Quick Fixes for your IT Resume
If you’re looking to attract technical recruiters and IT staffing companies, you may want to polish your resume a bit. While IT recruiters and IT staffing firms do care a lot about the content of a resume, that first quick glance at your resume is pretty influential, too. It’s definitely worth employing these quick tips to polish your resume so that it looks more appealing to hiring managers and IT recruiting agencies.
- Make it easy to contact you. Don’t hide your information or omit it. IT staffing agencies need to be able to reach you if they see IT jobs that are a good fit for you. Put your contact info in one spot at the top of your resume.
- Make your resume easier to read. Cut down blocks of text and cut down your resume in general. While you don’t need to stick to the 1 page rule most other industries require, do cut your resume down as much as you can. Organize your resume into important categories like Professional Experience, Technical Proficiencies, Education, etc.
- Make sure relevant skills and experience are near the top of the page. IT recruiting companies and hiring managers both look at many, many resumes. Don’t let things that are less relevant clutter up the top of the IT resume. Make it immediately obvious to IT recruiting firms and hiring managers that you’re a great candidate– especially for the kinds of IT jobs that you’d love to be considered for!
Do This if You Don’t Understand Questions in IT Job Interviews
If you’re working with technical recruiters and IT staffing companies to search for new IT jobs, sometimes you’ll have moments where you don’t understand your interviewer. Some IT professionals might feel nervous and uncomfortable asking for clarification. However, if your interviewer asks you a question you don’t understand, there’s a couple ways you can get clarification without your IT recruiters and IT staffing firms getting bad feedback about you. In fact, your IT recruiting companies will want you to do one of these tactics listed below so that you can answer all interview questions to the best of your abilities.
- Don’t be ashamed to ask the hiring manager to repeat the question for you. You can soften this a bit by apologizing if you prefer. The only caveat here is that your IT recruiting firms will get bad feedback about you if you ask your interviewer to repeat more than a couple of questions. A good IT professional listens and has good communication skills. Don’t make it easy for interviewers to assume otherwise about you.
- If you’re asked a technical question, but you’re unsure of exactly what kind of response your interviewer is asking for, try asking a clarifying question. One way to do this is to suggest that you “think they’re looking for X information and you’re happy to expound on it if that’s true. If they’re looking for Y information, you’ll happily give that instead.”
- Consider inserting a little humor into the situation. Whether you ask for clarification or for the interviewer to repeat the question, this could be a good moment to show off your ability to build rapport. Good communication skills can really make you shine in IT roles. If you think your interviewer would like it, make a small, tasteful joke if you don’t understand a question. They may like you all the more for it.
Ask This Question in IT Job Interviews
Plenty of IT professionals have a hard time coming up with great questions to ask at the end of interviews. There are a lot of standard questions out there that your IT recruiters and IT staffing companies can give you. This won’t really wow your interviewer and guarantee some good feedback to your technical recruiters and IT recruiting firms, though. The questions that make a strong impression show that you’re interested in finding new IT jobs that are a good fit for you. Here’s one example of a question that will really wow hiring managers.
Start by identifying things you really want in your next IT job. Maybe it’s a more collaborative environment, working with a particular technology, or something else. Run it by your IT staffing firms. Ask them if the jobs you’re interviewing are likely to have this quality. If your IT staffing agencies are good, they’ll be submitting you for jobs that are a good fit anyways. These jobs will likely have the qualities you want.
When you go to the interview, you can tell your interviewer that this quality is something you’d really like in your next job. Then ask them whether this IT job will offer it. If they don’t say much more than yes, you may want to ask your interviewer to expound on that a bit. Your interviewer will really appreciate this question because it will help them to see that you’d be a good fit for the company and role. When you show them your priorities and values are in line with the company’s, you can really strengthen your candidacy. Your interviewers will also appreciate that you don’t just want any job—you’re working with your IT recruiting companies to find a job that you think you could succeed in and enjoy for a long time. This is their ideal employee.
