“Unpopular” Opinion about Recruitment process
By: Mohamed Nadhir Salem
Tags: Recruiting, Recruitment, Hiring Stories

During the last couple of months, I went through multiple recruitment processes with several companies working in the IT field. Most of those companies were based in Paris or generally, in Ile-de-France. For me, it was interesting to discover the opportunities offered within the market nowadays especially during this pandemic of COVID-19. After several weeks of national lockdown in France, HR officers or Talent recruitement officers are searching for reinforcing their teams before the next lockdown.

So, I was approached by multiple companies. Each of them was presenting and offering the same job description : A senior embedded softwar engineer to join their teams in a full-time contract or to work on the profit of another client as a subcontractor. Generally, the process is the same. You receive a call from the Talent Recruitement Officer during which he/she presents to you the company and the job description. The first step is always the easiest one. In fact, we can’t consider this call as an interview. It is more likely an exchange. During the call, the Officer wants generally to know if you are looking for opportunities. If yes, he wants to know your thoughts about what he is presenting. In most of the cases, your profile as candidate is validated after this first exchange.

So, we move forward to the next step which is more focused on technical profile. After the first exchange, There is two manner to evaluate your technical potential & skills. There are companies where the Talent Officer will organize a phone call between you and a Technical Lead who can be the CTO or a Team Leader or Software Architect. During this exchange, you will be asked about your CV, the projects you were involved in, which technologies do you know. On the other side, you will get more informations about the position, the project, the technical environment.. If this interview goes well, you will be invited to a technical test. There are some companies that will send you the technical test and based on your result, they will invite you to an interview with the Technical Lead. If you will succeed, you will be interviewed by the HR officer and they will make you a financial offer. But, most of us will not reach this step.. The recruitement process will stop most of the time at the technical test step.

If you are stuck there, let me tell you two things : One, you are not alone. Two, you are not incompetent.

What happens really is that the technical tests are very subjective. They are not meant to show what is your background, what are your skills or what is your knowledge. They are meant to show if you can fit with their environment, methodology. This is not something wrong in fact. Each company searchs people who can contribute to their success as soon as possible. If you don’t fit with company A, you will fit with company B. After some years of experience, you will discover that you prefer to work with a specific methodology rather than another one. You will discover than you are more comfortable dealing with technology A than technology B. These preferences are what define our technical skills and profile.

But, there is always a way for improvement. If you want to work for a specific company, you must prepare yourself. Chance comes to those who are really prepared to get it.. And success is a daily process in which you try to improve yourself step by step. Your professional career is based on milestones. You should take each milestone one by one and enjoy the journey.