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Careers & workplace advice from Hays

Be honest. Have you ever really thought about where you want to be in five years’ time? Are you worried your development career might be going down a road which you know probably isn’t right for you? If so, it’s important to take control now.

First up – don’t panic. As a developer in today’s market, you’re in an amazing position. Thanks to the widening digital skills gap, professionals with your technical and non-technical expertise are more in demand than ever before. But, when you’re in demand, you have choices – which can be both confusing and overwhelming especially when you’re trying to decide what direction to take your career in.

Consider and evaluate these three career path options

To focus your thinking – it helps to understand that there are broadly three career paths that developers typically follow:

  1. The Future Chief Information Officer (CIO), or leadership/managerial position
  2. The Coding Chameleon, or a professional who chooses to specialise in a particular technical field
  3. The Entreprogrammer, or a professional who decided to branch out as a contractor.

As a first step, I would strongly recommend you consider each of these key options and make a decision in your mind in terms of which route suits you best. To help with your decision making, I’ve provided more information on each of the three options for you below.

Career Path 1: The Future CIO

Do you have your sights firmly set on one day becoming a CIO – a hugely influential, senior IT professional whose sole responsibility it is to drive forward business growth through technology and continuous innovation?

If so, making this become a reality will require a great deal of planning, determination and perseverance. Here are a few things to consider, which should help you come to a decision:

You’ll have less time to code:

When considering whether this option is exactly right for you, I’d strongly recommend that you reflect on how important coding really is to you. As a CIO, or even a professional in a managerial position, you’ll have far less time to actually write code – so, think about whether or not your heart lies in coding. If it does, this could be a deal breaker for you.

You’ll need a combination of business acumen, soft and technical skills:

Like any executive position, the CIO is concerned with strategy, influence and collaboration. If you’re blessed with business acumen, strong soft skills and an unrivalled technical understanding, then this could be the right career path for you.

The first steps to becoming a CIO:

As I said earlier, it’s a competitive market, so you must have the unrelenting ambition and drive needed to climb the highest echelons of the career ladder.

To help you on your way, I’ve outlined a few of the first steps I would recommend to help you get to where you want to be:

  • Build a solid technical foundation: You need the right educational credentials (including a degree and additional IT qualifications) and technical experience to work as a CIO. There is no exact science here, while almost half of current CIOs have always worked in IT, the rest started out in another role before spending most of their time in IT.
  • Develop your soft skills: This is a big area – according to our DNA of a CIO report, soft skills are considered more important than technical skills, as you can see from the charts below.

  • People skills are key: The best CIOs are passionate about encouraging the people they work with. One CIO said: “Technology can be innovative, clever and fun but, without the people who are motivated to give their all and do their best, it’s a bland job.” If you know you are a team player, then build this crucial attribute. The internet is awash with soft skills training; set your mind to it and you will find a short online course or a more extensive training programme that suits you.
  • Focus on your ongoing professional development: Such as attending networking events, keeping up to date with industry changes and completing technical training.

Career Path 2: The Coding Chameleon

If you’re happiest knee-deep in code and are always obsessively on the look-out for the next big development trend, then you may want to focus on building your technical experience.

For the majority of developers, this typically tends to be the path they choose. In fact, according to the latest Stack Overflow report, more than half of the respondents said they want to be in the same or a different technical role in the future, while one-third of developers want to work in a different or more specialised technical role in the next five years. These roles include: DevOps specialists, data scientists, engineering managers and machine learning experts.

So, if you think this path might be for you, I’ve provided a few considerations below, which should help you come to a decision:

You’ll need to be committed to staying bang up to date

As the heading implies, becoming a software developer is a moving target. While the daily tasks of architectural design, code writing, software testing and bug fixing remain constant, the tech market is in a constant state of flux and you will need to stay bang up to date to satisfy demand. It is always more about pleasing the end-user than indulging in tech-led fantasy.

So, you’ll need to be consistently using both formal and informal learning, swotting up on the best programming languages, practising how to structure code, understanding algorithms, mastering platform development, as well as developing, testing and debugging, in order to ensure your skills are relevant and are those which are most in demand.

But it’s not just your tech skills you’ll need to be committed to improving – it’s your soft skills too. Particularly around communication – as a coding chameleon you’ll need to be adept at explaining your work to others in a way that they can understand.

You won’t necessarily spend all day coding

It’s important to be realistic here. Depending on where you work, you won’t necessarily spend all day coding. This is particularly true if you work for a larger organisation; life being what it is, you will need to attend your fair share of meetings, interacting with clients and mentoring juniors.

The financial benefits could be more than you were expecting

By choosing this career path, you won’t lose out financially as expertise in some technical fields is valued highly. For example, the Stack Overflow report reveals developers using languages such as Go, Clojure, and F#, are paid more than those with the equivalent level of experience in languages like COBOT, PHP and Visual Basic 6.

The first steps to becoming a coding chameleon

If you’ve decided that this is the right path for you, you must start now by building your knowledge in one technical specialism across multiple industries and projects to give you a broad range of experience. There are different ways to achieve this:

  • Develop your knowledge and experience with external learning opportunities, including courses and hackathons
  • Practice across different development environments, maintaining a strong interest in your industry so your skills remain relevant
  • Make a lateral move to another department to build your experience with different teams
  • Consider technical contracting to work on projects that will help build your technical skill set

Career Path 3: The Entreprogrammer

Do you think it might be time to leave the world of permanent employment and start your own business? IT contracting enables you to take greater control over the projects you work on and, because you become responsible for your own learning and development, how your skills progress.

While there are some amazing positives to contracting, it’s important to realise that this career path isn’t for everyone. So, here are a few things to consider:

You’ll actually be running your own business

One of the huge perks of contracting is that you’ll have the freedom to choose projects that appeal to you, work with people you like and avoid office politics. If you want to take an extended holiday between contracts then, assuming you can afford it, that’s your choice.

However, despite such flexibility, you would be running your own business and with that comes additional responsibilities and risks that you just don’t have to deal with as an employee. You’ll have to market and sell yourself – your ‘product’ – to generate new contracts, account manage your clients, handle your own financial affairs (or find someone to do it on your behalf) and there’s no guaranteed wage or next contract, or even getting paid.

Therefore, you’ll need to be highly self-motivated, adaptable, and organised in order to find work and maintain momentum with day-to-day work. While you won’t have a traditional boss, you do have to manage client expectations and will need self-discipline and commitment to your work. A huge part of this comes down to the strength of your people skills, and indeed your own self-belief.

You won’t always feel like part of the team

This can be a hard adjustment for some to make, especially if you’ve previously been in permanent roles and part of a tight-knit team. As a contractor, you’ll find that your relationships with your co-workers will change – so it’s important that you’re able to hit the ground running from day one and are willing to work hard to build and maintain strong relationships.

So, while contractors typically build solid networks and connections from project to project would you, in reality, feel happier to continue to be a permanent member of a team?

The first steps to becoming an Entreprogrammer
  • Is there demand for your expertise? Establish that there’s a market for your skills and expertise – you need to be certain there’s a large pool of clients out there who are looking to hire for your skills. Try searching on job boards and recruitment websites, and speak to a recruiter who can provide their expert perspective.
  • Proactively upskill in areas you are lacking: Will your role still be hot in two years’ time or are there other skills you need to pick up to make sure you stay ahead of the curve? Continual investment in training is critical to being a successful IT contractor.
  • Look into setting up your own legal entity: All things considered, most contractors choose to set themselves up similarly to a UK ‘limited company’ model, as this usually gives them a number of tax benefits. You will need to register your company with the relevant national agency and provide information, such as your company name, address, director(s), shares and shareholder(s) etc. You will also need to act as an independent company, even when using a recruiter like Hays, and market yourself appropriately e.g. creating your own website to promote your services and updating your LinkedIn profile accordingly.

What next?

I hope the above has helped you to crystallise in your mind which career path really is right for you. This is often the hardest decision of the entire career planning process – but do always remember that there’s no right or wrong career path for a developer. If you don’t enjoy a certain path, you can do something else. Nothing is set in stone if you take a proactive approach to your working life – just don’t waste years journeying aimlessly throughout your development career without a plan.

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Everyone with ambition needs a good career mentor. It’s as simple as that. Your career mentor is that confidential advisor who can objectively help you to overcome your professional hurdles in order to meet your goals. And yet you still don’t have one. Why not?

Perhaps it’s because career mentoring is prone to the following myths: 1. Mentoring is reserved for the most senior and well-connected professionals within a business 2. You have to be working somewhere with an official mentoring scheme in place 3. This mentor has to be somebody senior to you who works at your company, and 4. You have to commit to structured, consistent meetings of a certain duration with your career mentor, time which neither of you may have. With all of these assumed provisos in place, it’s no wonder you haven’t found anyone yet!

The truth is, to find a career mentor, all you need is a vision of where you at least think you want to be in your career, the drive to get there, and the confidence to seek counsel from whomever you deem inspirational and credible enough to help you.

With that in mind, how can you find a career mentor?

Step 1: Ask yourself – what is it that you need help with?

It is important that you start the process of finding a mentor by assessing your vision for your career. Ideally, where would you be in one year, three year and five years’ time? And which obstacles are standing in your way?

Don’t narrow yourself just to the skills you are yet to learn, or the feedback you were given during your last performance appraisal. Think bigger picture. Do you have a tricky relationship with a colleague or client, and is this hindering your progress? Is fear or a lack of confidence holding you back?

Remember, your chosen career mentor will be someone you trust, therefore they will keep everything you say confidential, so don’t limit your thinking at this stage.

To give you an example, quite a few years ago I was at a turning point in my career. I knew that I wanted to reach that next level, but there was something that was going to stand in my way – I dreaded giving presentations, and it showed. I knew that if I wanted to achieve my career goals, something would have to change. I would need to find a credible mentor to help me build my confidence and master public speaking – which brings me onto my next step.

Step 2: Assess your network – and think outside the box

Once you have identified what it is you need help with, it’s time to find the right person to help you. Who in your life has overcome the obstacles that you are now facing? Are they where you aspire to be now? Who do you know who is just really good at the skill you want to develop or perhaps the job role you would like to do in the future? As I alluded to in the beginning, don’t narrow your search too much. What’s to say this mentor has to be somebody who is part of an official mentoring scheme, more senior than you, or even somebody you work with?

When searching for your career mentor, consider former and current colleagues, your friends and family as well as your other social and professional circles. To continue the story of my own search for a mentor – upon realising what I had to do next, I thought about who I knew that could help me. In this instance it was a senior colleague who I decided to approach. This person consistently gave some of the most engaging presentations I had ever seen, and was, without a shadow of a doubt, the right person to be my mentor. The next step was speaking up and asking them for help.

Step 3: Take an authentic and humble approach

The way you approach your potential career mentor will depend on the nature of your relationship. If they are a contact from your professional network, I would suggest sending them a message first explaining how they have inspired you, what specifically you think they could help you with, and politely asking if they could spare some time to sit down and chat. Let them know the best number to call you on, and that you hope they would like to talk further.

If this person is at your current organisation, I would also recommend that you run this by your line manager beforehand. They may be more familiar with your potential mentor, or have experience in mentoring themselves, and able to give you some pointers on your approach. The point is, your mentor needs to be outside of your direct line manager wherever possible.

Whoever your mentor may be, the key is to be humble and human. In my situation I simply approached the person and said, “I would like your help please. I want to be able to deliver presentations as strongly as you can, if you could spare an hour or so and give me some initial guidance – that would be hugely appreciated.” At the time neither of us knew how much or little time this was going to take but as it turned out, it was not a huge ask in terms of time commitment – and it really helped me. Many years on, we meet on an ad hoc basis when I need their help and they are available to help me.  But establishing and maintaining this mentor – mentee relationship took work, which brings me onto my fourth and final step.

Step 4: Nurture the mentor – mentee relationship

Remember, your career mentor is going out of their way to help you, therefore gratitude and respect is key to both establishing and maintaining this relationship. Before your first meeting, and every meeting from thereon, be punctual and well prepared. Note down the specific challenges you are facing, what it is you want to learn from them from this session and how you think they could help you.

You should also share the progress you have made from previous sessions, and examples of this progress in practice. For instance, every time you meet your mentor maybe buy them coffee as a small token of your gratitude. I always thank my mentor profusely for their time, and relay any positive feedback from my presentations, moreover, how their previous advice helped me achieve this result. To this day my unofficial mentor is great at giving me two minute feedback after any presentation if they happen to be part of the audience. One good element, and one to improve.

As I say, you don’t have to tick a certain box before being eligible for a career mentor. You simply need to have a vision for your career, and a methodical, tactful, yet authentic approach to seeking out this guiding voice. Personally speaking, finding a career mentor was one of the best decisions I ever made, and is something every driven professional should pursue on their path to career success.  And remember, bear all of this in mind the next time someone asks you for help too!

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Did you know, according to McKinsey, only four percent of global 500 companies think that their board is ready for a digital change? This doesn’t bode well for you, given that you are about to present a business case to the board for a much needed technological investment within your business; whether it’s using machine learning to predict a customer’s future buying patterns, or Augmented Reality to provide your customers with a more realistic expectation of what your product or service will deliver.

You know that this digital change is necessary if you want your business to not just survive, but thrive in the context of pervasive digitalisation in your industry. But without the board’s buy-in, you can’t secure the budget and resource to make this change happen, and your vision risks dying a death here before you’ve even tried to get it off the ground.

Four percent. It’s a worrying figure. So if you think your C-suite might be part of that remaining 96 percent, then it’s vital that you take strategic steps when building your business case for your proposal, and factor in the below:

Explain that the customer always comes first

Your first priority when building your business case is to clarify how implementing this digital change will benefit your company’s most valuable asset – your customer base. It is fair to say that there is often a distance between the board and the customer, a distance filled in part by more customer facing teams; from Data Analytics, to Sales, to Customer Services.

But you can bridge this gap somewhat by gleaning some valuable customer feedback from these teams. This, you can do by shadowing said teams, holding feedback sessions with them, or working with them to gather some research based evidence of customer behaviour.

You should also highlight how and why not implementing this change will disengage your customers. What are other businesses doing, and are you at risk of losing your customers to more innovative competitors?

Ultimately, you need to make the customer a key part of your proposal – articulating the customer needs in a real way, in a way that means something to the board members, and importantly, the bottom line.

Demonstrate that digital change won’t be smooth sailing, and that’s ok

Perfectionism can often be the enemy of innovation. Some of your board members may be hesitant to give their buy-in for digital change, because rushing poses the risk of not implementing this digital change perfectly. Your role here is to reassure the board that you might not get it right straight away, and this is not something to be feared.

Highlight how businesses like yours are choosing to “fail fast”; that is, employ new technology readily and make corrections as they go along. Relay the positive results that these businesses are seeing, and how you can emulate and even better these results.

Don’t just reference success stories. You should also mention any examples of businesses which have had a “Kodak moment”, lagging behind as a result of being too slow to react to digitalisation in their industry. Bringing some best and worst case scenarios to the board should help tackle some of the risk averse attitudes during your pitch, and bring some urgency to the discussion.

Speak to them in a language they understand

Lastly, do not isolate the board with overly complex acronyms and jargon. This business case isn’t about you proving your technical expertise. It is about clearly and simply presenting the board with a problem which threatens their bottom line, and a solution which can boost it.

Speak in the language they understand, the language of targets, objectives, and the projected ROI should these targets be met – this, after all, is the language they are most fluent in.

Once your business case has been presented, it is important that you take away some key learnings from your experience. Think about what kind of resistance you were met with, from whom, and why.

How could you be quicker in getting the board’s buy-in for a digital change next time, acting before your competitors do? Because more often than not, it’s a battle between businesses as to who can get their board’s buy-in first.

Your ultimate goal should be to spearhead a more innovative company culture from hereon in, one which is led top-down from a fully aligned board who put their weight behind digital change. After all, this isn’t the first time digitalisation will disrupt your industry, and it certainly won’t be the last.

You can read more digital transformation insights below: 

They had all of the right skills, gave all of the best answers, and showed such potential in their interview. They even got off to a promising start after they joined your team. But somewhere between then and now, your employee has gone from a rising star, to an underperformer.  

Your next course of action would be much clearer if this employee had simply become complacent and apathetic. On the contrary, you know that actually, they really do care about this job – you can tell by how much they beat themselves up when they don’t succeed. The problem isn’t their skills, their enthusiasm or their commitment. It’s their confidence. The question is, how can you give them the impetus to start performing better, and soon, without kicking them whilst they’re down?

Nip the issue in the bud

If managed early, you will have the ability to re-energise this person and transform their performance, returning them to their former glory quickly. If you leave the issue too long, however, the more mistakes this underperformer will make, and the more this will impact the morale of the rest of your team who have to pick up the pieces. Break the cycle now, get a meeting in the diary ASAP, and start planning all of the points you want to raise. As you approach the meeting, remember the below:

1. Give balanced feedback

Whilst you do need to make it clear to the underperformer that their recent performance isn’t up to standard, it is important that you strike the right balance between being too harsh or, conversely, too soft. Therefore I would advise that you start the conversation by discussing the positives and asking them what they think their strengths are – it’s very empowering for someone to identify their strong suits and see positive reinforcement from you. Next, outline to your underperformer what you think they are doing, or at least, were doing well.

Now explain what needs improving, and be specific. Remember not to get personal or make sweeping statements about their character – keep to the facts. For instance, if the underperformer often misses deadlines, don’t tell them they are a disorganised person who can’t follow instructions. Instead, raise the last few times they missed a deadline, and the wider impact that this had on the rest of the team. Ask them if they can explain the reasons behind their shortcomings, as this may give you a clearer idea on how you can help them, which brings me to my next point.

2. Let them know you’re on their side

Next consider what practical and emotional support you can offer, be it mentoring, refresher training or shadowing another team. You can also boost their self-belief by being relatable and sharing your own experiences.

If you have faced similar challenges in your career, tell your underperformer how you overcame them. This can inspire your underperformer, make them feel more comfortable talking to you and give them the confidence to do better. You should also give them more of a sense of purpose, explaining why they are valued, and reiterating the impact a strong performance will have on the team and business.

Then put together a progress plan for your underperformer which sets out measurable actions and targets, check they are aligned to it, and keep a close eye on their progress from here on in.

3. Keep the momentum going

As I say, you should be monitoring the underperformer’s progress on a regular basis. Constructive feedback is key to an improved performance, but it’s best done in a space where you can be open with them and they can be open with you, as opposed to publicly and in front of their peers.

If you see your underperformer making progress, it is important that you acknowledge this and celebrate their successes. At this point you may also feel more in a position to give them increased trust and autonomy, which can, in turn, be a real confidence boost. You can provide stretch opportunities, and tell them why you think they are ready, but reiterate that they must be transparent if they need your help.

Ultimately, your objective is to make sure that your underperformer understands the gravity of situation, whilst giving them the confidence to turn this situation around.

Hopefully the above advice will be enough to get this employee back on track, because as you know, you can only be a coach for so long. If all else fails, you will need to have a serious conversation about whether this employee is right for your team and vice versa, but this should be a last resort. More often than not, with the above plan in place you should see results.

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