Mashed 08 – I was interviewed by O’Reilly GMT

Interview with O’Reilly GMT

Update: Youtube Video of Interview

Had a long chat with the guys at O’Reilly GMT.

My mashup is going well, and I’m hoping to win the Chumby that Lonely Planet are giving to the best Lonely Planet mashup!

Startup or Bust?

I’m currently in the process of getting a startup off the ground. It’s not easy, and as the technical person in a team of 3, and with the main part of the startup being internet based, then I have to do a lot of work before the other members of the team can get out and sell.

So I’ve spent quite a lot of time developing a prototype.  As no-one can ever be certain that a startup will work I’ve also had to spend a bit of time making sure I can earn money if this startup fails (for whatever reason).

I’ve had several interviews for work recently and even blogged about some of my experiences in Experience is obviously overrated which was an exciting and frustrating time. Well, I’ve just received feedback on another interview.

This time, the role was for what you might call a “head of technology” role for a marketing agency.  They work with corporate clients in the UK, and are looking to expand their offering by taking on someone with experience in this area, who can take the bulk of the technical decisions but also get their hands dirty.

Now, I thought that this could be my fallback position. I spent the first 3 months of this year at Craik Jones pretty much doing the role that this other company were recruiting a contractor for.  It wasn’t fantastically paid (then nothng in New Media is) but I loved being there and the atmosphere was great.  I am experienced in this exact role.

So, I have the interview over 2 weeks ago, and through various HR people being on holiday and agents being on holiday and a whole mess of a situation, I get an email back stating that I’m too experienced for the role.  To quote the email:

“However, I have spoken to them and whilst they felt you did a very good interview they thought that your experience was too senior for what they were looking for.” (emphasis mine)

On one hand I’m not experienced enough, and on another hand my experience is too senior.  I do however, do a very good interview (it can’t have been that good then!). I know the two jobs I’m equating are not the same, but they’re not that different either.  One person explained it very well when he said “you don’t get contracts because you don’t have a standard career path”.

So, I appear to be stuck in a situation where my experience of running a business, managing clients, finance, new business development and all of the stuff that goes along with essentially running a small consultancy means very little in the world of contracting.

If I’m not going to be able to get a contract (by being too inexperienced, experienced, senior, junior) then my only hope is that the contract market changes to allow “former small business owners with significant experience in web consulting” to get contracts (any companies wanting some experienced help would be much appreciated), or my startup has to work.

I know which I’d prefer. Watch this space!

Oh – and I’m not going to tell you any details of the startup until it’s launched, but we are looking for angel investment of around £50k at the moment.  Any investors interested, please get in touch!

Experience is obviously overrated

I’ve just been through 2 interviews for contract roles in the past week. They are more senior contract roles than I have gone for before as I believe my skills and experience warrant going for those roles, and it seems that I am at a disadvantage.

The disadvantage? That I’ve run my own business for 5+ years.  (Note: I stopped doing that specific business when I had 2 clients fail to pay at once.  Took one to court and won, the other I almost took to court, and they paid up).

Why is running your own business a problem?

Well, it seems that if I’m going for a “Project Manager” (PM) role, then there is an expectation that you will have on your CV “Project Manager”.  I have “Owner/Manager” for my own business on my CV.  I really don’t like lying on my CV.

So for some reason, in the brain of the interviewers I’ve come across recently, that somehow means that my “skills” are not specifically for that role, e.g. Project Management.  I would argue that I’ve run a business (that survived for more than a few months!) and that means I must have PM skills to do that, and that I’ve cut my teeth in much more challenging situations. I can point to specific experience of managing various projects and what I’ve done in certain situations as well, but these don’t necessarily correspond to what they want.

One of the issues seems to come down to not being able to point to specific experiences that correspond to the interviewers situation. Case in point in the last interview was discussing booking engines.  Now the company requires someone to project manage a booking engine development from requirements through to deployment. Now, I have experience of doing the above process with simple websites, social networking sites, content managed websites, intranet productivity tools, project tracking systems, XML databases, multiple integrated systems… and I could go on. But because I haven’t specifically done a “booking engine” (at least, not in the type of way that they want) then somehow I am unaware of what is involved in that process and that marks me down.

Another issue that has come to light is my apparent ability to remember processes (yes that’s ability to remember).  I have been told in each of the last 2 interviews that I have explained very good processes for doing different tasks for the role.  In one interview I was told that they could have easily got the processes I was putting forwards out of a book – and as they’d asked me to produce a hypothetical approach document, surely that’s a good thing! Apparently not. I get the impression that they asked me questions and expected answers based on my experience and not on hypotheticals.  If that’s what you wanted, then ask for that.

The problem is, that when you’ve spent time being a business owner, you build skills up at very many different levels. The PM role, for example, is a big part of owning a business.  So is sales, account/client management, financial (invoicing etc) and legal. If I go for an interview, I expect an interviewer to at least understand that I have well-rounded skills beyond just what I’m interviewing for.  The fact that I may or may not know all the buzzwords for a specific role does not disqualify my other experience.

I have a suspicion that I’m not actually going to be content in what I do until I’ve got another new business to get my teeth into.  My skills appear suited for entrepreneurship and startup and not for climbing any corporate ladder.  Not that I wouldn’t take a job if offered (starting a business is not easy), just that it’s difficult to see what I would be happy doing.

I know this is a rant. Maybe it’s just that I’ve come across 2 poor interviewers, but the people that know me, know what I am capable of, and that understanding can never come across in an interview. Maybe interviewers should take more notice of overall business experience and less notice of the buzzwords they are waiting to hear.