IT Job Interviews

How to Talk about Long Employment Gaps in IT Job Interviews

Sometimes when you’re interviewing for IT jobs, you may be asked about how long you’ve been unemployed or job searching.  If you have been searching or unemployed for a long time, you need to be delicate in how you respond.  This is especially true in IT, where IT recruiters and IT staffing firms usually find that people have particularly short periods of unemployment.  Here are a few tips that will help you represent yourself and your IT recruiting companies well.

Firstly, keep any negative emotions out of your answer.  If you’ve been working with technical recruiters and IT staffing companies for a while to find an IT job, you might feel disappointed or discouraged.  Make sure this doesn’t come through when you respond to the hiring manager or interviewers.  Keep a positive, upbeat tone and project confidence that you and your IT recruiting firms will find something that you’re a great fit for.  People want to hire IT professionals who are emotionally stable, happy people who are confident in themselves and their abilities.  Don’t do anything to ruin that image of yourself.

Secondly, keep the language positive and stress that you are in control of your job search.  One way to do this is to suggest that you’re being very judicious in your search and don’t want your IT staffing agencies to place you in a job that’s a bad fit.  Another is to let your interviewer know if you’ve purposely taken time off from your search.  People do take time off from work or a job search for some legitimate reasons.  Some of these are: caring for a family member, travelling, dealing with health issues, moving to a new part of the country, or just to take a break—though this is the least desirable response.

Lastly, practice talking about this before your interviews.  You might get feedback from your IT recruiting agencies or just practice with a family member or friend.  Whatever the case may be, it will help you feel prepared and calm if you’ve practiced talking about this before the IT job interview.

Travel IT job search
Sometimes IT professionals take longer periods of time off between IT jobs to travel. Photo credit: Kate Ter Haar via Flickr.

Things Your IT Recruiters Don’t Want on Your Resume

IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies will often get resumes with extra information.  Maybe the IT professional has given more detail about a job than the IT recruiting firms and IT staffing companies need.  Sometimes IT staffing firms get resumes that give way more professional experience than is necessary (or helpful!).  These kinds of mistakes don’t usually turn off IT recruiters because they’re actually sort of common.  What does tend to be a far more egregious mistake on resumes is including too many personal details.

What does this mean?  Often, perhaps because of cultural differences, IT professionals will include things that don’t pertain to their IT jobs or careers at all.  For instance, info like your birthday, parents’ names, or your IQ should all be taken off your resume ASAP.  Leaving this info on your resume suggests a few things.  Firstly, it suggests to IT recruiting companies that you just don’t know much about professional norms.  In IT, having the ability to fit well into a company’s corporate culture is pretty important.  If your resume doesn’t conform to corporate professional norms, IT recruiting firms may think you might not be able to.  Secondly, leaving this information on your resume takes up valuable space you should be filling with your professional achievements, skills, and experience.  Don’t waste an IT recruiter’s time with information that they don’t want anyways.  Keep your resume focused on your career—past, present and future!

 

IT resumes
IT recruiters don’t want to see personal info, like your birthday, on your IT resume. Photo credit: Flickr image from Helga Weber’s Photostream.

Are You Using This Bad IT Job Interview Advice?

Recently, technical recruiters and IT staffing agencies have come across candidates who are acting on some terrible job interview advice.  Some IT professionals have heard that it will really impress their interviewer if they ask them if they have any concerns about them as a potential hire.  IT recruiters and IT staffing firms would strongly urge that you never, ever ask this question when on interviews for IT jobs.  Here are 2 reasons why this is a terrible question to ask.

Firstly, asking this question might suggest that you aren’t confident in your own candidacy.  Your IT recruiting agencies and IT staffing companies are advocating hard for you.  You need to supplement this effort by coming across as confident in your abilities and experience.  When you’re in IT, confidence is especially key.  Nobody wants to hire somebody who does a sub-par job working on important internal systems, websites, or provides poor tech support.  Giving the impression of low confidence will make it easy for your interviewer to question your competence as an IT professional.

Secondly, asking this question may actually highlight any weaknesses your interviewer hadn’t really noticed before.  Again, your IT recruiting firms are working hard to highlight why you’ll be a great candidate for the IT job.  You should do the same for yourself.  Don’t bring any extra attention to your potential (or perceived) flaws.

IT job interviews advice
Don’t ask your interviewer if they see any reasons not to hire you.

 

How to Talk About Weaknesses in IT Job Interviews

Lots of IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies come across IT professionals who aren’t sure how to answer this tough interview question: What is/are your weakness(es)?  Worse, some technical recruiters and IT recruiting agencies work with candidates who think they know how to answer this question, but do it poorly.  Here’s how to talk about weaknesses so you impress your interviewer and get some positive feedback for your IT staffing firms and IT recruiting companies.

  1. Don’t give a fake weakness. Give one that is real.  If you say something like ‘perfectionism’ it will make it harder for the interviewer to feel like you’re being honest and genuine with them.
  2. Give a weakness that isn’t prohibitive to doing the IT jobs you’re interviewing for. If you’re interviewing for a Software Developer job, you wouldn’t want to say you’re not very attentive to detail.
  3. Lastly, make sure your weakness is something you can actually improve upon. It’s best if you can give a brief summary of how you are currently working on this weakness, too.  This will ensure that your IT staffing companies and IT recruiting firms get some great feedback after your interview!
IT job interviews weakness
Don’t give fake weaknesses, like ‘perfectionism.’ They guarantee that your IT recruiters will get bad feedback after your interview.

2 Reasons You Didn’t Get Called For That IT Job Interview

Sometimes during the search for IT jobs, it can be surprising when your IT recruiters and IT staffing companies say you weren’t called in for an interview.  You and your technical recruiters and IT staffing agencies may have thought you were a perfect fit.  Here are two things that could have gone wrong:

  1. Your resume didn’t show you were a good fit quickly enough.  While your IT recruiting firms will usually help you update your resume, some of this is your responsibility, too.  The resumes that IT staffing firms find most successful are the ones that have a strong professional summary and list of technical proficiencies.  Time is of the essence for busy interviewers and hiring managers.  If you can get these two top sections polished and tailored to the role, you make it more likely a busy hiring manager asks your IT recruiting agencies to get you in for an interview.
  2. You list duties, not achievements for your jobs.  Again, while your IT recruiting companies will help you edit your resume a bit, some of this is your responsibility—especially since you are the expert on your own career.  When you are writing your resume, make sure you make it easy for hiring managers to see how you’ve been impactful at your previous jobs.  Don’t just list what you did, list the impact of what you did.  Giving them a picture of your achievements will make it easier for them to picture you achieving more at their company!

 

2 Easy IT Job Interview Mistakes to Avoid

There are a lot of mistakes you can make as you interview for IT jobs.  Most are hard to avoid, even if you have the support of IT recruiters and IT staffing companies.  Maybe you’ve spent a lot of time prepping both with your technical recruiters and IT recruiting agencies and on your own, but you forget some crucial info.  Maybe you wind up being late, despite extensive preparation and leaving early.  There are just some mistakes that are hard to avoid.  However, here are two mistakes you can very easily avoid (and make it more likely your interviewer gives you IT recruiting firms some good feedback).

  1. Leave any anger, bitterness, or sadness at the door.  Even if your previous boss was terrible to you, you can’t bring your feelings about that into your interview.  Interviewers will be overwhelmed and uncomfortable if you bring any emotion into the interview besides some moderate enthusiasm.  Keep things light and your IT staffing firms are more likely to hear good things about you.
  2. Don’t overemphasize it if you’re looking for work-life balance.  You may have been overworked in your previous jobs, but this is a topic for your IT recruiting companies and IT staffing agencies.  If work-life balance is important to you, there are subtle questions you can ask that will reveal whether a position offers it.  Check out this blog post on the topic.

Try This For Your Next IT Phone Interview

Technical recruiters and IT staffing agencies see candidates approach phone interviews for IT jobs too casually all the time.  The truth that IT recruiters and IT staffing firms wish all their candidates knew: phone interviews are just as important, if not more so than in person interviews.  These interviews are the gate to getting further in the process.  So for your next interview, here’s a tip to really knock it out of the park and impress your interviewer and IT recruiting companies: take notes before and during.

What does this mean exactly? Start by taking notes for your interview when you prep with your IT recruiting firms and IT staffing companies.  Keep these on hand for your interview so you have a plan for what you want to emphasize to your interviewer.   Use them to guide yourself during the interview so you stay focused, concise and articulate.

Why and how should you take notes during the interview?  Firstly the why.  Take notes so you’re prepared if you get a second interview.  Especially if your IT recruiting agencies are sending you on multiple interviews, it can be hard to remember details from a phone interview.  Now the how.  Take notes in a way that doesn’t interrupt the conversation.  Keep the flow of it. But take important notes when you can.  If you can’t at all, take them immediately after.  Your interviewer at the next interview will be impressed, but you should make it look effortless!

 

2 Reasons IT Professionals Fail Phone Interviews

IT recruiters set IT professionals up for phone interviews for IT jobs a lot. IT staffing companies also spend plenty of time trying to prep people for these phone interviews. Here are two of the top reasons technical recruiters and IT staffing firms find that people flub phone interviews.

1.    You weren’t enthusiastic enough.  IT recruiting agencies hear this a lot.  Candidates don’t advance beyond the phone interview because they sounded flat and uninterested in the job.  This is so easy to avoid. Bring a little more energy to your phone interviews because the interviewer only gets to hear your voice.  While in person your facial expressions and posture can give more of an impression, you don’t have that on the phone. Compensate by being just a little bit more energetic and enthused and your IT staffing agencies will probably hear some good news for you.

2.    Your communication skills were bad.  Especially in client-facing roles or roles where you communicate often with your team or end users, this is really important.  Your IT recruiting firms won’t hear positive feedback if you can’t establish rapport with your phone interviewer—no matter how good your technical proficiencies are!

 

How Honest Should You Be in IT Job Interviews?

Interviews for IT jobs can be intimidating, even if you’ve prepped with your IT recruiters and IT staffing companies ahead of time. One of the things that can be very confusing to IT professionals is where to find the balance between saying something that will reflect well on them and their IT staffing companies and technical recruiters and saying something that is honest.  Here are some tips that IT recruiting firms would recommend so you are more likely to land the job.

Firstly, know what your deal-breakers are.  Do you hate customer service roles?  Do you despise being locked away to code by yourself for hours?  You need to be honest about these things so your IT staffing agencies don’t wind up getting you hired in a job that makes you miserable.  If the job won’t be a good fit, definitely be honest.

Second, try asking some clarifying questions to see if you know what the interviewer wants to hear.  Don’t just assume off the bat you know what kind of qualities are needed to succeed in the role.  A clarifying question helps you tailor your responses so they’re both honest and get your IT recruiting companies some excellent feedback on you!

Lastly, keep things positive.  If you’re going to be honest about some negative experiences you’ve had, times you made mistakes, dislikes, etc, always look for the positive way to spin it.  Your IT recruiting agencies want you to be honest, but they don’t want you to be a sourpuss who’s difficult to work with.  Mistakes can be learning opportunities.  Bad experiences may have taught you new coping skills.  These are the things that make you seem like a competent, capable human.  And that’s what your interviewer really wants!

 

Do This at Your Next IT Job Interviews

IT professionals who are working with technical recruiters and IT staffing companies are probably well-versed in making sure hiring managers can see they’re a fit for IT jobs.  Most IT recruiters and IT staffing firms help their candidates prepare to show they fit the basic needs for a role.  What can really impress your interviewers (and in turn your IT recruiting agencies) is if you can make it obvious that you’re a unique fit for this role.

What does this mean exactly? Sometimes it’s obvious: you’ve got 4 years of experience using a technology when they only ask for 2.  Sometimes you need to be a bit more creative.  Perhaps you have some background in a tangentially-related subject.  (For example, you majored in Biology and you’re interviewing at a Biotech company.)  Maybe you’ve created a kind of database or program that this company doesn’t currently use, but could be useful to them.

The point isn’t to reach–  this will just come across as desperate, disingenuous, and a waste of time.  If you think your IT staffing agencies can help, run some ideas by them.  If you can find some way to show that you’re not just a fit, but an especially good fit for this job, then you’re all the more likely to land it.