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IT recruiting

How to Impress Interviewers for IT Jobs

IT staffing companies and IT recruiters can usually help you prepare for your job interviews.  They can tell you what technologies to study up on, what experience the role requires, and probably what kind of personality would do well at the company.  But your technical recruiters and IT recruiting agencies can’t do one thing for you that is key in landing IT jobs: showing enthusiasm.

Why is showing enthusiasm so necessary in the interview process?  As most IT recruiting firms can attest, technical experience and skills are important, but so is interest in the position.  Motivated IT professionals achieve far more than unmotivated ones.  So even if your IT staffing firms don’t talk to you about it, make sure to show some obvious enthusiasm for the company and the role—it could be the difference between landing and losing the job.

Questions About Culture for IT Job Interviews

Sometimes you might be excited to interview for IT jobs, but unsure how you’d like their corporate culture.  While you can (and should) talk to your IT recruiting companies and technical recruiters about a potential employers’ culture, there are some questions you can ask the interviewer. The trick is to be very judicious about what you ask so that you don’t put your interviewer on the defensive (and embarrass yourself and your IT staffing firms and IT recruiting agencies).  Here are some questions that you can ask in your interviews (that won’t make your IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies cringe!).

  1. What do you love about work here?
  2. How long have you worked here? How long has most of your team worked here?
  3. What can be challenging about working here?

Ask Your IT Recruiters This Question, Not Your Interviewers

When you’re interviewing for IT jobs, there are questions you should be asking your IT recruiters and IT staffing firms and questions you can ask your interviewers.  Most of the time this difference is pretty obvious—or technical recruiters and IT staffing companies are quick to explain it to IT candidates.  However, there’s one question most IT professionals unfortunately ask their interviewers instead of their IT recruiting agencies: What are typical hours for this role?

This question seems harmless enough to ask interviewers.  It’s certainly something most candidates want to know.  However, IT recruiting firms and IT staffing agencies would much rather you ask them this question.  When you ask an interviewer what the hours are for a role, you may make them wonder if you’re not interested in working hard to succeed.  If you come across as too focused on hours, you could seem as though you’re interested in doing the bare minimum.  It could well make you lose out on the job— and frustrate your IT staffing companies!

 

Focus On The IT Job You’re Interviewing For

Sometimes your IT staffing firms and IT recruiting agencies might submit you for IT jobs that are a stepping stone towards what you actually want to do.  Maybe you need more experience with a certain kind of technology, or perhaps you need to get your foot in the door to great company.  Whatever the reason, there are times it certainly makes sense  to let your IT recruiting companies and IT staffing agencies set you up to interview for jobs a step below what you’d like.  It’s important to remember that while your IT recruiting firms might know that this job is a stepping stone for you, you don’t want to underscore this to your interviewer.

Sometimes interviewers are aware a job will be a stepping stone, and sometimes they’re not.  Even if you’re in the former situation, your IT recruiters and IT staffing companies will still want you to focus on the job you’re actually interviewing for.  A job may be a stepping stone for you, but you’re still being hired for a position the company needs you to excel in.  If you spend the interview focusing on the next role you’d rather occupy, you’ll definitely ruin your chances of getting hired.  Make sure your interviewer knows you are interested in this job and would want to succeed in it.  This will win you the job– whether you’re overqualified for it or not!

 

 

Don’t Stall Your IT Job Search With This Mistake

Perfecting your IT resume to attract IT recruiting companies and IT staffing firms can be daunting.  You want to achieve the best balance of including experience and skills that IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies want to see, all while keep the resume clean and as brief as possible.  So if you’ve spent hours agonizing over polishing the perfect resume to attract IT staffing companies and IT recruiting agencies, don’t let it go to waste by making this little mistake: leaving off adequate contact info.

It’s easy to see why some people might think it’s best to avoid giving too much contact info on their resume. There are certainly reasons that people want to make it harder to contact them.  However, if you don’t give adequate contact information, technical recruiters will assume you’re not serious about looking for IT jobs.  It’s best to at least give your phone number and an email address.  Ideally, a link to your LinkedIn profile is helpful, too.  Once you are working with IT recruiting firms that you trust, you can take your resume down.  This will help you avoid unnecessary exposure.

Unlimited Parental Leave and Other Work-Life Balance Benefits at IT Jobs

IT recruiters and IT staffing firms are starting to see a lot more discussion among employers and IT professionals about benefits like parental leave.  More and more companies are telling technical recruiters and IT staffing agencies that their IT jobs now come with benefit meant to provide work-life balance.  The newest company to jump on this bandwagon is Netflix, who is now offering unlimited parental leave.

This policy might seem too good to be true—and the reality is that it could be. As with unlimited vacation time policies, IT staffing companies and IT recruiting firms are likely to find that their candidates simply don’t use this benefit.  In companies where the workload is intense, company culture can make it hard to actually take vacation time or parental leave, let alone unlimited time.  This is for a lot of reasons: perhaps IT professionals are worried about letting down their managers or their teammates.  Perhaps they are simply surrounded by a lot of workaholics and find it hard not to act similarly.  Whatever the reasons, these work-life balances are a good first step, but IT recruiting agencies aren’t likely to see them used just yet.  It will definitely require an adjustment!

Want to see our open IT jobs?  Follow us on LinkedIn.  We post new jobs daily!

 

Don’t Make This Major Mistake in IT Job Interviews

There are plenty of things that your IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies will remind you to do on IT job interviews (maybe study up on a particular technology, for instance).  There’s also plenty of things technical recruiters and IT staffing firms expect that you know to do (like wearing a suit).  However, even if you do all these things, you could still hurt your chances of winning IT jobs by doing something so subtle you don’t even recognize you’re doing it: by being a ‘What’s in it For Me’ candidate.

What does this mean?  Your IT staffing companies and IT recruiting firms might not explicitly be warning you against this, but it’s important not to make your interest in benefits and compensation more obvious than your interest in the job itself.  Of course everyone does IT jobs to make money.  However, if you seem interested in a job mainly for the money and benefits, a hiring manager will never hire you.  They want people who are interested in the work, the company, and the corporate culture as well.  An employee who is deeply engaged in their work and team will go the extra mile and contribute a lot.  An employee who is merely interested in a paycheck will do the bare minimum.  So let your IT recruiting agencies handle the conversations about compensation for you—you can focus on building your candidacy that way!

Want to see our open IT jobs?  Follow us on LinkedIn.  We post new jobs daily!

Not Looking for an IT Job? Don’t Hang Up On That IT Recruiter Yet!

If you’re not actively searching for IT jobs, it may feel like a waste of time to take phone calls from IT recruiters and IT staffing companies. Don’t rush to get off the phone with technical recruiters and IT recruiting agencies, though.  Even if you’re really satisfied with your current IT job, it’s worth making good relationships with IT recruiting firms you trust.

What should you do if you get a call from IT recruiting companies about jobs you’re not interested in?  Maintain a polite, professional air.  However, be honest with the IT staffing agencies you’re talking to.  If they’re good, they’ll want to know what kind of job you do want in the future.  Finish the call by letting them know you’re not interested for now, but you’ll keep their information.  Then, when you need to search for IT jobs, you’ll be ready and have IT recruiting firms on hand that you trust and already know what you want.

Be More Open With Your IT Recruiters Than Your Interviewers

If you haven’t worked much with IT recruiters and IT staffing firms, it’s easy to get confused about how to interact with them.  Should you treat technical recruiters and IT staffing agencies with the same deference and professionalism as a hiring manager?  More? Less?

The good news is that IT recruiting firms and IT staffing companies are actually more of your allies in your search for IT jobs.   Unlike hiring managers and interviewers, you can be a lot more unfiltered and open with your IT recruiting agencies.  Your IT recruiters want to know what kind of job you want, what kind of coworkers or corporate culture you need to succeed, how much you’re willing to commute, etc.  If they know exactly what you want—and what you don’t want—they can help you find a job you’ll like and do well in.  Good IT staffing firms don’t want to place you in IT jobs that you hate or can’t succeed in.  This will only damage their relationships with employers.  So be professional with your IT recruiters, but be slightly more open, too.  The more they know about what you want, the better!

Don’t Say This Phrase in IT Job Interviews

IT recruiters and IT staffing companies will tell you a lot about what you should be saying in interviews for IT jobs.  However, it’s best if you don’t need your technical recruiters and IT recruiting firms to tell you what you shouldn’t be saying.  Here’s one phrase that you need to banish from your interviewing vocabulary: “hard-working”

If you already spend time selling yourself to hiring managers, IT recruiting firms, and IT staffing firms as “hard-working,” you’re not alone.  It seems like a good quality for success in any job—especially IT jobs that require perseverance to solve tough problems.  However, the problem is that this phrase is overused to the point of being meaningless.

It won’t impress your interviewers or the IT recruiting companies you’re represented by if you say that you’re hard-working because so many other candidates say this about themselves.  It’s better to use the time you would have spent talking about this to speak to some other asset.  Maybe you have experience using a few rare technologies or programming languages.  Maybe you have great customer service skills and can tell a few stories about satisfied end users.  These kinds of things will strengthen your candidacy much more than calling yourself “hard-working.”