Blog

IT recruiters see all sorts of reasons that IT contractors fail to get IT jobs.  Sometimes IT professionals don’t get jobs for good reasons: they don’t have the right skills, experience, or their salary expectations aren’t right for the job.  However, sometimes technical recruiters find out that their candidates don’t get the job for very avoidable reasons.  Here are a couple below that you can avoid the next time your IT staffing agencies or IT recruiting companies set you up for a job interview.

Don’t come off as selfish or too interested in compensation/benefits.  While compensation is certainly a very important part of any IT job, the best thing you can do is let your IT staffing firms handle this part.  Have candid conversations with IT recruiting agencies about what you expect for benefits and compensation before you go on interviews.  They can handle this topic for you, leaving you free to really focus on the job and the company in interviews.  When an interviewer gets the impression that you’re more interested what you’re getting paid, they’ll be concerned you’re not interested in the work itself.  This is a red flag you can easily avoid!

Don’t cross professional boundaries.  Sometimes, when people are either nervous in interviews or too relaxed, they can be less than professional.  You certainly don’t want to come across as a robot, but you’ll shoot yourself in the foot if you start to overshare, swear, or get too chummy with your interviewer.  Making your interviewer uncomfortable is the quickest way to lose a potential job, so keep things professional at all times!

Don’t show up too early or late.  Being either too early or too late are easy to avoid.  They’re also easy reasons interviewers to jump to all sorts of negative assumptions about you.  Show up 10-15 minutes early for an interview.