The past few months have been exceptionally difficult for me. Since July, I have been officially returning to the job hunting market. While there were many offers for QA Engineers, the competition was even more intense. In any case, I started my search with an upbeat attitude. I decided to prioritise self-development at the same time. I had already begun implementing this resolution by attending the Devoxx conference in Krakow between May and June.

So I submitted multiple applications and didn’t have to wait for a long time before I got the first job interviews invitations. It quickly became apparent that soft requirements were surely as important as technical requirements. Although I was technically well-prepared, most of the failures I encountered were due to my lack of English fluency.
I have been using English for many years, but up to varying degrees at different times. For instance, while working at Avra Software, despite the fact that it is a Polish company and operates on the Polish market, I participated in an English course almost throughout all my employment there. It helped me a lot and even changed my approach to this language, and Wiwiana K. from the WOW language school deserves great credit here. At the end of last year I had an English language test, which showed that my general level was C1 (including reading, speaking and listening).

Unfortunately, I still don’t have the opportunity to use this language on a daily basis. The second thing is that I’m simply not getting any younger. My brain is no longer willing to be at the highest level all the time. I console myself with the fact that for someone my age who doesn’t use English regularly, I can speak it absolutely brilliantly.
I know this, but the recruiters don’t. That’s why the first side effects of this my weakness began to appear while I was looking for a job. The funny thing is that at one point I said that other candidates should actually pay me to apply for jobs with them. It was obvious that I would be rejected, thus increasing their chances.
My demons are back. It took me a year and a half to find a job recently. So I had to do something about it.
I already knew that finding a job would not be an easy process, so I had to prepare well for it. To achieve this, at the beginning I decided to… rest. Regenerate, relax, get motivated. That’s why I didn’t apply for any offers in August. From time to time I only performed simple programming exercises. It was then that projects concerning a simple REST application, an automated testing project in Postman, and the implementation of API tests in Java, without the use of dedicated frameworks, were created. I published all this on my blog in the first half of August. The second half of August was, of course, a long-planned holiday in the Kłodzko Valley. I wrote about it in one of the previous posts.

In September, however, I returned to the search with full enthusiasm and a firm resolution to stick to a few rules. Here they are:

1. Monday is the day to send applications. I use the following channels: LinkedIn, NoFluffJobs, Solid.jobs, BullDogJobs, JustJoinIT, Pracuj.pl. I also keep a list of offers for which I applied, with the company name, position name, offered/declared earnings, application date and job board. Oh, well. Currently, I have sent 135 applications, of which almost 1/3 have already been rejected. But I’m not giving up :-)
2. Failure is an inevitable companion, so I have become friends with it. In fact, the sooner I bounce back from being rejected, the sooner I’ll finally find a new job. I have to keep this in mind and, of course, always stay positive (that’s the hardest thing).
3. A systematic and persistent daily agenda. Every day I get up in the morning (before eight o’clock) and either refresh my knowledge about known technologies or learn new ones. It is important not to try to remember and understand everything at once. I always have a plan. For example, I spent one week refreshing my knowledge of SQL, another week: Git, and so on. Taking notes helps me a lot as well here: I already have 4 full notebooks. So I either read or watch videos about new technologies. Then I prepare my own project using these technologies. I finish around 4-5 p.m., when the children return from school.
4. I devoted September and October to strengthening my English, but also to improving the application documents themselves: CV and the “Elevator Pitch” template. This last one in particular cost me a lot of sweat and tears. But it worked, at least I think so. By the way, it was very helpful to try the Hartmann psychological test. I recommend trying it. This is a simple and effective way to gain a better understanding of yourself, your inner self.
5. I always have a detailed plan/calendar at least for the next 2 weeks at hand, in paper form. This allows me to quickly note the dates and times of any scheduled job interviews and assess whether I will be able to adequately prepare for them.
6. I regularly check out “meetup” events in Krakow and try to participate in them, especially on-site. Not only did it allow me to improve my language skills, but I also had the opportunity to talk to recruiters and ask them for a non-committal assessment of my recruitment documents. So far, I have participated in such events at the following companies: GuideWire, Ocado, OpenX.
7. If I have any free time, I learn English. By learning new words, watching YouTube channels such as “English with Lucy”, and for instance recordings from technical conferences.
8. I check back regularly and take every opportunity I can to attend testing conferences. For example, on November 12, I’m going to Warsaw for the ConSelenium 2023 conference.
9. I’m preparing a plan for what new technologies to explore next. I give myself broad and flexible deadlines. For example, in November I want to learn about Cypress.io and create my own project on Github there. In December I would like to meet Playwright and also prepare a project.
10. Certificates. I need to get new ones whenever possible. Currently, I am preparing for the ISTQB Test Automation Engineer cert.

That’s all and that’s it. From my own experiences and observations, the most important things are perseverance, determination, self-discipline and of course not giving up. I am prepared for longer attempts to find a new job, so I plan the next days in such way that each of them brings me a little closer to my goal. Overall, I’m doing the work as usual in the SCRUM sprint. During my “internal daily”, I ask myself: what I did yesterday to get closer to my goal, what I am going to do today to get closer to my goal, and how to overcome subsequent obstacles.