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3 Quick Ways to Improve Your IT Job Search

The information technology industry is constantly changing and to some extent, so are the ways IT contractors find IT jobs.  While IT consultants can always count on IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies to provide them with great connections to companies that are hiring, there are some things that IT professionals can do to make sure they’re the most marketable candidate on their technical recruiters’ rosters.

1. Modernize and optimize resumes.  Take out objectives and any jobs that are older than the last decade or so.  Both date you too much in an industry that tends to favor youth over experience.  Do put a ‘Technical Proficiencies’ section at the top of your resume, listing all technologies and skills you are current on.   This will garner attention from IT headhunters and hiring managers alike.

2. Polish your interview skills.  Be prepared for phone interviews, face-to-face interviews, or even skype or other forms of interviews.  Be ready to answer questions about the technologies you specialize in.  Recruiters can prepare you to some extent, but having the basic skills already down can make a big difference.

3.  Know what you want.  Have a clear idea about what you want in your next position.  Nobody can help you get the best new job for you if you don’t have good ideas about what kind of work, compensation, environment, coworkers, and bosses you do best with.

 

What You Shouldn’t Bring to IT Jobs

It’s common knowledge that sparkling resumes and references make IT consultants very attractive to IT headhunters and IT managers.  Sometimes it’s what IT contractors don’t bring to the table that makes them so easy for IT recruiters to market, though.  Here are a few things IT Professionals should never bring to their IT jobs.

  1. Limits to your job.  Strike “that’s not my job,” or “I don’t have time for that project” from your vocabulary if you really want to stand out.  Even if either, or both are true, finding a way to do them will eventually pay off.  You’ll gain new skills and some truly glowing references when you leave the job.  If you’re worried about being taken advantage of, start documenting these extra projects.  Use them to ask for a raise at an appropriate time or a reference when you leave.  Make sure you add them to your resume, too!
  2. Personal conflicts.  It’s fine to want to avoid certain people outside the office or to actively disagree with people.  At work, it can be the kiss of death.  Work on your ability and willingness to work with and engage well with all types of people in the office environment.  Being easy to work with is a special attribute, especially in IT.  Stand out as a diamond in the rough with some outstanding interpersonal skills.  You won’t regret it.
  3. Concepts of fairness.  It’s easy to find little injustices all over some offices.  But the truth is, you can’t do anything about them.  The sooner you let the concept of fairness go, the sooner you’ll feel better and be able to focus better on your work.  Complaining about injustices won’t change them. It will only bring negative attention to you.  When you stop noticing or caring about these things, your silence will speak volumes because managers will understand that you have the same priorities they do: getting the work done!

 

Creating Accountability in IT Teams

In a field like Information Technology, the ability to build accountability among reports is crucial for IT managers.  While IT recruiters and IT staffing firms will provide IT contractors who work well independently in their IT jobs, there are a few key strategies that managers should employ.

  1. Start a tradition of sharing major achievements with everyone.  This might include awards or simply recognizing employees for accomplishments via company-wide emails.  Whatever it is, you’ll create incentive for IT consultants to raise their own work-level to match that of their peers.  If positive recognition is obviously up for grabs, people will always work for it.
  2. Have reports document their own progress each day or over the course of a project.  Consider checking it on at least a quarterly basis.  That documentation will be enough to create accountability without you actively micromanaging them.  This will create accountability that’s not born of fear or resentment, which is key. (These things as motivation tend to hurt productivity.)
  3. Consider having meetings to start the day or week in which team and individual priorities are laid out.  The best meetings will be the ones in which team members report their own priorities and plans, rather than a manager meting them out.  Reports will feel empowered and may even get excited about their to-do lists as they tell them to the group. 

 

Why IT Professionals Should Write Short Emails

IT recruiters, IT contractors, and IT managers are all too aware of the frustrations of receiving long-winded emails at their IT jobs.  IT professionals in any part of the Information technology field know that long emails not only take up too much time in a fast-paced industry, but also tend to be less effective in communicating the point.  There is even an official five sentence maximum email movement (called simply the Five Sentences movement).  Here are a few ways for IT consultants and IT headhunters to shorten their emails.

  1. Before writing, figure out your purpose.  What are you trying to say?  Encapsulate that in a few sentences.  Don’t spend the email trying to figure out what needs to be said.  Do it before you start typing.
  2. Cut pleasantries.  You don’t have to be rude in an email, but it’s also unnecessary to say things like ‘Hope you’re doing well.’  You can safely assume people already know you wish them well, especially if you talk to them often.
  3. Be confident.  It can take a little courage to send shorter emails, but short, clear emails are the calling card of some very successful people.  Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos are some great examples in the IT field.

 

Sportsmanship in an IT Recruiting Team

The IT recruiting field places an emphasis on teamwork, and the technical recruiter who proves to be a good team player will stand out positively from those who contribute less to their coworker’s success. Technical recruiters working within the same office for the same company have a common goal – to place as many qualified technical candidates as possible in IT roles that suit their professional backgrounds. The IT recruiter who sees him or herself as a valuable member of a larger team effort will grasp the big picture goal of a technical recruiting organization. Recruiting is all about making personal connections, fostering business relationships, and keeping in touch with important players in the technical industry. The ability to carry over that focus on people from a job description to interaction with coworkers will make a technical recruiter successful, and most likely, more confident in his or her success than IT recruiters who are more self-reliant than team-oriented.

The definition of teamwork, however, isn’t limited to a specific office location within a company. A technical recruiter working out of company headquarters has as many professional teammates as the company has office locations. AVID Technical Resources may be headquartered out of Boston, MA, but the technical recruiters in the Boston office maintain close ties to those in the Marlborough, MA office, as well as the Providence, RI office. One way for IT recruiters to keep in close contact with teammates in offices that are geographically distant is phone conferencing. AVID’s IT recruiters in the San Diego and Los Angeles offices communicate regularly with technical recruiters in the Boston office. Staying in touch is an essential part of being a team player – regardless of how much space separates team members.

Putting IT Initiatives Into Practice

A technical recruiter who stays on top of industry trends will have a competitive edge in the IT recruiting world. How do IT recruiters identify which IT initiatives they should prioritize in a rapidly changing industry, and stay up to date on developments? By nature, a technological breakthrough or trend can eclipse previously dominant technology, making it irrelevant. For this reason, IT recruiters need to be able to educate themselves on new technology, and be among the first technical recruiting firms to offer relevant, replacement technology or risk losing a competitive position in the IT industry. However, the ability to predict which technologies will take off, and which will fade as passing fads can be challenging. New technologies are often predictive of a future consumer need or market, and for that reason may not apply to the current IT industry. Technical recruiters who are best poised to recognize which rising technologies and IT initiatives will wind up being most relevant to the industry as a whole are those who maintain perspective through information. A technical recruiter who stays informed automatically has a competitive advantage over those who don’t, and no IT recruiter can afford to slip into a competitive disadvantage.

Information on and insight into the IT industry can come from a variety sources. Keeping current on best practices in IT recruiting, technical talent management, and IT staffing solutions may take time out of a technical recruiter’s busy day, but it will ultimately make the recruiting process go more smoothly. A good technical recruiter understands that one of the best investments of time or other resources they can make is in themselves. IT recruiters whose confidence in their skills is based on continual self-education and a sharp awareness of current trends and their potential implications for the technical industy are the ones most likely to suceed. Technical recruiters who take time for themselves professionally, and invest time in keeping their candidates informed, will find that the time they put in up front will pay out in a smoother recruiting process with higher placement rates for their technical candidates.

IT Candidates: An IT Recruiter’s Asset

IT recruiters know that people are assets. Like any good asset manager, a technical headhunter at an IT staffing firm knows how to approach a technical candidate strategically, with the goal of accurately assessing a technical candidate’s technical strengths as well as soft skills. Just as important to an IT recruiter’s people-reading skill set is the ability to recognize an IT candidate’s technical and interpersonal limits. A technical recruiter who has a good grasp of a technical candidate’s strengths and weaknesses will be able to capitalize on their abilities better than an IT recruiter who has a blind spot for a technical candidate’s weak points. What a thorough technical staffer will always keep in mind is that everybody has weaknesses, so finding ways to showcase a technical candidate’s strengths involves avoiding focusing on areas where an IT candidate can’t perform as strongly. Knowing the value of an asset is key to a technical recruiter’s craft.

A technical recruiter who realizes that human capital requires an investment will result in the best potential for placement will be willing to invest time and coaching with a technical candidate. A technical candidate who has been prepared by an IT recruiter to be as informed as possible about a company’s culture and standards will have the best chance of acing an interview. Other techniques IT recruiters can use to boost their odds when seeking a placement for a qualified technical candidate include interview prepping, reviewing a technical candidate’s assessment of personal strengths and weaknesses, and reviewing interview-ready wardrobe choices. An IT recruiter who knows that a talented technical candidate is their most important career asset will invest accordingly. Investment leads to success, and that’s what all IT recruiters want.

Corporate Technical Talent Acquisition

Solid strategies for corporate technical talent acquisition is necessary for any successful IT recruiting company. One of the key components of workforce planning is the ability to accurately predict. Technical recruiters who understand the needs of client firms they represent will be able to cater to those client’s needs much better than IT recruiters who simply try to make a match between HR bullet points on a job description & a potential candidate’s resume. The trick for recruiting professionals is to avoid the common trap of feeling constantly stuck in a reactive mode – reacting to a client’s feedback, reacting to a technical candidate unexpectedly backing out of an offer to accept an alternate offer, or any number of other reactive scenarios.

A second key factor in the IT recruiting process is the use of sophisticated technological sourcing tools. Top technical candidates can be a challenge to find, so a comprehensive recruiting strategy can lead to technical candidate contacts from a variety of sources. In the technical recruiting industry, relationships are key. An increasingly global economy can make maintaining some of those relationships difficult, given the obstacles of time differences, office phone systems that may not be set up for international calls, and the potential lag time involved in contacting someone primarily by email.

Recruiting High School Students for Tech

A high school student who takes on coursework directed at a college degree in computer science and a career in tech can look forward to job security, high income levels, and high employer demand. Enrolling in a tech program in college gives a student more marketability in the job market as a sought-after technical candidate. Technical consultants have lots of job options, little to no gaps in employment between jobs, and a skillset that gets increasingly lucrative as they build years of experience in the technical field. As technical recruiters know, the tech workforce needs more players, and anything a high school student can do to jump-start a career in tech early will pay off for them handsomely in the long run.

A greater social awareness of the value of technical skills could lead to more technically skilled young people entering the workforce after graduation. Mentors and career counselors on both the high school and college level should emphasize the importance and earnings potential of a career in tech. IT recruiters can meet with high school students and present the advantages of a technical career and host Q & A sessions that allow students to ask questions and fully consider the potential of a career in high-tech.

Models of the Technological Innovation Process

In today’s environment of technological change, keeping track of the increasingly complex innovation process can be aided by tools like models. Past conventional perspectives on the technical innovation process focused on the market pull & technology push theories. These theories about technological advancement evolved into Interactive/Coupling model. Responding to the premise of the market pull/tech push concept, which viewed technological innovation as a reactive force responding to the market as a source of inspiration, the Interactive/Coupling model suggests that the market joins forces with a technological void to fill a need for consumers.

IT recruiters can take these models and their premises into consideration when placing technical candidates in innovative, technological solutions-oriented companies. Technical staffing firms that understand the role of the market in IT job demand, in particular for technical innovators, will be able to meet technical employer demand with IT candidates that have the qualifications for the job, and know what those firms are looking for in a technical consultant. The information technology industry depends on change, and mapping the direction of that change through models of the innovation process can bring clarity to technical job-seekers and IT staffers as they conceptualize the current technological landscape.