IT recruiting

Bridging the Gap: IT Recruiters For All Ages

The information technology field, being relatively new as a professional field, is particularly inundated with generations X and Y.  It is also inundated with the problems that generations X and Y can cause in the workplace.  IT recruiters Boston to IT recruiters CA agree that generations X and Y certainly approach work and the workplace in different ways than their boomer generation counterparts.

There are many examples of disparate views IT recruiting companies see between generations as they attempt to fill IT jobs.  For instance, IT staffing agencies know from experience that while baby boomer managers tend to have experienced the workforce in only one or two companies, generations X and Y don’t operate on the same sense of a strong loyalty between company and employee. IT staffing companies also know that generations X and Y will/have already begun making more moves in their career field than baby boomers.  This means that IT job interviews can be especially fraught with tension as interviewers see vastly varied resumes that they do not expect.  It is the role of the IT recruiting agencies to help mold the resumes and the IT managers’ expectations to something closer to the middle.  IT managers can be persuaded to have more realistic expectations of a generation X or Y candidate, while IT staffing firms can coach IT consultants to understand and work harder to meet the expectations of a baby boomer IT manager.  The best asset technical recruiters can have in a market with two largely clashing sets of generations is to know how to bridge them and their expectations.  Happy generations X and Y and baby boomer IT professionals make for happy clients and candidates.  And happy clients and candidates make for very happy IT headhunters.

IT Recruiters: The Best Way to Avoid Multiple Job Interviews

The information technology field has yielded yet another new reason for IT contractors to work with IT staffing firms: avoiding an endless parade of job interviews.  IT recruiting firms build relationships with their clients that yield a more streamlined job interview and hiring process.  With the new trend of IT consultants going on 6, 7, or even 10 interviews before hearing feedback, IT staffing agencies and their streamlined processes have become an even more attractive option.

Why are so many companies requiring a myriad of interviews?  Despite growth from the recession, the economy is still not back to full health.  This makes hiring managers nervous about investing in new employees who may not even be a good fit.  IT recruiting companies provide extra knowledge and experience in the hiring process that speeds up the interview process. Clients, especially repeat clients of IT staffing companies can trust that IT professionals they recommend for jobs have already been vetted extensively.  Using good technical recruiters saves a company some energy in the process of filling IT jobs, making only one or two interviews necessary instead of 6 or 7.  Of course, this process also benefits IT job candidates.  One or two interviews is just as preferable for a hiring manger as they are for an IT consultant, which means both should very seriously consider working with IT headhunters.

IT Recruiters Rocking Out– and Networking in Austin

An IT recruiter and a music lover walk into a bar.  No, it’s not a joke, it’s happening in Austin this year– over and over again– at the highly-anticipated music festival South by Southwest.  While South by Southwest (often lovingly referred to by insiders as SXSW) the festival has become an increasingly popular haven for IT recruiting firms and IT consultants.  New technology is being marketed in the midst of what used to be a particularly grassroots musical festival, making it suddenly surprisingly relevant to the IT recruiting agencies across the nation, from IT recruiters CA to IT recruiters Boston.  IT staffing firms will find not only the place where indie artists like Bon Iver got their starts, but their next IT jobs or IT contractors to fill them.

SXSW 2013 will likely feature plenty of 3-D printing-oriented businesses for IT staffing agencies to peruse, as well as some involving space travel and wearable electronics.    IT recruiting companies may want to leave their nice briefcases at home, though.  No matter how much the information technology field is invading it, SXSW is still a gritty music festival at heart.

Education is Working Now to Change the IT Market of the Future

IT recruiting firms are well-aware of the disparity between the IT jobs available in the US and the number of people who actually study and graduate with the right training to be IT professionals. Everyone knows Math and Science need some heavy promotion among students, but few know it on the kind of practical level that IT staffing firms do.  Every time technical recruiters attempt to fill IT jobs and see how few US citizens’ resumes meet the requirements, they see firsthand the way US schools have not promoted Math and Science.  Enter Code.org.

Code.org may very well change the pool of IT contractors that IT recruiting companies choose from.  With its exciting, celebrity-laden video and solid, well-researched missing, code.org may bring computer coding to more of today’s students, propelling them into the hands of IT staffing firms of the future.  Of course, Code.org is not the only proponent of increasing US proficiency in skills viable for the information technology field.  Obama is an outspoken champion of Math and Science in schools and brings many other voices with him in his rallying cry.  Though it might take some time for all this advocacy to actually bear any fruit, IT staffing agencies will almost certainly see more US IT consultants and they can work with in the future.

Looking to Russia for IT’s future?

American IT recruiters, IT recruiting companies, and IT consultants are already aware of the impact that the EU’s approach to information technology on their own market, but some are just becoming aware of Russia’s influence.  While IT recruiters Boston and IT recruiters CA especially have been seeing the plentitude of talent from Russia for a while, the American information technology industry is beginning to slowly grow some relationships with its former cold war enemy.

While the cold war seemed to illuminate incompatible differences between the US and Russia, IT professionals are finding some very compatible strengths between the two.  Russian training in programming and engineering provides some impeccable skills (the same ones IT recruiting firms are already coming across in immigrants), while American entrepreneurialism provides the financial risks and growth that make successful companies. Currently, the cheapness of operating in Russia leaves many of the IT jobs in questions for Russian IT recruiting agencies to fill.  However, IT staffing companies in America may soon be finding themselves filling IT jobs that have grown from collaborations between MIT and the Skolkovo University or the Russian branch of Microsoft.  Though the Russian market is still slow to allow start-up growth, IT staffing agencies would not be ill-advised to start learning how to say at least “zdrast-vuy-tye”—“hello” in Russian.

“Bob” – The Bane of IT staffing companies

Information technology has always had plenty of room for procrastination and general wasting of time.  Productivity becomes difficult for IT managers to monitor when IT consultants spend most of their time on the computer. IT headhunters are often concerned about how disciplined an IT consultant might be, as they face the very real siren call of the internet and its black hole of time-wasting websites.  The worst nightmare for IT recruiters is a skilled IT consultant who becomes too busy wasting time to properly perform his or her IT job.  Really, a technical recruiter’s worst nightmare is “Bob,” the Verizon employee who actually outsourced his own job to China.

IT contractor “Bob” (code-named such by Verizon in its own records), apparently found a way to subcontract his IT job, thusly fooling his IT manager and any IT recruiting agencies he may have worked with to get the job.  While “Bob” showed up for work each day, he merely surfed the net, especially reddit, and occasionally emailed his IT manager.

Obviously, Bob is an extreme, if not amusing example of a real problem that IT staffing firms face.  The process of weeding out IT contractors who will provide strong, efficient, effective work product is not a science.  Assets like great references, a strong history of increasing responsibility in a company or role on resumes, and great IT job interviews tend to be helpful in this process.  However, IT staffing agencies must really be able to hone a sixth sense about what makes IT professionals great candidates who will really perform in IT jobs. The consequences for IT recruiting companies are nothing less than their reputation.

Dealing with ethical concerns in the Technology Industry

IT recruiters and IT professionals encounter many issues when it comes to finding IT jobs for themselves or filling them for IT managers.  Though it often may not be the most pressing concern, ethics and human rights are inescapable issues in information technology as a field.  Apple is clearly one of the companies that has dealt with human rights criticism most recently, but due to the nature of technology they are not the only ones.  One major factor that makes human rights infractions harder to avoid in overseas factories is the way technology constantly updates and stages large, anticipated release dates.  Every time a new release date is set, a factory tends to require a sudden spike in labor, often resulting in a plethora of workers completing a great deal of overtime hours.

While Apple and others are working towards abolishing terrible conditions in their production, what can IT consultants and IT headhunters do in considering what companies to work with? Ethisphere creates a yearly list honoring particularly ethical companies in a myriad of industries that IT recruiters CA or IT contractors could check before submitting resumes if they have particularly rigorous standards.  When considering a specific company’s ethical track record, technical recruiters and IT professionals can benefit from a quick Google search.  Human rights infringements are, of course complicated matters.  IT recruiting agencies or IT consultants may need to skim a few different articles to get a balanced perspective on exactly how ethical or unethical a company is.  It’s important to note that the search doesn’t have to just be for one’s own edification.  IT professionals in IT job interviews or IT staffing firms in meetings with IT managers or potential clients can definitely display interest in a company with a mention of its stellar ethical record.

Keep Cautious and Carry On: Social Networking Policies and IT Professionals

What’s in your Facebook news feed?  Freedom from restrictive IT staffing workplace policies.  Well, limited freedom, anyway.  IT recruiters and IT consultants have long extolled the value of having a blog or Twitter account to display one’s information technology acumen for potential IT jobs.  The well-edited, visually appealing blog or Twitter stream is nothing short of a living extension of resumes.  However, even as social networking technologies are becoming the new breeding grounds for IT contractors and IT recruiters MA, caution rules the content.  Workplaces scrambling to protect the reputations of their IT recruiters Boston and IT staffing companies have been implementing policies that can run the gamut from lenient to incredibly restrictive.  IT recruiters CA, of course, have always advised acting on the safe side and following these Policies, no matter how much they might hinder one’s expression.

A recent article in the New York Times seems to indicate some freedom for bloggers, tweeters, facebookers, and other social networking technology users.  The National Labor Relations Board has taken several noticeable stands on the issue lately, including re-instating workers who were terminated for (allegedly) incorrect social media usage and pressuring companies to write more lenient social media use codes.  Facebook, Twitter, and their ilk should all be given the same freedom of expression that we have around, say, a water cooler. Extending the water cooler metaphor, IT recruiting companies would caution IT consultants to exercise the prudence that a newbie at work might have.  A newbie at an IT job wouldn’t freely vent about supervisors or co-workers at the water cooler (even though it is technically allowed) because they are concerned about making a solid, positive first-impression.  IT headhunters would rather that IT contractors, who are particularly vulnerable as they search for IT jobs or begin new ones, keep the content of their “living resumes” as palatable as possible to hiring managers and IT staffing agencies.  Venting about workplace issues or co-workers at IT jobs is still a risky move for those seeking IT job opportunities.  Even as the National Labor Relations Board brings new freedom to social media use, technical recruiters would suggest that IT consultants and IT contractors post, tweet, etc. with care.

Programming a bridge over the Gap (Model)

Could IT Professionals use some practice communicating?  IT staffing firms Boston to IT recruiting companies CA have long been aware of “The Gap” model— A method of looking at the gap between IT consultants and the IT recruiters they serve.  Hiring managers and IT headhunters are certainly looking for IT contractors who can deeply comprehend and create what IT recruiters Boston need.  However, there tend to be a few barriers that obstruct great communication between those who hold IT jobs and the IT recruiters San Diego they serve.  Generally, the Gap Model tends to note that IT consultants tend to have a higher reliance on logic and rationality, lack empathy for less experienced information technology users, have less of a need for social interaction, have a higher propensity for perfectionism when it comes to technological issues, and to operate on ‘IT time,’ or to take longer than expected to complete IT tasks.  Of course, these qualities tend to be the opposite of what technical recruiters possess, creating a conflict in work styles and communication within IT staffing agencies themselves.

When people discuss the Gap Model, they tend to compare these communication barriers between users and IT recruiters MA to the kinds of communication conflicts caused when people are actually speaking different languages.

Whether the comparison is an exaggeration or not, the Gap Model certainly suggests an important problem—one that the information technology industry, including the IT staffing industry, IT contractors, and hiring managers would all do well to consider.  Resumes, Linkedin and Monster profiles, and IT job interviews would be great places for prospective candidates to make sure they stress their willingness to communicate with a variety of IT recruiters LA.  With some of that trademark IT professional obsession and perfectionism, the Gap Model could easily become a thing of the past.

Hot New Thing: The Internet of Things

What’s really driving IT job growth in the IT staffing sector right now?  Things.  The Internet of Things, or Machine to Machine (commonly referred to as M2M) has exploded and in its wake lie whole new sectors of the IT recruiting field.  Part of the Big Data Revolution, M2M information technology essentially allows IT recruiters to track data from brand new places: things.  M2M has been nicknamed the “Internet of Things.”  This new “thing”-derived data is usually in the form of information from IT recruiting companies that can be taken directly from the products (generally equipped with wireless censors of some sort) that IT staffing companies produce, often as they are being used by their technical recruiters.  Wireless Carrier, Auto Insurance, IT recruiting firms and Energy Management companies are some of the most prevalent users of the technology, but its applications are boundless, bringing new connections between IT staffing firms and the customers they want feedback and data from.  Some IT recruiters CA are even suggesting that M2M might revolutionize not only the technical recruiting world, but the non-profit world and developing countries.

Want to make sure you’re not only professionally relevant, but in demand in the IT consulting field?  Finding opportunities to work on M2M projects will bolster your experience in this hot area.  Professional roles in M2M jobs have a generously wide range, giving a myriad of IT professionals a chance to jump on the Internet of Things bandwagon.  One could definitely say M2M is the thing to do!