.
Logically, I therefore wish to work in a place that allows me (and wants me, ideally) to fully practice my craft. Yes, I am a smartass ; yes, I will occasionally write something unusual that does the job in an unexpected (but highly effective and still maintainable) way. Yes, I do irritate some of my peers who, for some reason, put tradition and vaguely defined principles of “simplicity” and “professionalism” above their own satisfaction as craftsmen. I sometimes say thought-provoking things in the hopes that they do indeed provoke thought. I never mean to provoke emotional reactions instead (I actively avoid that), but yes, it does happen, and no, I will not apologize.
As a master craftsman, I am also a teacher. And it is the dream of any good teacher to be bested by their apprentices. That’s right : I am not content just sitting in my corner writing smartass code. I fully intend to corrupt the rest of my fellow developers wherever I work, encouraging them to master their craft in their own way, and understanding how they do things and what I can learn from them.
So here are a few turn-offs for me (i.e. if the company you want to talk to me about ticks any of these boxes, don’t bother) :
I subscribe to Doug Engelbart and Bret Victor’s view, that computers and software should augment the human mind. I want to empower users to learn and create and make decisions. I am strongly biased in this by my own experience, and I am aware that I do not represent anything close to the average user. So be it ! Let the average user become smarter thanks to well-designed software, rather than pretend this is all magic and live in fear of it breaking down or turning against us !
Clearly, I will not work for a company whose business model is fundamentally opposed to making people smarter. That includes :
I make a distinction between my political opinions as a citizen and my professional ethics as a Web developer (otherwise this would be much longer). Yet in both cases, I am a humanist. I think every human being should be treated based on their words and their deeds, that reason trumps popularity, that criticism is good and insults are bad, that there is no such thing as a right to not be offended, though there is certainly a right to stay out of a debate.
I protect personal data and oppose cultural and political censorship, surveillance, abusive “intellectual property”, and allowing corporations to wield more political power than the average voter. As a professional, that mostly translates to advising about and implementing technical solutions and policy.
Most of that is already covered by “I fight for the users” anyway.
I will complain about and not comply with bad company policy on these matters (and in order to do that safely, I will probably not work in the U.S.). I will generally avoid sensitive political topics at work (unless I am really lucky in my team composition), though if you get me started…
Last but not least, I do not easily identify with a group other than humanity. I hope I can eventually be proud of my team and my company, but I will not pretend to feel that way until I have ample cause. I like making friends and being around people and playing with them, but I do not need to “belong” for any of that to work or to be fun.
And if you think I’m wrong about some of those things, or that I would misjudge your company, I am of course open to discussion and demonstration.
A little collection of common recruiter-speak that does not inspire me :
You want to be part of a success-story— No, I want to be part of an adventure ; I don’t really care how it ends.
You love a challenge— Well, I do love a good puzzle. Tight deadlines or obsolete tech stacks are no fun, though.
blah blah round A funding blah investors…— I’m not doing it for the money (mine or yours). I want enough of it that I don’t need to think about it. Period.
You have a start-up mindset— Depends what you mean by that. I’m not staying late with pizzas and cafeine, but I do like flat hierarchies and fearless innnovation.