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As the cold and flu season begins, more and more IT professionals will be calling their bosses to take a sick day.  Plenty of IT recruiters and IT staffing firms have experience with IT candidates abusing their sick days.  While it depends on the workplace culture, technical recruiters and IT staffing agencies want their candidates to operate via these rules of thumb:

1. Make sure to notify the correct people that you’ll be out sick.  Your IT recruiting companies and IT staffing firms will probably tell you this before you start the job.  Sometimes you need to communicate with your IT recruiting agencies about sick days and sometimes the procedure requires you to tell a supervisor at the company you’re working at.  Make sure you know ahead of time so you aren’t caught unawares on a day when you are indeed too sick to come into work.
2. If you’re required to tell your boss that you’ll be out, be honest, but don’t overshare.  If you have a personal matter you must be out to take care of, don’t lie.  Be honest with your manager without giving too much information. The aim is to be open with them, but not to make either of you uncomfortable.
3. For a list of amusing examples of reasons you should not give your manager, check out the results from this survey.