How to convince a recruiter to hire you? 3/3
Check out part III. Mirela and Molly from Project A Ventures give valuable advice on cultural fit and salary negotiations.
Fernanda (Moderator): We reached the last part of our conversation. Now, we have some questions from the audience. But before you answer those, I want to know what you guys would advise our students to do in order to better prepare themselves for job applications?
Mirela: I really like to say that It’s not just the company choosing the candidate, but also the candidate choosing the company.
So, you shouldn’t just apply randomly to 20, 30, 40, 100 jobs and then wait for companies to get back to you, but really be selective yourself because at the end of the day you will be working for 40 hours with those people and that team for that company.
That’s more than you sleep probably so it’s quite important that you also choose, that you like that, enjoy that. So, be a bit more selective as a candidate in your research. It’s much better if you just apply to three companies and you really did your research in order to learn about the company, what they are doing…And then, also, regarding the relocation part it’s also important if you do your own research on that because yeah, maybe the companies know some stuff but then in the end startups or smaller companies that don’t have the capacity to support your relocation, the visa process, the working permit, so it’s always good that you did some research by yourself if you need those things.
Just google living in Germany, living in Berlin, cost of living, working in Berlin and so on and then you’ll find a lot of websites that can help you and I guess try to see what is important to you as a candidate and what do you find important in the company.
I also notice that candidates find it hard to ask questions in the interview. They don’t know what to ask and they feel that they have to. So, what would you like to know about that company? If you see yourself working in that place, what’s important for you to know?
Fernanda (Moderator): I think the cultural fit that everybody talks about is a two-way road. Your personal values and professional goals should fit into the company’s culture, but also the contrary. And you, Molly, what would you advise our students to do?
Molly: Do the research about three companies that you like because in my opinion you should always be tailoring your CV’s to match the company.
So, at least double checking to see maybe your CV is relevant to two companies, but at the same time you’re going to read two job descriptions and they’re gonna have different qualifications and different companies’ cultures. Basically, you want to sell yourself on whatever you identify most with. So, if you’re strongest in this tech language, you want to make sure that it is reflected in your CV. If the company is international and you’re also like an expat, or you have international experience, then make sure that’s visible in your CV.
And basically, take care of your schedule. If you do get an interview and you know you’re like… Oh, I have a coffee date with my buddy… Interviews should be first priority because the longer you wait in that application process, the more somebody else who’s really good might come before you and oh, the job is closed.
And people who are coming from abroad they should take care of the time zone. We sometimes forget that people are not in the same time zone as we are. So pay attention to this detail when scheduling interviews also on the day of the interview.
Additionally, put in your research how many euros you want to earn per hour, your visa application, how your CV should be different in Germany vs Brazil or something else. Yeah, just to do a little general research about each country you have applied for jobs.
For this, I think a tip would be to actually have an excel file on yourself. Then you can write the company where you applied, the position, when did you apply if you got contacted and have an interview, and then maybe also when they promise to get back to you, and which are the next steps.
Fernanda (Moderator): So, it tells me that two things are the most important ones for getting success in job applications, at least in the initial phases. First, information. Getting information about the country you want to go to, also about the companies you are applying for. Second, strategy. Having a kind of organization, an excel sheet to follow each process, each company and so on. Okay, great! Thank you, guys! We have questions from the audience.
Audience: What would be some good insights on how to prepare for the cultural fit interviews, which is not so technical, also you have to show that you would well belong to that space?
Molly: Yeah, so, I think a cultural fit could mean a lot of things. So, like startups versus corporate, it has a very different cultural vibe and that usually structures about how your tasks will be. So, a lot of people who come from corporate have one specific task that they focus on because there’s so many people and when they come to startups they’re a little frustrated that everything is a little bit disorganized and there’s just like a lot of room for change which is what the startup vibe is supposed to be about and it’s good. But some people aren’t used to that, so I think that you can really test this in an interview because some people actually come from corporate and they actually have more of a startup mentality, anyway.
Mirela: You should basically do your research and see if you see yourself in that team. It’s not just the team who chooses you, but you also choose the team, because you’re going to end up working for them. That’s also a good question to ask about in the first interview. Hey, how is it to work there? How flexible it is? Do you go for a drink after work? Just ask these kind of questions to kind of get the feeling of the culture and see if you fit there. And like you said, it’s much easier to argue your own personality. And I would say also because you mentioned this corporate and startup. Because especially in Berlin there are so many startups and if you’re coming to relocate here, it’s very easy to find jobs in the startups and that can be indeed different from a more corporate world and bigger companies.
So I think if you’re also open to that, because if you work with like 7 years in a very huge company where you just did your small thing, in the startup you have to cover the roles of tech people…everything. Come with your initiative and like just do stuff. So if you think you’re able to do that, if you want to do that,and then like I said it’s much more easier to kind of argue as well. And I would also include that in the application if that’s the case. If you have a corporate background and you’re applying for a startup, explain a bit why this changed.
Audience: Thanks! I have actually two questions now. The first would be about the expected salary. Sometimes it’s optional, sometimes it’s not. In my case if I’m going to glassdoor.com I can do a lot of research and I still have like a range. Can we have some insights about that?
Molly: Yeah, I mean, one short thing is that you should have like an idea of what you want but I think it’s really important to say how flexible you are. I mean some people just truly don’t want to earn less than X amount, but if you’re more like I really like this company, I want this ideally, this is what I researched, that as like the benchmark in Berlin, but I’m totally open to talk about it.
Because, sometimes, if you don’t mention that, sometimes we think “how serious is this person?”. We might go with another person who has a more fitted salary expectation.
Mirela: And then I would say because I know that in terms of numbers vary quite different but it also depends on the company. So it depends, if it’s like a small company and they’re on the market for just two years, they just got first investment they don’t have money. So probably the budget would be quite low, so that’s the low end of the range. But then if you apply for the bigger companies, also the budgets are higher, so they can also go for a higher budget. In the end of the day it’s also the idea of thinking what do you need like if you’re moving here with family and you have to support the whole family, I guess it’s you might ask for a bit more.
And if it’s just you and it depends where it is, if it’s in Berlin, the living style is not so expensive. So think also what do you need to live properly and say like Molly said, how flexible you are with that. And you can also ask something that some candidates do, and they are like in the end ok. You can ask what case is that within the budget, do I fit there, how is it and just have an open discussion with the recruiter about that. Because, normally I also say sometimes if the salary expectations are way too high, I say our budgets are much lower than that. Are you open to discuss on that? Some are, some are not. It depends on each person. I would say to make that an open discussion with the recruiter in the first call.
Audience: But that would be actually a lot of questions sometimes. I don’t know how often it happens that it doesn’t even let you get to a discussion. Because once you get into a discussion I think it’s fine. Because, sometimes in for example, Glasdoor.de then a lot of the times you have the optional expected salary. Whether to fill it in or not because sometimes it’s optional but it’s a still no text, it’s just a number.
Mirela: I don’t like that. Exactly for this because it really needs people to put number but sometimes they just want to say I’m in this range but open to talk. Yeah, it actually gets tricky because also for us, we have very similar position sometimes but recruiting for different companies so we also have different budgets.
It’s good for us to kind of have an understanding because if you are asking two times our budget, you might be flexible but you’re not gonna accept half of your salary expectations.
Audience: And if it’s optional, just don’t fill it in?
Mirela: Yeah, you can put a range. I would say like, a range would be good. And then you can also think of your minimum range that you wouldn’t go lower than that.
Molly: Because if you don’t put it, you run the risk that the recruiter assumes and if you’ve had like X amount of positions, we couldn’t say like ok, they work in this many roles for this many years, they’re probably expecting this, so they’re probably not going to want this amount which also might not be exactly what you have in your mind.
So it’s also good to have a number in mind. Also, for yourself, not necessarily for the recruiter or the company, but for yourself because…in the end we also work for money.
Audience: Yeah, follow-up question on the salary topic
imagine I’m a PHP developer with four years of work experience, full-time after college and I’m not applying for senior position, but for the mid-level back-end position for companies in your portfolio, what is an acceptable range?
Molly: You have benchmarks, so I don’t know exactly how we figured out the benchmarks, but it’s something between Berlin average, Germany average possibly…
Mirela: We think for like…ok, maybe I should give some numbers. For medium back-end it think it’s about forty, forty five thousands, up to seventy gross salary per year (before tax) maybe if the company’s big. But that’s like for bigger companies. But then if it’s smaller, it depends also. It’s quite a big range.
Audience: What we’ve seen from fellows that got higher is that they are on average about fifty, but not like too much, so it’s between fifty and sixty. This is what we’ve seen for these people.
Mirela: Something that is also very hard to say, especially for the tech roles, because if you have like 5 years experience, at the end it depends on what you know. Because maybe you know as much as someone who has two years of experience because that person worked more intense in a way. So it’s not ideal to put this based on the number of years.
Audience: Thank you!
Fernanda (Moderator): Any more questions? Ok. Well, how people can check the open positions for the companies they work for..maybe?
Mirela: So I would say the easiest is our website, which is Project-A.com/careers or just google in Project A ventures and then basically there’s the career there. Or LinkedIn and some other platforms I guess. I know, it’s on Google, if you search Project A ventures jobs.
Fernanda (Moderator): I also invite you to apply for our boot camp on www.joinimagine.com, if you’re a software engineer and you want to get a job in Europe, Germany especially, please apply for our boot camp. Thank you guys!
Mirela: Thank you as well!
