Wednesday 6 April 2011

SharePoint Contractor Interviews - The Free Consultancy Trick ?

I have been writing quite a few articles recently based on the subject of SharePoint recruitment and SharePoint jobs because I think the market is currently in a bit of a mess and my primary aim is to help everyone from clients, to recruiters to the actual SharePoint consultants to move the market forwards so that we can provide the right skills into the right positions. Remember that my articles are based purely on my own experiences in the market over the last few years and everyone else may have completely different experiences. I know, talking to recruiters that there are many challenges when placing people with SharePoint skills in front of clients and I am well aware from a culmination of discussions that all is not well – yet!

I was thinking this morning about the number of times I have had interviews with clients for an hour or two only to find that mysteriously they then choose to stall, delay or go down the ‘internal route’ without further explanation. Often the recruiter has no explanation and is as much in the dark as I am. This almost always occurs only where I am (together with many others undoubtedly) interviewed by a ‘panel’ with one or two people in the session writing copious notes as I evangelise about the strategies and merits of SharePoint as usual.

The first time I saw a company use an interview as a method of gaining free consultancy was many years ago now when I was concentrating on SEO (search engine optimisation) consultancy work, which I still occasionally do to this day. I was called to an interview where I was given a ‘theoretical’ written test that lasted one hour that asked me to take a ‘fictitious’ web site suspiciously like the client’s own and summarise the various elements I would need to change to optimise the site for search engine positioning and what I would do. Had I refused I wouldn’t have got the job and I had come a long way so I sat down and wrote everything I needed to and then faced an interview panel. I noted that the marketing director sat silent and simply wrote down everything I said, to the point where there was smoke almost emanating from his pen. Afterwards the recruiter was convinced I had the job, the client had indicated as much and of course neither of us ever heard from them again.

Now imagine if that company had interviewed ten SEO candidates over a 2 day period. They would have achieved around 20 hours worth of utterly free consultancy if you combine the ten written tests and then ten hours worth of interviews. God loves a chancer eh!

Recently then I have come across similar scenarios within the SharePoint world. I have faced a number of panels where I know vastly more than anyone else in the room and every word I say is noted. Some of these ‘interviews’ have lasted up to two hours and seem to drill into inordinate amounts of strategic detail about how the company would solve this, that or the other, I am obliged to respond to these questions of course as I am, after all, highly professional. However after a few of these free consultancy sessions dressed up as interviews, I have become very wary. I will give you a few examples of real questions:

  • Can you take us through the sequence of events that would allow us to build and release a SharePoint intranet to our 3000 staff based in London and Manchester
  • Can you detail for us the search solution we would need to cater for dual farms in the UK and New York
  • Can you tell us about how you would design a business vertical based collaborative framework
What is interesting is that the ‘technical’ interviewer is often not technical in the subject of SharePoint at all but asks questions that are either attempting to reaffirm decisions they have already made or find out more about what they actually need to do, without my future assistance of course. So questions such as what antivirus product would you recommend for MOSS or can you take us through an accepted SharePoint backup/restore strategy, or what would be your approach to training our workforce of 1500 users over 3 sites be – can leave a person wondering about what is really going on.

The worst example I have faced in recent times when a major company asked me two write a document detailing what my role would entail for them including all the sequential elements I would be involved in and the benefits each sequential element would bring – in other words can you write us our MOSS strategy for free. Needless to say I didn’t hear from them again but they still have that 50 page document. More the fool I, you may say, and yes very probably but the issue is that we are all professionals and we have our client’s best interests at heart so we have no option but to take these situations at face value.

However I think, given the real popularity of SharePoint today combined with the fiscal sting of a recession, we need to be cautious. It is often a case that you will need to interview your client as much as they will need to interview you. You need to be asking about their support staff model, their business strategy, their licensing approach, their programmatic planning and their vision of SharePoint moving forwards. If the client in question appears to know very little or has very few answers then do be cautious as they may be answering these questions to themselves as they interview multiple candidates.

Questions you are asked should be very general and around your history with SharePoint and Microsoft technologies, they should be around your general approach and your history of solutions to date. As soon as a client starts to drill into specifics regarding their own situation then withdraw slightly and point out that you are more than happy to detail the answer as soon as an offer is made. I have found that this approach does work because no one likes a pushover and if you are a professional, managing your own company, then you will be afforded the respect you deserve. If a client takes issue with you not providing them with free consultancy then ask yourself whether you would really be happy working for them at all.