It might seem a strange question to ask because normally agents are used by actors, musicians, and even professional sportsmen and women to get the gigs they want. However, as technology has continued to evolve and become a greater part of our lives, there are more and more businesses looking to leverage software to help them achieve their goals.
This means there is a higher demand for software developers and programmers than there ever has been in the past. This increase in demand has also led to an increase in the number of programmers out there looking for work at any one time. Not only that but the fact is that software development work is becoming much more project-based, so it may be difficult to find those long-term contracts.
To help you whether you should hire a talent agent to help you secure those high-paying gigs as a software developer, we are going to give you some food for thought in the following post.
eCommerce Development is in Greater Demand
In the last year, there has been a greater demand for software developers with very specific skillsets and experience in eCommerce development. Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, a lot of companies that in the past had bricks and mortar stores are not shifting more, and in some cases all, of their operations online.
When a business is based online, there is no need for concern about sticking to social distancing rules and cleaning and sanitation rules and regulations for your store. Having a talent agent may help to put your name out their head and shoulders above the many hundreds, and even thousands, of candidates you may be competing against.
Even if you have the right qualifications, experience and skills, and proven results from projects you’ve worked on in the past, do you know how to make an employer take notice of them?
Help Researching and Negotiating Deals
It’s that last point that we want to use as a lead into this point. Talent agents know all about research and securing deals.
It’s often said that the best time to try and find a new job is while you actually have one. If you’re not interested in changing employer, though, there’s no harm in being actually aware of what’s happening in the job market. However, when you have those big deadlines to meet or don’t really know where to start, it can take a lot of time and effort to keep track of it all.
This can get you into a bit of a spiral in which you want to improve things but can’t.
Time is only one problem though.
For some people, the fine art of researching and negotiating deals is not their strong point. Perhaps that’s your problem.
If it is, it may be time to look to someone who can take care of that side of things. After all, like a lot of people in the industry, your strength lies in coding, programming, and developing software, not in brokering business deals. In the same way that actors and musicians are often better at working on their craft than actually doing the selling part.
Agents Work for You, Recruiters Work for Companies
It may be, though, that you are thinking you could get the same kind of help offered by talent agents as you would from recruiters. However, this is not often the case. Why? You need to understand the difference between the two.
Although they both work as middlemen that help bring skilled professionals together with business and organizations that are looking for talented individuals, they approach things from different angles.
Recruiters often work on behalf of a specific company or number of different businesses, finding them new candidates for job vacancies. Generally, these individuals and teams will be looking to fill part-time and full-time positions when they become available.
Talent agents, on the other hand, because they are not working directly for a specific company or organization, can find both permanent works, whether it’s part or full-time, and contract-based work. For many coders and software developers, contract work is more appealing. If you like to have a new challenge regularly and don’t want to be stuck doing the same thing day in day out for several years, you can probably see the attraction to contract work.
For example, you may only be required for one project for a number of weeks or just a couple of months, while others may last as much as 6 months. The key is that there is a lot of variety in the size and scope of the work you can do.
Talent Agents Will Say What You Can’t
Taking the point further, many skilled people, like programmers, who don’t want to come across as pretentious and unappealing, may be reluctant to really sell their skills. Is that how you feel? You’re not alone. That’s the beauty of having a talent agent. They are basically in your corner and can say the things you know to be true about yourself but you’re too nervous to say.
There is also a big difference between you claiming you are great at this and that and the best programmer a company could hire, and someone else saying it for you. When someone else says it, it has greater gravitas.
Conclusion
To summarize, it really depends on what you are looking for and how confident you feel about promoting yourself. If you are happy with your career the way it is at the moment, then you may not need the help of a talent agent. However, if you struggle to get the work you really would rather do because you don’t know how to find it or how to negotiate deals successfully, a talent agent will definitely help you.
There are never any guarantees in the job market and with technology constantly evolving, you need to put effort into staying a relevant candidate, but with the help of an experienced and reputable talent agent, you can have the software development career you’ve always dreamed of.
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