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9 Important facts to consider when looking for a new job in London!

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It took me nine months to relax from my previous entrepreneurship era and start a new career as a Technology Advisor at Futurice Ltd in London. During the nine months period, I had enough time to explore new markets and think about what could be my next interesting and lucrative move. I’m going to write more about my explores later, but first I will share my thoughts about finding a job in London as it is in my fresh memory.

I started my professional career in Finland and worked there more than a decade in a limited, competitive and small but interesting, forward-going, time-ahead, and high-tech market. During this time I always had in my mind either expand my company to a larger market or move eventually to a metropolitan city. London was always my first choice as it is a metropolitan city in Europe and most large global companies have an ongoing operation in the UK. The mission of a new job search started at the beginning of August and I signed my contract at the beginning of September. Here are my learnings and considerations:

1. Don’t look for a job remotely

My family has a holiday residence in Southern-Spain and I was settled there during the summer. The new job operation kicked started from there by updating the CV and having my Spanish phone number in the contact information. After uploading the CV to various job-sites and having discussions with recruiters I found out that not being in the UK and not having a UK phone number was a show-stopper. That’s why I decided to travel to Londo, stay for a few weeks and buying a pre-paid phone number was my first action.

2. Don’t be passive and sell your self

If you are moving to the UK from another market/country it is obvious you are unknown professional. After having your CV uploaded to a job site do not wait for companies or recruiters to be in touch with you. List all interesting roles with contact details for your self and start to call them as much as you can. This stage reminded me of the start-up phase of Digital Illustrated where I had to call and introduce the company, but without a proper CRM system.

3. Don’t make compromises for your level of professionality

At the beginning of the search phase, I thought by reducing my expectations I will be faster to get a contract as I was not looking for a permanent position. It didn’t take me long to familiarize my self with the terminology of “Over-Qualified”. I guess this is a cultural matter as I did not come across this term in Finland. Basically, don’t Apply for a lower skilled position. For example, if your CV says you are an architect and you have done the job for certain years do not apply for a programmer position. Most companies will decline your application and will justify and explain the decision by the lack of motivation or “you will get bored and leave” message.

4. The market of recruiters

There are hundreds of recruiting agencies in the UK and they are all super active to hunt you down. The moment your CV gets indexed in the search results you will have calls from early morning until the afternoon. Remember to take a note of your discussions and make some background check. Some of these agencies are more professional than others

5. Do not sign any agreement during the search phase

Some recruitment agencies will try to send you terms and conditions during the search phase to be accepted. I noticed even a non-competition and NDA agreement. DO NOT SIGN any AGREEMENT with them during the search phase, even if they refuse to see you or insist to sign before having a face-to-face meeting.

6. Be careful with Job descriptions and roles

Don’t waste your time with generic job descriptions. For example the job description “.Net Developer” can be everything between Desktop Application development to Web Development. Be accurate with the job description and all bullet points. Even a small bullet point can be important to the employer and later will be a shop-stopper and waste of time!

7. Do not freeze your CV

My CV was made in Finland for enterprise level sales use. During my career, I had all kind of profession information available in my CV and that made my CV not longer than eight pages. Remember to have only essential information available in the CV, take feedback from each recruited you communicate with, and make sure the CV is two pages long with the most important information on the front page.

8. Avoid strange interviews

At some point, the recruiting company will ask you to have an interview with the client. I faced few strange interviews in where the client sent me an online task with limited time. The task I got had nothing to do with the role I applied for and it was a waste of time. I also had a phone interview in where the client decided to show their super skills and asking super detailed questions. Try to avoid none face-to-face interviews if there will be a task to accomplish.

9. Keep your options always open

Do not reject any role until you have a signed contract. There is always a tinny possibility to have complications on the road. After signing the desired contract remember to decline other offers politely and keep doors open for the future.

Here are some other hints you may find interesting:

  • Take your time to negotiate but be fast to make decisions
  • Remember always to do some background check about the client
  • Prefer direct discussions with companies rather than recruiting companies
  • Do some research about rates for certain positions, if you are looking for a contract position and year salary if you are keen to permanent positions
  • Money is not everything and not the most important driver. The role and the employer have more impact on your daily work, motivation, and work satisfaction.
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In Entrepreneurship

To Be Or Not To Be A Startupper

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Back days during my university studies, I was always wondering what is the source  of multi-billion dollar/euro enterprises. How can you create such a company, and what do you need to be able to run the company. There are still many people, who are thinking about the same questions and trying to seek the answer.

Let me make the answer easy to understand. Any living object in this world has a start. Even our world had its own start during the big bang process. Companies are established for different reasons, but Start-up is a different and unique type of creation model. Most of the times I compare companies to humans, so I would compare a start-up to a just born baby. To evaluate yourself and to see if you are ready to create a start-up ask the following questions from yourself and compare your answers to mine. Then it is much easier to have a start.

Why you should not create a startup?

  • You have heard about a successful company, and you just want to have a try with the same idea to see maybe you will be successful. Don’t you even bother yourself! If the existing company is making a fortune with the idea, they have already used the opportunity and they will be always a step ahead!
  • The $/€ signs are in your eyes and you want to become rich really fast. That is the worst reason to become an entrepreneur and establish a start-up. There are so many other ways to become rich with less effort and responsibilities.
  • You are a control freak and you want to keep the power in your hands. A startup is a wrong choice for you, and maybe a bigger and more traditional company is the place you can show your power to the stuff.
  • If you are running from the responsibilities and trying to pass everything as fast and easy as you can, forget to becoming an entrepreneur.
  • Negativity and laziness does not fit in the life of an entrepreneur, and I guess you wouldn’t be reading this blog post if you were belonging to those group of people.
  • The idea of becoming an entrepreneur and creating a startup might cross your mind, because you are talented and experienced business person. BUT you have a golden cage around you (a good job, position & salary, with bonuses which generates consistent income). The golden cage makes you too  scared to lose everything, and not to achieve them again.  With the cage around, you will not dare to give a try and create the startup.

You should only establish a startup if you feel that there is a problem and the best way to solve the problem is to create a company. What you need for the establishment is the passion and the love for the thing you are creating. You should be absolutely ready to become the parent of the new born child which is the company.

Why did I do it?

  • As I have told in my previous blog posts, that I am from an entrepreneur family. As a child I saw how my dad created a company from 0 and built a successful enterprise.
  • I already created once a company which failed. I hate to fail and failing gives me new ideas and motivation. But the most important thing is that I’m not scared from failing and I try to learn from my mistakes.
  • I worked for the big and mid-size companies with the experience of different processes and failures in the companies. I noticed the reasons, why they were failing. Unfortunately most of the companies never learn from their mistakes nor try to solve their problems.
  • I was wondering why I’m doing this for them and not creating my own, with the better and agile way of doing the business.
  • There was a gap in Finnish ICT market and the gap needed to be filled with the startup I was going to create.
  • The market was not mature enough and the big size clients were too scared to buy from small companies. But I guess if the market was mature enough, there would not be a place for Digital Illustrated at that time.
  • I found out that few of my ex-colleagues became an entrepreneur. That gave me more courage to leave the golden cage and create the startup.
  • I love to be challenged and use my innovation to solve up-coming problems.
  • The last but not least is my love and passion for the IT/ICT business. The idea to create something new and unique makes me extremely happy!

Always remember the highlight:

Before becoming an entrepreneur and creating a startup, first evaluate yourself carefully. After the evaluation, think about the problem the start-up should solve. If you still have enough passion and love to do it, then you are ready to go and face the reality.

The road is long with lot of barriers, but the more you travel the more you will love it. Most of the entrepreneurs who I know, and who has created an startup have said “They couldn’t imagine at the beginning how hard creating a startup could be!”. One of the most important thing to keep in mind is that, if you go for it, be ready to spend 7 to 10 years of your life rising your “child”.

The rewards and the experience you will gain will be so great that you will never even thing to become an employee again and work for someone else!

 

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