Lookahead Search - Blog

If you've chatted with me before about job search strategies, you'll know I'm a big supporter of  speaking at meetups. If you cringed at this suggestion, you'll be delighted to know I 'ate my own dog food' and spoke for the first time this year at SydCSS. For those considering speaking for the first time, here's what happened so you know what to expect.

📝  THE PREPARATION

The meetup organisers helped me:

Choose a topic - something they knew I could easily talk about and that their members would like to hear.

Confirm a summary of the talk well in advance - this helped them promote the meetup and helped me start writing with plenty of preparation time.

With slide deck tips - since I don't use Keynote/PowerPoint that often.

Know what to expect on the night eg the talk will be recorded, who the other speakers will be etc.

🎬  THE REHEARSAL

We had a quick run through before the night. This was a chance to:

Click through my slides and make sure tech wouldn't get in the way.

Time my talk to make sure I didn't go over time, or talk too quickly.

Know what to expect when it came to things like who will be introducing me, will there be questions afterwards etc.

Get feedback from the organisers who know their stuff.

Hear the other talks (and see their slides!) - which inspired me to tweak my talk a bit more.

Note: not all meetups have rehearsals, but it doesn't hurt to ask. Another idea is to practice with your own team.

🎤  THE DELIVERY

After all the preparation and the rehearsal, all the hard work had been done. It was just a matter of making sure I stuck with the plan and asked for help along the way if something came up.

I met the organisers and the speakers before the event started so we could have once last quick run though.

I was very nervous.

5 minutes isn't very long so it was over before I knew it.

♻️  MAKING THE MOST OF IT

Since giving this talk I've written a blog post and shared it to people I think would find it helpful.

You can also reuse and recycle your content by giving the same or a similar talk at other meetups.

Some organisers (like RORO) even say they'll give you a LinkedIn recommendation for your efforts!

Tweet about it before and after and share links to your slides or the video.

🎗  IF YOU'RE CONSIDERING SPEAKING FOR THE FIRST TIME, REMEMBER...

You're not expected to be an expert, people speak all the time on topics they are simply interested in.

The topic doesn't need to be technical - it can be more generally about any topic that meetup members can relate to eg. interviewing, career progression, side projects.

You don't have to talk for a long time - you can give a 'lightning talk' which is only 5 mins.

Meetup organisers are supportive and will help you prepare - that's their job!

Meetup members are a friendly, supportive bunch and appreciate your contribution to the community;

It's normal to be nervous!

If you're not sure about anything speak to the meetup organiser.

👉  To see first speakers in action, tune in to SydCSS's first time speaker night Thursday 6th Aug 7:30pm AEST.

RSVP here: https://www.meetup.com/SydCSS/events/272120381/

In our final staff profile, we interview Steve, without whom there would be no Lookahead.  He does business in the best way; he finds top talent for young start ups and huge companies and his clients and candidates become long time partners and friends.  He doesn't take on too much work as he wants to give the very best service to all. 

What do you do at Lookahead and how long have you been working with us? I’m the founder so my start date was Mar 2012 :) I’m a technical recruiter but nowadays it’s my job to get things out of the way for others. Helping out with advice and running business improvement projects. I have recruited for all of our long term clients at some point, so can offer context and chip in on searches.   

What’s your background?  Where were you in the tech industry before joining Lookahead? I was a nerdy kid and grew up loving computers. In the late 90s I played way too much Quake II and started a clan (basically, a team). Looking back I realise that was an important moment - it accidentally gave me a taste of leadership and a reason to learn how to make a website. The site got hacked by a now famous Aussie entrepreneur who then came to our LAN party and taught us how he did it. Good times. 

After finishing high school my uncle got me to set up a network for his business. Before I knew it, other referrals came in and I found that fixing computers and making websites paid my way through uni. About 2 years into my degree I landed a big project so one of my best friends Myles and I deferred our degrees to start a company. 

Some of our clients were recruiting firms. After observing what they did I figured recruiting for a year or two would be a good experience. Here I am nearly 14 years later.

What do you like about Lookahead? Amazing people in a work environment that’s perfect for me. That was the idea at the start - make Lookahead somewhere I love going to every day. We’ve never grown for the sake of growth which has helped keep it that way. Our hires tend to be opportunistic - we are always looking and ready when someone incredible comes up. 

There’s a light + plant filled office space that feels nice to be in. Through Covid, Kat and I have been venturing into the city just to water those plants :D 

We are nerdy foodies. We eat well and buy nice computers. We pick our clients and they’re all rad in their own way. That becomes clear each year at our birthday party - you’re in a room full of friends. I pinch myself because I get to call this ‘work’.

What are you passionate about?

People. They’re all so interesting and you can learn something from everybody. I feel rich because I have amazing people around me all the time - both at work and at home. 

I’m also passionate about being in the water and food. 40 years from now I’ll still be trying to get better at surfing and cooking. 

What was the last book you read or podcast you listened to? “Primed to Perform” – it’s about motivation at work and actually uses science to back up their theories. Long story short- focus on play rather than money. They have a survey you can take to measure your total motivation score: https://app.vegafactor.com/take_the_survey

Podcast: I’m subscribed to 34 😳.  My faves are: 99% Invisible, Derek Sivers, How I Built This, Making Sense with Sam Harris and Joe Rogan.

If you weren’t at Lookahead where would you be working or what is your dream job? This is my dream job - recruiting is a craft and you could work on it forever and still be getting better. 

It would be cool to one day build a product - I’ve seen many startup journeys as an early stage investor as well as a recruiter. Would love to test myself in that arena. 

If I had to work in another company it’d be Basecamp. We used their product back in ~2005 to manage client projects, and it’s how I heard about Rails. Ended up subscribing to their blog and have taken a lot of lessons in business from them, which has helped make Lookahead what it is. 

First Car? A ‘93 Corolla Hatch. That was what I could afford and it’s probably for the best. Over the years I’ve worked my way up and have a car I take to the track. 

Hidden Talent?

Finding things underwater. 

I’m a divemaster and a trained free diver. Can dive 32 meters on a single breath! At our team hang some idiot dropped their sunnies off the pier (me). Managed to find them hours later and it was a glorious moment. 

Proudest Accomplishment? Lookahead. Maybe one day I’ll have kids and it’ll be them, but for now it’s this wonderful little place we get to call work. From day 1 it’s gone surprisingly well and continues to surprise me. 

The Most unusual item in your office or home? A balance board. 

It used to be in the office and it’s the first thing I took home when we went Covid-remote. When you are feeling burned out from back to back meetings, jump on that and move around. It’s a great reset.

Favourite Sports Team? Not really a sports fan but I was huge on basketball cards back in the day. The Chicago Bulls in the 90s were incredible, and I’m not just saying that because of the Netflix series. 

What makes you weird? I say I’m a minimalist but also own five surfboards. Wait, seven.

What piece of technology seems like magic to you? AirPods. How is it that I have a computer dangling out each ear? Went for a run with my partner Jess and we’re sharing the one audio source. She had to run back to get something and even though I lost range the music buffered for ~40 seconds. When I think back to my Discman that would skip constantly I realise we are living in the future. 

Guilty Pleasure? You know the bit of the sourdough starter you’re meant to discard? We make them into crackers. That with cheese or peanut butter are my kryptonite. 

The world has changed a lot since COVID-19, so has the way we run meetups. A lot have moved to an online format and it will probably be a while before we do any in-person events. It's really important that we continue to support, grow and maintain these wonderful communities we've built over the years. Here are some simple ways to support your favourite meetups:

1. Tune in to an event

Quite a few meetups have moved to an online format e.g. Design System meetup, SydCSS, RORO Syd, Girl Geek Sydney and Front End Tech. You can now even attend events that are based interstate and overseas. All from the comfort of your own home!

2. Become a speaker / recommend a speaker

As a meetup organiser of SydCSS, one of the hardest things is to find speakers. If you've been thinking about presenting for a while but not sure what topic to do, I highly recommend reaching out to a meetup organiser to have a chat. They understand their audience well and can give you some ideas on what sort of topics to present.

You can also help by suggesting people who'd be good speakers. Did a colleague present at a lunch and learn recently? Maybe they'd be interested in presenting at a meetup too!

3. Interact with other attendees

Some of these events have live chats so you can interact with others. Just a simple "hello" to your fellow attendees, or an applause emoji 👏  when the speaker starts and finishes, can already make a big difference to the overall energy of the event.

Lots of banter in the live chat at SydCSS' April event

4. Give feedback to the organisers

Most of us haven't run online events before, so we are figuring it out as we go. Things won't go perfectly but we want to improve. So be sure to give the organisers feedback. It's the only way we can ensure we continue to run events that people will enjoy.

If you are interested in chatting more about running online events, you can DM me on Twitter @mobywhale or email me at [email protected]

Introducing Nic, she is a Recruiting Veteran with over 20 years experience, starting her career hiring Cobol Developers.

What do you do at Lookahead and how long have you been working with us? I am a recruiter in the Tech and Data Science space and I provide training and documentation. I’ve been with Lookahead since July 2019.

What’s your background? Where were you doing before joining Lookahead? I have been doing recruitment in the tech space since 1997.

What do you like about Lookahead? The people are what makes it, I enjoy working with a team that have technical backgrounds as they are so knowledgeable. They are more laid back than most recruiters, we take on less roles and have more time to do a much better job with the ones we do take on.

What are you passionate about? I enjoy helping people, after all these years I still get a kick out of finding people their dream roles, it’s so rewarding.

Hidden Talent? I’d have to say skiing. I think I’m a pretty good skier. My parents were huge skiers, they owned a ski shop and dad was in ski patrol so we went a couple of times a season.

Proudest Accomplishment? Definitely my boys, they are 9 and 12 and are so much fun and are turning into fine young gents. For their entire lives we have lived in 4 beach suburbs so you will either find us on the sand or in winter, on the snow.

The Most unusual item in your office or home? I would say Steve’s balance board in the office and in our home we have some pretty crazy army stuff; handmade knives and all sorts. The most unusual would be my husband’s pace stick, the Regimental Sergeant Majors carry one as a symbol of their appointment and it was used by field gun teams to ensure correct distances between the guns on the battle field ensuring effective fire.

Favourite Sports Team? I love Basketball, NBA: Spurs NBL: Kings And I am a reluctant Rugby League fan (husband and 2 boys): Rabbitohs are our team.

What piece of technology seems like magic to you? The cloud! The smart phone is pretty magic too, I can order my groceries on the bus on the way to work!

Guilty Pleasure? I am a foodie, I love going out for fine dining with my friends and drinking fine wine. I try and balance this with Barrys Bootcamp sessions.

Introducing Kat, our Operations Manager and organiser of all things rad! Originally from the UK, she moved to Berlin where she fell in love with tech, joined RailGirls and learnt to code.

What do you do at Lookahead and how long have you been working with us? I’m the Operations Manager here at Lookahead. I joined in February 2018, shortly after arriving in Australia from the UK (via a stint in Germany). Day-to-day I work closely with Steve (the founder) to help with the running of the business as well as organising all of our events. I also have the opportunity to work closely with the team by supporting them in their roles.

What’s your background? Where were you in the tech industry before joining Lookahead? I worked for many years as an Executive Assistant in the UK before moving to Berlin, where I landed my first role in the tech industry. There I worked as an Office Manager for an educational startup that was also located in New York. During my time there I also tried my hand at programming, which helped me to build my first website for the team’s off-site. Which incidentally also gave me my first taste of event planning.

What do you like about Lookahead? We have a really great team that supports each other and are very involved in the local tech community. I really enjoy working with awesome empowering individuals.

What are you passionate about? One of my many passions is definitely event planning. It’s a lot of fun. I love to organise, host, meet folks and to provide a great experience for everybody. Whether it is for work or for something personal, I always look forward to the next event.

If you weren’t at Lookahead where would you be working or what is your dream job? That’s a tricky one. I’d definitely love to be organising events all day, everyday, but I would also love to work with animals, especially dogs. Maybe one day I can combine the two!

What was the last book you read or podcast you listened to? The last book I read was a thriller set in Australia called “A Fire Came Down” by Australian author Emma Viskic. This is the second book in the Calib Zelic series and I enjoyed it, but not as much as the first one. Currently I am reading through “Pain & Prejudice” by Gabrielle Jackson, a powerful book on how our culture treats the pain and suffering of women. I tend to read through a lot of books at once, which means my bedside table is usually stacked full of books.

First Car? I’ve never owned a car before, but the first car I ever drove (after getting my license recently) was a Toyota Corolla Hybrid rental from No Birds. Protip: they rent cars to red P-platers, yay!

Proudest Accomplishment? At least recently, it would be getting 100% on my driving test last year in March.

What makes you weird? Not sure if it is weird, but I think I may be the only person who doesn’t like getting a head massage during a wash at the hairdresser. 💆‍♀️🙅‍♀️

What piece of technology seems like magic to you? Autopilot for parking cars. I wish all cars did it so I didn’t have to learn it.

Guilty Pleasure? My guilty pleasures:

The Twilight movies, I have seen them so many times. 🧛‍♀️

Although recently I’ve been getting into “Just Dance” on the Nintendo switch. 💃

When Coronavirus hit, hiring paused for about two thirds of our active roles. It was a tough situation but it made sense. With so much uncertainty, you don’t want to add new people unless you really need to.

I haven't been a founder during a downturn, but I’ve thought a lot about it. The real winners stay lean, keep the team together and weather the storm. Part of staying lean meant shifting to four days per week. Debbie has always worked Mon - Thu, so we’re following her lead.

We're eight weeks in and it feels great. I've found more momentum in a four day week. Life admin that used to be sprinkled throughout my week now all happens on Friday, leaving Monday to Thursday focused.

The roles we’re now hiring are getting more love than ever and those companies are enjoying the candidate rich market. There’s also time to work on the business - keep an eye out for our rebrand. :)

Recruiting is the first to go in a downturn, and it’s usually the first to pick back up when things turn around. We'll be ready to go when it does.

It's a challenging time so if any connections need support or career advice we’re there for you. Just be sure to text rather than email on a Friday. :)

Debbie’s been at Lookahead for over two years now and in her previous life she was a Product Manager.  She was the first of us to work a four day week before it became popular!

What do you do at Lookahead and how long have you been working with us? I’m a technical recruiter, recruiting for JavaScript & Ruby roles and been there just over 2 years.

What’s your background? Where were you in the tech industry before joining Lookahead? Previously I was working at a start up as a Product Manager (Risk Management Platform) which initially involved doing a bit of everything, setting up sales demos, fixing CSS bugs and grew into Product Management over time. Prior to that I did a bit for freelance web design, worked for an e-Commerce company doing HTML newsletters and graphics.

What do you like about Lookahead? The team I work with and the people I get to work with. Talking with people doing interesting things and getting the big picture of what’s happening in the tech community. I enjoy the autonomy of how to prioritise my day and how best to do my job. I enjoy the openness of our team - along with our successes, we share our frustrations and setbacks and we all get to learn from each other.

What was the last book you read or podcast you listened to? I’m currently reading “The Unicorn Project: A Novel about Developers, Digital Disruption, and Thriving in the Age of Data” and before that I read “Catch and Kill” by Ronan Farrow. I also recently enjoyed “WeCrashed: The Rise and Fall of WeWork” podcast by Wondery and the “Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup” book.

If you weren’t at Lookahead where would you be working or what is your dream job? Working in tech in a remote team. It makes sense that this would be product management, but job title isn’t important to me. The main thing would be working with people I knew I was going to learn new things from and build on the skills I have.

First Car? An old Mitsubishi Lancer which got written off in a big hail storm that hit the Eastern Suburbs in the 90s. The insurance payout was the best thing about it :)

Hidden Talent? I have excellent gift wrapping skills. I’m also very good at finding things, but I suspect my family makes me think that so they can avoid looking properly themselves!

Proudest Accomplishment? I asked my daughter this, and she said it’s having her - but her three brothers might have something to say about that!

The Most unusual item in your office or home? I have a collection of used phones and gift cards. Lame, I know.

Favourite Sports Team? What’s sport?

What makes you weird? I don’t like wearing nail polish because I can feel the weight of it on my nails and find it very distracting. Apparently other people don’t experience that!

What piece of technology seems like magic to you? Scrimba coding tuturials- you watch the video tutorial and you can edit the code that same video! Magic! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDIlR71omg4

Next in our series of Lookahead profiles, we find out all about Simeon, who has been a techie for a long time, but a musician for even longer!

What do you do at Lookahead and how long have you been working with us?

I’m one of the many post-technical technical recruiters at Lookahead. I work with developers at all stages of their careers, and help connect them with great companies. It’s been nearly a year and a half since I joined the Lookahead team.

What’s your background? Where were you in the tech industry before joining Lookahead?

I’ve worked in tech for many many years. I did a Comp Sci degree, and went straight into development after that, working on inhouse software for superannuation companies. I moved into web development, and spent many years in agency land, including a couple where I was running my own agency.

What do you like about Lookahead?

I think it is the best team of people I have ever worked with – we all come from different backgrounds, and have different ways of approaching our work, but everyone is very open to sharing ideas and we learn a lot from each other.

It’s also very satisfying to help people in a meaningful way. It’s a real buzz when someone gets a job they really want!

What are you passionate about?

I am very passionate about music, from going to gigs (not that that’s happening at the moment!), performing myself, or just jamming with friends. I’ve been playing cello since I was about five years’ old, doing everything from classical to rock. I recently finished recording a new album with my band Hinterlandt – it’ll be released in the next few months.

What was the last book you read or podcast you listened to?

Last podcast was an episode of Punch Up The Jam, where two comedians analyse a song, and then at the end of the show they attempt to create their own “better” version. The particular episode was looking at Alanis Morrisette’s “You Oughta Know” – it’s worth listening to just to hear the ridiculous bass parts Flea played on that song.

The most unusual item in your office?

That would be my collection of vintage Star Wars figures. Some of them are from my childhood, others I’ve bought more recently. They had sort of taken over my entire desk, so when I recently started working from home I had to do some serious re-arranging.

The Force is strong with this desk

Guilty Pleasure?

Really cheap frozen garlic bread. I’ll be eating beautiful pasta and drinking great wine, and have no qualms at all about adding some dodgy garlic bread to the meal. Total comfort food!

What’s on your Bucket List?

Meet Fiona, one of our oldest Lookaheadians, in a previous life she was a Senior Front End Dev and Scrum Master.  And she has Perfect Pitch!

What do you do at Lookahead and how long have you been working with us? At Lookahead, I mainly recruit front-end, JavaScript and Ruby developers. I also spend a lot of time talking with people who need job search and career advice, as well as advising companies on anything to do with hiring. I’ve been at Lookahead for over 4 years now. It’s the longest time I’ve been in a job!

I was very excited about seeing a wombat up close at Cradle Mountain in Tasmania.

What’s your background? Where were you in the tech industry before joining Lookahead? I was a Senior Front End developer specialising in UI and CSS, and also a Scrum Master. I love CSS and feel very passionate about building beautiful and accessible UI. It’s one of the reasons why I started SydCSS, a meetup about all things CSS and front end related, over 6 years ago with my friend David Lewis.

What do you like about Lookahead? What I love about Lookahead is that we all genuinely care about helping the people we talk to. One of our values is building “long term relationships” and we really live by that. I also love how supportive and collaborative the team is. No matter how busy everyone is, we will always have time to help each other out.

What are you passionate about? I am passionate about building a tech community that is diverse and inclusive. That’s one of the things I always keep in mind when running SydCSS. I’m also passionate about helping companies building teams that are diverse in gender, social and cultural backgrounds, as well as levels of experiences. I truly believe a diverse team makes a company stronger.

What was the last book you read or podcast you listened to? The last book I read was probably something to do with babies as I have little girl who’s one year old. As for what it was, I don’t remember now 😆 Things were a bit of a blur in the earlier days of parentings. I am currently reading the autobiography of Julie Andrews, who’s one of my favourite singers ever. I know, I’m a bit of an old soul at heart. I love all the old musicals like Sound of Music and Singin' in the Rain.

If you weren’t at Lookahead where would you be working or what is your dream job? I would probably continue to work as front end developer if I weren’t at Lookahead, maybe move into a more people focused role like Agile Coach. My dream job, however, would probably be a food critic cos I’m a massive foodie 😋

Hidden Talent? I have perfect pitch. You can play the tune of any song once, and I will know what notes to play on the piano. I got pretty much perfect scores in all my music aural exams. I think I got this ability from learning the piano at a really young age and growing up in a musical family. My mum is a piano teacher and my dad is also a music lover. I actually didn’t know I have perfect pitch until high school. I thought everyone could do it!

Proudest Accomplishment? Becoming a mum and surviving the first three months of being a parent as I basically lived on minimal sleep everyday for a while. I’m also really proud of the SydCSS community we’ve built over the years. We consistently get comments from attendees who say it’s the most friendly, fun and inclusive meetup they’ve been to.

Enjoying oysters for the first time after becoming a mum.

What makes you weird? I really like durian – it’s a really smelly and unusual fruit from south-east Asia. Some people describe the smell as being like rotten garbage or gas leak 😆 It’s very much an acquired taste. You either love it or hate it! 😋🤢

What piece of technology seems like magic to you? This cool little app that allows you to cut and paste your surroundings straight to Photoshop! https://mobile.twitter.com/cyrildiagne/status/1256916982764646402 Also the snail nail clipper (https://www.nail-snail.com/) you use to trim babies’ nails. I’m sure any parents can tell you how scary and tricky it is to cut a baby’s nails!

Guilty Pleasure? I love watching Masterchef and The Voice. Don’t judge me!

In the latest of our team interviews, meet JP, he is a partner of Lookahead and in a previous life he was a development manager and an Agile coach before joining Lookahead!

What do you do at Lookahead and how long have you been working with us? I’m a bit of an old soul with Lookahead. Steve told me his idea for starting his own company, back when we were having drinks at The Baxter Inn many moons ago. Officially, I’ve been with Lookahead for over five years. I’m a partner and technical recruiter. Essentially, I help our clients build amazing product development teams, and I help awesome developers and tech leaders find great companies to work with.

What’s your background? Where were you in the tech industry before joining Lookahead? I’m an engineer at heart, and graduated with a computer engineering degree back in 2003 in Vancouver, Canada. I worked as a software developer for the first five years of my career. I then moved more into people leadership, becoming a team lead, and then a development manager for the next four years. After I moved to Sydney in 2010, I became an Agile software professional, performing roles as a consultant Scrum Master, product owner and Agile coach. The major technologies I worked with earlier in my career were Microsoft, C# .Net, C++, and VB. I’ve even done a bit of FPGA (field programmable gate array) programming, and early mobile app development with Embedded C++ for devices like the Palm Pilot and the Compaq iPaq.

If you weren’t at Lookahead where would you be working or what is your dream job? I want to be in a job that allows me to engage my passions, helps people, and hopefully also has a positive impact on society. As corny as it sounds, I feel that I am able to do all that at Lookahead, so for now and into the foreseeable future, it is my dream job. As an engineer and technology professional, I would’ve never envisioned myself loving this role, but I really do! How funny is life!

First Car? A blue 1996 Chevrolet Cavalier. It had a moonroof, CD player and subwoofer. I loved that car! Unfortunately it wasn’t built very well, and quickly broke down multiple times over the years. Funny enough, I’ve only owned Japanese-made cars since then. Next was a Toyota, then a Honda, and now we have a Mazda CX9, which fits my growing family.

Hidden Talent? I used to play the alto saxophone in a jazz band back in high school. I actually received a scholarship to study music at university, which I turned down as I also got a scholarship to study engineering.

Proudest Accomplishment? Being a father to two young boys and being able to balance my career such that I can spend quality time with them at this age. I’ve had both my boys whilst being at Lookahead. It’s such a blessing and privilege to be a father. It’s also the toughest job I’ve ever had, but also the most fulfilling.

Favourite Sports Team? I have many favourite teams! All time favourite sports team would be my Vancouver Canucks NHL ice hockey team. In other sports, I support the Seattle Seahawks NFL team, the St. George Illawarra Dragons NRL team, and the Sydney Swans AFL team, of which I was a season ticket holder for years, before having kids!

What piece of technology seems like magic to you? As an engineer it’s hard for me to answer this question, as I’m naturally inquisitive and try to deeply understand how technologies work from a fundamental level. Given my background, I’m able to research and learn about things at the first principles and physics level, so it doesn’t seem like magic. Having said all that, when I first saw a microwave oven in action a long time ago, that certainly seemed quite weird and magical. I mean, an oven takes ages to heat up food. How did this machine do that in a few seconds?! So, I think in some ways, that might have sparked my interest in learning, and trying to understand how things work, particularly from a technology perspective.

Lookahead just turned 8. For half that time we’ve been a Pledge 1% company supporting SANE Australia.

Pledge 1% is a global movement of founders who pledge to give 1% of profit, product, time, equity. Scott Farquhar is one of the co-founders of the movement and describes it better than I would: 

If Pledge 1% was around in 2012 I'd have signed up on day one. It's something I hope every founder does. The framework they've set makes it easy to give consistently to a cause. Over the years it really adds up.

Deciding to make the pledge was easy but finding the right charity was not. After a lengthy search we landed on SANE Australia who are a mental health charity. They support Australians with a complex mental illness, and the folks close to them. They’re tackling a big problem and are using technology to solve that problem. For years they've run the Lived Experience Forum for people with a complex mental health issue. Alongside that is the Friends, Family & Carers Forum. Also recently they launched a suicide prevention campaign “better off with you”.

SANE Australia are well worth supporting and if you're a founder please consider making the 1% pledge. If you're curious about either, send me a message - I'd love to chat.

How well do you know the Lookahead team?

We’ve interviewed each of our team members and will be highlighting their unique backgrounds, past work experiences and funny facts, in a series of upcoming blog post profiles… first up is Shaila Man.

What do you do at Lookahead and how long have you been working with us? Software Engineer Recruiter Since December 2018.

What’s your background? Where were you in the tech industry before joining Lookahead? Full stack software engineer, Sys Admin and DevOps – Javascript, React, Node JS, PHP, Ruby on Rails, NPM, AWS (S3 bucket, EC2), NPM, Agile, Scrum, web hosting, E-commerce, SEO.

What do you like about Lookahead? Everyone is technical and it’s quite different to recruitment agencies I’ve come across before. As a developer, I fit in and can stay in the software development world, be at the forefront of advances in technology, with the added bonus of meeting and helping awesome candidates and chatting tech until the cows come home.

What are you passionate about? One of my biggest passions is to get more women in to code, and close the gender gap. I co-organise MusesCodeJS, which is a not-for-profit organisation to help women (and other under-represented genders) get a taste for coding with free coding workshops around the country.

If you weren’t at Lookahead where would you be working or what is your dream job? I think my dream job would be an F1 racing car driver. Love driving faster than I should! In reality, I have kids and therefore sadly drive a Chelsea tractor. Speeding these days is overtaking a P plater on a dual carriage way.

First Car? Golf GTI – fully customised, took dash out and inserted white dials, took the back shelf out and made a custom back shelf speaker turning the boot into a woofer, wide arch body kit, huge rear spoiler, dark tint, fat 3 spoke alloys, and Clifford alarm system.

Hidden Talent? Able to breed rare breed chickens (favourites for a colourful egg basket and pretty hen coup are Araucana’s, Black Copper Marans, Australorps, Leghorns, Welsummers, Barnevelders, Orpingtons, Wyandottes, Rhode Island Reds and Plymouth Rocks). I have some carpentry skills, and can service my car and change brakes!

Proudest Accomplishment? Raising 3 beautiful daughters!

The Most unusual item in your office? The weirdest thing on my desk, has got to be a snow globe with my face on it (courtesy of Lookahead).

What piece of technology seems like magic to you? Waze – Tells you where the police are hiding while driving.

Guilty Pleasure? Crisps (You might say chips) – Balsamic vinegar and salt.

While we're all in social isolation, there are companies still hiring - they've adapted by replacing in person interviews with video interviews. I gave a talk at SydCSS last week explaining how to prepare.

You can find it in the SydCSS YouTube video SydCSS April - A11Y and Interviews or read the summary of the talk below.

As a developer you are:

Detail oriented

A problem solver

A tester

You make back ups

You communicate when requirements aren’t clear

Concerned with security & privacy

Technically proficient

You’re a professional

You can demonstrate all these traits through your video interview preparation. Here's how:

📅 Check the calendar invite - this is where you're most likely to find the information you need. And make sure you accept the invite so there's no confusion about your attendance.

🎥 Ask for the details of the video call - if you don't have enough information, ask for it ahead of time. You'll need to know which app you'll be using, how many people will be on the call, if it involves just audio, video and/or screen sharing.

💻 Test the video call app - download the app, test your audio, video, lighting and camera placement so that you can be seen and heard clearly. And don't forget to upload your profile pic for when you're video isn't working.

🌆 Check your video background - Make sure you're not revealing anything  that you wouldn't normally be happy share in a job interview.

🖥 Tidy up your computer desktop and downloads folder if you are going to be screen sharing. Turn off your desktop notifications. You need to be careful not to reveal personal or company information during your call.

🔥 Have a backup plan - make sure your interviewers have your phone number, download the video call app on your phone and be ready to use your phone's hotspot if your WIFI isn't working (and check your phone's data limit too).

💬 Limit distractions - at home you have more distractions than just your phone. So give the people you share space and wifi with fair warning so they can give you privacy and hold off from video streaming while you're interviewing. And make sure your pets are occupied too!

⏰ Login 5 mins before - like you would normally, show up a little bit early so you can be ready to start on the dot and have a chance to fix any tech issues beforehand.

🦠 These are a few things I recommend but it’s important to remember the bigger picture here and that this isn't business as usual. There is a lot happening that is out of our control - hiring might stop at short notice or take longer than planned. Interviewers and interviewees are working from home whether they're setup well to do it or not.

So there WILL be technical issues, there WILL be unplanned interruptions. So be patient, be flexible, be understanding. Embrace the uncertain - because we're all human and we're all trying to get through this the best we know how. 🤷‍♀️

The first ReactConf AU was a huge success. Congrats to our pals at Thinkmill who worked hard on this, and to Debra and Kym for providing much needed adult supervision.

I was part of the organising committee, sharing ideas from the amazing Australian tech conferences I've attended over many years. Couldn't help but recruit a few sponsors and a speaker too ;)

Over two days, the Lookahead Search team wore many hats. Simeon and Debbie covered our sponsors booth, Shaila was representing MusesJS and Kat lead the volunteers.

The community is thriving so we we managed to sell out and we got lucky with the weather. Feeling very grateful for how everything turned out. It's been quite the ride and I'm still catching up. Keep an eye out for future posts about what we learned. In the meantime, videos of the talks are here: https://reactconfau.com/talks

Also you have to read @Ben Buchanan’s Big Stonking Post: https://weblog.200ok.com.au/2020/03/notes-from-reactconfau-2020.html

Thanks Shaila Man and James Xuereb for the photos!

We love meeting new people and value referrals.

If you know someone looking for their next role or a client looking to hire please get in touch here.

Successful referrals are rewarded with your choice of gift voucher, donation to charity or community event sponsorship to the value of $1,000.

Kat our resident “super organiser” decided on a team day which involved a few different things and one of them being a Brush Lettering Workshop. This was 3 hours of being creative, steadying our hands, learning how to manipulate the brush and learning some beautiful script styles.

I am not the most patient or creative person so was interested to see how this was going to pan out. (Check out my expression)

This turned out to be a very relaxing and almost a mindfulness session for me, as a busy working mum my down time seems to be in the gym or going for a run. I thoroughly enjoyed sitting in front of a piece of paper and quietly learning how to brush letter (and relax and breathe). The final outcome for me was average however, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

At the end, our teacher Barbara Enright gave Steve a beautiful card that read “Make it Merry” however, after a magnum of Veuve he read it as “Make it Messy”.

Hope Everyone enjoyed their Holidays and Made it Merry or Messy!

If you are interested in finding out more about the workshop check them out here.

We implemented birthday leave this year. Being a December baby, I can finally confirm that it is rad.

I’ve always been a fan of Lara Hogan’s 1-on-1 questions. In her book Resilient Management there was a new question: “How do you treat yourself”.

Our team’s answers were all about spending time doing things, or with family. Here we were hosting birthday lunches and giving gifts. They’re lovely, but were never going to hit the mark.

This isn’t revolutionary but here's our policy: - Has to be taken on the day. - Make it a long weekend if your birthday falls on a weekend / public holiday. - Use it or lose it. This leave does not accrue. - Autoresponder on, phone off. Let us know what we can cover. - Treat Yo Self (and tell us about it in #random).

Nic’s Barry’s sesh + fancy lunch.

JP’s family day.

Shaila’s Jervis Bay adventure.

My smoky surf.