How to find tech job in United Kingdom

Last year I relocated to London and was faced the need to find the job for myself. At the beginning of my search, I have found one of the articles in the Habrahabr community very useful, so I decided to translate/interpret it to English.

How to find the job in the United Kingdom

1. Write the CV. For a better understanding of how to write a good CV in English, take a look at how other people have done this. On the cv-library.co.uk you can find a lot of the CVs, on the free mode all of them are available without the contact data, and you do not need the contact data.

2. Place CV on one of the websites or all of them:

• cwjobs.co.uk
• theitjobboard.co.uk
• reed.co.uk
• totaljobs.co.uk
• jobsite.co.uk
• monster.co.uk
• indeed.co.uk
• planetrecruit.com

1. In parallel start training listening of speaking English by listening radio from the Internet. BBC is worth to listen only for the beginning, for more advanced level try LBC, where a lot of people are calling to air, so you will get common with different accents, and in addition, you will learn a lot about the life in London. It is harder with the speaking skills, as they can be trained only in the communication process.

2. Receive a lot of calls from the recruiters. Their service is free for the applicants, I have never met those who took the money, but even if they appear – politely say goodbye. Usually, questions are standard:

• What position are you looking for? What have you done earlier? How much experience do you have in Java/C++/C#?
• Are you looking for the contract position or the permanent one? (you can look for one of them or both types at once)
• What is your current salary/or how much are you willing to have in future positions? (for a year, for the permanent positions, or an hour/day for contract positions). To obtain the general understanding of the salary levels visit jobstats.co.uk, itjobswatch.co.uk, and jobserve.com. If you are applying outside the UK, without a visa that allows you to work in the UK and have poor English, you can consider to decrease your salary expectation for 20-25 percents.
• Do you have the UK work permission or you will need the visa? Everything is simple for those who already have the Tier1 or for the EU citizens. If you are applying outside the EU, everything will be harder. In 99% the communication will end on this point, but the 1% vacancies that remain are those where the employer, in general, is ready to be a sponsor of the working visa (it is named Tier2). To obtain ILR (Indefinite Leave to Remain), you will need to stay on this visa with this employer for five years. Take into account that Tier 2 Inter-Company Transfer (ICT) is not leading to the ILR and is good for those who want to work here for some time and then go back to home or other countries.

You should have an understanding that you are not paying to the recruiter, so they do not owe you anything. A good recruiter can give you useful advice about the preparation for the interview, but in some points your interests are different.

Sometimes the agent can say: “I have a good position, but for the beginning, I need contacts of two persons, that can recommend you.” This means that he/she actually can have no vacancies, but he/she has the task to find a job, and he/she will do this by calling to your previous boss and proposing him/her candidates. The right answer – “I necessarily will provide you the contacts of the persons that can recommend me, but I will do it later when I know more about this position.” The similar question – “In which companies and for what positions are you currently interviewed or have been interviewed for?”. If you answer, you should assume that the agent can call to those companies and propose them his/her candidates. Do you need more competitors? The right answer – “Sorry, but recruiters that have applied me there ask me do not name the companies, except the case when you name them first.” Also, you should have an understanding that the recruiter task is to obtain the fee by “selling” you to the company. So, they can embellish vacancies, but also, they can also promote you for your future employer. And if the company make you an offer, but you understood, that you do not like this position or do not need it, agent pulls “yes” from you by convincing you if it will be required for more them 3 hours, and they are pretty good in convincing.

1. Usually, every recruiter has a few vacancies. They are sending there your CV, previously removing your contacts and adding their logo. For this reason, you can consider sending recruited your CV in MS Word format, and not in the *.pdf. As a rule, with every company that replies, you will have one or a few phone interviews, one of which can end up with the invitation to the onsite meeting. If you are applying outside the UK, it is better to clarify who will cover the journey to the meeting (in my case, it was the company). Usually, this meant that the whole process is coming to the offer, but it is better to no relax in advance. And yes, it will be your responsibility to make sure that different agents are not sending your CV to the same company.

2. Visit careercup.com to obtain understanding what questions you can be asked on the interview. On the glassdoor.com, you can read the reviews of the company done by its employees if they are available.

This article is a translation and free interpretation of this one post: https://habrahabr.ru/sandbox/56219/