End the Job Hunt - 3 Secrets The Recruiters Won't Tell You

A Sense of Humour

Finally, a sense of humour is crucial. That may sound like an odd requirement, but I guess what I really mean is that you've got to have the right mental attitude.

This is important in so many areas. As I've already said, ours is a pretty stressful environment at times, as anyone who's ever worked in a serious, high turnaround ad agency will testify (and I don't mean some small, trendy, three-client outfit in Soho -- controversial, but in my opinion it doesn't compare). Let me give you a few examples of high-pressure situations a Web developer will find him or herself in.

Firstly, there's working with designers -- and not necessarily Web designers. Working with other people to inform the designs of Websites is a skill in itself. It's often difficult to strike a balance. As an Art Director said to me the other day, "I'm yet to meet a Web developer who just says 'yes'." She was joking... I think. But it's true: I rarely say 'yes' to everything, because I have to make the darned thing work. So design elements usually do get sacrificed.

The trick to not being seen as just some guy who says 'no' a lot is to keep as much of the design intact as you can, but never ever go to the other extreme of saying 'yes' to everything. Don't get on the slippery slope of having to build Websites using technologies that are sure to alienate visitors, simply because it's the only way the design will work. If that's the case, then you shouldn't have approved the design in the first place.

Here's another one: it's 4:30pm. A campaign goes live tomorrow. The first papers will probably be landing on people's breakfast tables in about 12 hours time. You're contracted to work 9 - 5:30 but you're nowhere near finished. Do you go home or stay and finish the work?

Let's put it this way: if you go home, you needn't bother coming in tomorrow morning. Don't get me wrong, this doesn't happen very often, but it does happen -- and if you have to work all night, then you have to work all night. Apart from anything else, if you're someone who cares enough about their work to do that, then you're someone I'd like to hire.

Or how about this? You've finished a site (for the second time, due to a client changing their mind) and you get asked if you can "just tweak" the background colour. You know that this is going to involve redoing all of the nice little images on the right hand side in Photoshop to pull them in to line with the colour change. Again, it happens.

As you can see, a sense of humour really is pretty important.

When it all Boils Down

Many Web developers find themselves out of work, in spite of their excellent technical abilities. This leads me to the conclusion that, though half of being a good Web developer is technical ability, you won't get along very well without the other bits -- flexibility, personality, speed and attention to detail.

After all, we're in a saturated market nowadays. Anyone can get a book on HTML and learn how to do it (and they increasingly do -- how many times have I seen someone reading 'HTML for dummies' on the Tube?). So it's becoming less about how good your programming skills are, and more about how well you can fit into a team.

If I had the choice between the basic skills and the right mental attitude, or an impeccable technical CV and client list coupled with inflexibility, I'd go for the former every time.