Using cord

In the past when I've moved job, I have felt at the mercy of the opportunities that are available and, more specifically, how those opportunities are presented by the recruitment agents that invariably in software engineering stand between the candidate and the employer. And you're never entirely sure what you're getting. So that does lead to a bit of difficulty about making the right decision because you have very, very little information. By the time you have enough information to really figure out whether this is the right thing for you, you're already so emotionally invested in the journey that, frankly, it's too big a thing to say no.

So I think there have been maybe one or two cases where I found myself in an organisation, having just started and it's maybe not fitting as well as I thought. And I don't want to overplay that. It's not really been a big factor. Maybe I've just been lucky with the places I've managed to get to, but certainly been aware that when I'm walking in the door on day one, I don't really know where I'm getting to. There’s a bunch of reasons for that. One of them is that generally it is presented as an employer's market all the time. It's presented as there being a definite power differential between the candidate and the employer. You're only permitted to apply for things that are on job boards, with proper job descriptions. You're only able to talk to the employer through this intermediary and all the way you are proving to the employer that you are worthy of their consideration.

We've got to temper what I'm about to say with the fact that in the last six to nine months in software engineering, it has clearly not been an employer's market and that's probably worth just seasoning the conversation with, but when I first got the invite to cord - and that must be a year ago now - I found that it was turned on its head and as a candidate, that was really big for me because I was able now to go and look at way more variety of jobs, see a lot more information about the organisations that were there and get the sense that the shoe was on the other foot now, the employers had to make it clear to me why they were worthy of my consideration.

And that's why I like cord. I hate interview processes. I hate technical tests and stuff that, both to do them and looking through it. But cord gives you that ability to speak to each other and I think that's very important. When you do a tech job, when you have to deal with developers and you have to build very technical stuff, being able to communicate and be able to understand how people work is the biggest priority. You can learn coding, different programming language, or you can get good at system architectures and stuff like that. But there's something more internal and it's how people behave with each other. And that's key to me. And that's why I like cord. It gives you the ability to connect.

But with cord, actually having people from those different companies, contacting you and writing to you and without recruitment and saying that, "Oh, we are interested in working with you." It kind of blew my mind at the beginning because I had so many companies that I didn't even apply to. And I was "What's going on? Why are they all like contacting me?”

I got an invite to cord, it was one of my messages. So I thought, oh this is just like any other service let's sign up to it, let's see how good it is. To me, I don't mind trying out new things, especially when it's a service that can offer something good. And then when I signed up and created my profile, I was like, "Oh, okay. So these people actually say how much you're going to get paid. It's not, oh, competitive salary."

And that is the good thing that I have found in cord. I discover cord very late in my process when I already have 10 positions. So, I couldn't get more. But it is a tool that maybe I could recommend to other ones in the future. Because for me, it's a good source because of this, the invitation link. If I can only invite people that I value and are inside, are working in the clan, the information there is great. It’s not like LinkedIn when you say, "Okay, I want to work as an Engineering manager," and the first 10 position are consultancies. Please don't spam me! I don't want that.