Meeting my match
I recently posted on LinkedIn complaining about companies who automatically reject resumes if they don’t detect certain keywords rather than look for experience, and a few moments later I stumbled across ScrumMatch. It wasn’t just Nicos Marcou’s video that triggered my post; I had also been chatting with a couple of iron ring-wearing engineers who bemoaned their toothless professional body. I pointed out that we don’t have an independent body overseeing Agile, just certifications that can largely be acquired by attending short courses, so ScrumMatch caught my eye.
A relatively recent creation, ScrumMatch is “the job platform for Scrum Masters by Scrum Masters”. On one hand they interview Scrum Masters and assess their proficiency, and on the other hand they talk with organisations to see if they actually walk the talk. On their About ScrumMatch page, they describe it better:
ScrumMatch helps true Scrum Masters stand out and helps organizations find and hire true Scrum Masters.
ScrumMatch helps true Scrum Masters find organizations that are serious about Scrum.
As someone who is struggling to find true Agile companies, I thought I’d give these matchmakers a try 🙂
After a minor hiccup (I managed to schedule an interview at 1am!) I had the chance to chat with co-founders Stephen Sykes and Johannes Geske. I won’t go into details but we had a great discussion including how I first got into Scrum (c/o Systematic in the 1990s), a brief case study, then my assessment feedback, and wrapped up with a general chat about Agile. (They’re both really nice guys who clearly know about Scrum, so I could happily have chatted for another hour or more!) They put me in the top 5%, which of course felt good – I know I’ve been doing this a loooooong time and really ought to know my stuff by now, but job hunting is frustrating and makes one start to have doubts.
They are currently victims of their own success, swamped by people wanting to be assessed, but I can thoroughly recommend the process – sign up now and schedule your interview ASAP. I don’t know how they will scale their capacity but I would really like to see companies rely on ScrumMatch’s assessments far more than some arbitrary certifications. I’m interested to hear other people’s experiences with ScrumMatch and/or if you’ve found other useful services.