If you’ve still got some Christmas cheer left in you then you should check out the Decca Christmas takeover that Evoluted put together in December.

I hope everyone is having a cracking Christmas break!

At Evoluted we’ve recently been advertising for a couple of new web developer positions and the range of responses has been surprising – some good, some bad, some very, very bad.

As this was at the front of my mind I thought I’d write a few tips on how to maximise your chances of getting to the interview stage:

1. Be polite

This is more of a rule for life but even more so when talking to potential employers. It’s amazing how many people fall down by being rude.

2 Make your CV look good

Your CV is the most crucial tool you have to get you into the must interview pile. Spend some time your CV, format it well and give it some structure.

3. Keep your CV relevant

Make sure your CV is relevant to the position you’re applying for. No one cares that you had 10 bar jobs when you were younger, unless it’s some way relevant to writing code?

4. Don’t apply for all the open positions

If a company has multiple different vacancies then don’t apply to them all, unless you’re actually suited to each one. If you do apply to more than one vacancy at the same company then spend some time on each application, write separate covering letters and highlight why you’re applying for each job.

5. Send examples of your previous work

No one would hire a designer without seeing their portfolio, the same should apply for web developers. Send in examples of your code, indicate which parts you were responsible for and explain any intricate parts. Although if you do send code in then make sure it validates / compiles!

6. Follow up on your application

If you’ve not heard anything about your application then follow up after a week. Find out when the company is planning on holding interviews. Showing a keen interest makes you look like you’re on the ball.

After a week of downtime I’ve got finally got the site back online on a different domain with a slightly different look.

Sometime on Monday the previous site ashyoung.net was taken down by UK2 as the Wordpress install had been hacked. This is partially my fault as I should have updated Wordpress to the latest version. Pretty much straight away the abuse team at UK2 took the site down and locked my account out. Since then I’ve been trying to get the account unlocked so I can sort out the problem but UK2 have refused on the basis that I’m a ‘hacker’.

The only people who seem to have the authority to unlock the UK2 account are the abuse team who don’t have a telephone number and don’t respond to emails.

At this point I can’t even transfer the old domain to the new hosts as I need to log into the locked out UK2 account to unlock the domain. Clearly not possible!

So now that I’ve got that off my chest updates will continue as before.

Whining over!

Image by Ray Wewerka