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IT Recruiting
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Interviewing technical candidates can be challenging. You want to find a way to assess their skills without making your interview a non-stop whiteboarding session or test. Here are two questions to ask candidates that IT recruiting companies suggest for technical interviews. These questions help managers explore a candidate’s technical skills, personality, and experience.
What environment did you come from previously? Technical recruiters find this question can help managers get a candidate talking about a few important things.
What environment are you looking for in your next role? IT recruiting firms find that when you can get the candidate to articulate their next ideal environment, it will help you understand if they’re a good fit for your role in a more in-depth way.
Skype and Facetime interviews are becoming more and more common in the tech field. Considering how often Skype and Facetime interviews are used instead of (or in conjunction with) phone screens, it’s amazing that the technology has only existed for about 15 years. If you have a video chat interview coming up, here are some tips IT staffing firms would suggest. Even if you’ve used Skype or Facetime to do job interviews before, you may still find some new info below to help you nail your future interviews.
One of the most popular questions candidates have before an interview is what questions they should be asking their interviewer. The main rule of thumb is to make sure that all of your questions are about things you’re genuinely interested in and will help you decide if the job is a good fit for you. Asking questions just to impress an interviewer or to try to show off an achievement, research, etc, will never look good. In fact, it could suggest that you just don’t understand professional norms or you have terrible communication skills. Both conclusions could certainly sink your chances of landing IT jobs. Here are 2 questions IT recruiting firms suggest you tweak according to your own needs and ask in your next interview.
1. What makes a successful employee at that this company? How do they succeed both within the corporate culture and in their work? These questions show that you’re interesting in setting high standards for yourself. It also shows that you understand success is greatly influenced by a company’s unique corporate culture. IT recruiters find that employers really appreciate it when a candidate shows some genuine curiosity about what they value in their workplace and how team members can significantly contribute.
2. What will be the goals in this role in the first month, the first quarter? Especially because of the fast-paced, deadline-oriented nature of tech work, IT staffing firms find that employers love to see candidates who are ready to hit the ground running. (This is even more important in contract roles!) Asking about upcoming, short term and longer term goals will help an employer see that you’re interested in coming in and making an impact ASAP.
There are plenty of ways to bomb a job interview. Not prepping enough, not brushing up enough on the relevant technologies, or arriving late. However, one of the most common ways technical recruiters have seen people bomb interviews this year is by discussing politics. In such a politically charged year, IT recruiters have seen a lot of candidates bomb interviews because they thought it was ok to talk about politics with their interviewers. Here’s why you need to avoid this at all costs—and how to gracefully sidestep it.
Why can’t you discuss politics in an interview for IT jobs? There are a few reasons. Firstly, you never know if you’ll be offending your interviewer. Political views can be very touchy and personal. The last thing you want to do is offend your interviewer. The point of the interview is to make a connection with them and help them see you as somebody who’d be an asset to their team.
The second reason IT recruiting firms suggest you don’t talk about politics in your job interview is because it suggests you don’t understand professional norms. Staying away from politics in the office is probably one of the most agreed-upon professional norms. When you break that in your interview, you let your interviewer assume that you probably aren’t professional in other ways, too.
The last reason IT staffing firms tell candidates not to talk about politics in job interviews is because you’re putting interviewers in an awkward spot. Learning about a candidate’s political views can be a slippery slope into areas an interviewer can’t legally ask you about. Most interviewers are working hard to make sure they only ask you questions about topics they’re legally allowed to discuss and evaluate you with as a candidate for their job. So when you bring up topics that might lead into these areas, you will make the interviewer very uncomfortable– if not make them reject you outright.
So now that you know why you can’t discuss politics in an interview, here’s one way to avoid it: come up with some other legitimate small talk topics you can reach for instead. Talk with your interviewer about the weather, sports, movies, etc. When you have a go-to list of small talk topics, you’re less likely to bring up topics that will hurt you, like politics!
If you’re a job seeker, you’ve probably been contacted by or come across fake recruiter scams before. Scammers will often find your information on job boards or LinkedIn. When you’re looking for IT jobs, you don’t have to be vulnerable to these scammers, though. Here are 3 tips for how to weed out fake IT staffing companies from the scammers.
1. Google them. Real IT staffing agencies always have a website and usually a social media presence. They often have online reviews, as well. It’s also often a red flag if the IT recruiters who contact you are using an email address that seems more like a personal one than business. (For instance, at AVID, our technical recruiters all have email addresses that end in avidtr.com, rather than gmail.com or Hotmail.com.)
2. Think twice if they ask you to pay for background checks, drug testing, or CORI’s. Most reputable IT recruiting firms will never ask you to pay for these. It’s a cost of doing business for the IT recruiting firm. Fake recruiters will often ask you to pay for these tests as a way to steal your money. There usually isn’t a real job or background check—just somebody making money off of your vulnerability as a job seeker.
3. Don’t trust a job offer that comes too easily. Especially in tech, it’s important to hire people with the right skills and experience. This means that you’ll rarely land a job without at least doing a phone interview and in-person interview. If IT recruiting agencies contact you with a job offer and no need to do any interviewing to be hired, that’s a huge red flag. An employer needs to do more than simply glance at your resume or LinkedIn profile to determine what your technical skills are like. Real IT jobs require real technical interviews. If IT staffing companies say you don’t need to do any, they’re probably scamming you.
Many IT professionals are resistant to contracting. However, when you’re looking for new roles, IT recruiters would strongly suggest that you consider contracting roles. Especially in the tech field, contracting can have a lot of benefits that permanent roles don’t. Here are 3 reasons why IT staffing firms suggest you seriously consider contracting in your next role.
1. You can expand your technical skills and experience. Contracting means moving around more, but it also means getting exposed to new technologies and skills as you move. As opposed to a permanent job that you may spend years at, contacting lets you move on to work with new software, programming languages, etc, sooner. This translates to faster growth in your career and a resume that is more enticing to employers and IT recruiting companies.
2. You might make more money. IT staffing companies often find their contractors have a higher income when they can go on their partners’ benefits. The biggest differences between contracting and permanent roles are usually the benefits (most contracting roles don’t provide benefits). However, this isn’t actually much of a problem for some people. If you have a spouse or long term domestic partner, you can often get benefits through their job. (It’s worth noting that the cost per partner may actually be cheaper this way.) Most contracting jobs pay more money to help you buy benefits completely on your own (often expensive). You’ll be making more money, but spending less of it on healthcare, dental etc. Thus you’ll find yourself with a fatter paycheck.
3. You can get hired faster. IT recruiting firms find that the hiring process for contractors is often less time-consuming and stringent. If you need to move on from your current role quickly, contracting is a better way to do this. Perhaps you need to move to a new area of the country, your current role is at a toxic workplace, or you need to make more money soon. Being open to contracting will help you land IT jobs much faster to solve these problems.
If you plan on working with IT recruiting firms next year to search for new IT jobs, you’re probably already polishing your resume. If you want your technical recruiters to be able to submit you to remote jobs, there are a few things you should add to your resume.
1. Prove that you are self-motivated and have taken initiative before. IT recruiters see plenty of resumes that list the skills employers want remote workers to have. However, that’s not what will land the job. What IT recruiting agencies find really works is to demonstrate you have these important skills. Were you able to complete elements of a project on your own, with no supervision? Did you debug code without being asked? Concrete instances of things you’ve done that make you a great remote employee (or things that show you will be a great remote employee) make it easier for employers to picture you doing the same things as a part of their team.
2. Give links to your best work and relevant web presence. IT staffing companies find that having a great web presence and excellent work product to show off is especially imperative when you’re applying to remote jobs. Do you have a digital portfolio? Do you have a LinkedIn profile? A website? Make sure it’s easy for employers and IT staffing agencies to see all of them by adding links into your resume. Part of landing remote jobs is making it easy for employers and IT recruiting companies to see how you’d be a great fit for their role. Listing relevant links is one way to do that.
3. If you’ve worked remotely before, articulate how you still adhere to workplace standards and keep in communication with your team or managers. Again, giving concrete examples of your ability to be a great remote worker will go a long way in helping employers picture you in their open IT jobs. For instance, if you’re a developer, have you still participated in stand-up meetings via conference call? Do you use an internal messaging service? Helping employers and IT staffing firms see that you’ve thought about how to still be an effective member of a team, even when remote, will help you land the jobs you want.
If you’re thinking about a coding boot camp, you’re not alone. IT staffing companies have seen an explosion in boot camp popularity in the last few years. IT recruiters certainly find that many candidates seeking new IT jobs (especially their first programming roles) have a boot camp on their resumes. The questions is, are they worth it? The tuition for many of these boot camps is often in the thousands, so it’s imperative you make back that money with some great IT jobs. Here’s how to make sure you pick the best boot camp for you.
1. Do research on the job market in the area you live in. What are the most in-demand programming languages? Just as importantly, what are the most in-demand programming languages for the kinds of roles you want? IT staffing firms would advise you to make sure you understand not only what skills are marketable, but what skills are marketable and will land you a job you will at least moderately enjoy. You don’t want to realize that you hate the kinds of roles you paid thousands of dollars to be able to land. IT recruiters find that people who hate their jobs rarely succeed at them, or at least succeed at them long-term.
2. Seek out recommendations. Ask people in your network if they have gone to, or know of, boot camps that are effective. Check online at sites like Course Report. You might also reach out to your IT staffing agencies to see if they can recommend any great local boot camps for the kinds of roles and skills you’d like in the future.
3. Once you find some programs that look good, IT recruiting agencies suggest that you step back and look them over one last time. Ask questions about them, including these:
4. Based on all these steps, make a choice. IT recruiting companies would urge you to consider the fact that sometimes, your best choice may be to skip the coding boot camp (at least for now). Sometimes there truly aren’t any coding boot camps that would be a good investment in your career. Though boot camps are being hailed as the new gold rush, there are many that won’t help you land the IT jobs you want. The wise IT professional sees this– and saves their time and money.
IT recruiters are seeing an increased demand for IT jobs in cyber security. While this area has been hot for IT staffing firms for at least the last few years, it will likely grow at an even faster pace in the near future for 3 reasons.
Firstly, IT recruiting companies will see more job openings in cyber security because there will likely be more attacks. The recent Dyn attacks are a good indicator of an increase in the kinds of all-out attacks that will become more frequent– and vicious. Cyber attacks will also increase because they’re a new frontier for terrorists. Cyber attacks that affect community sources of electricity, water, power, etc are likely to become a new method for terrorists.
The second reason IT staffing agencies will see more job openings in cyber security is because there will be more regulations and laws created for protection against cyber attacks. Recent events have shown cyber security to be a top concern—one that people will be forced to deal with for their own good. Businesses, governments, and other organizations that have pushed cyber security to the bottom of their to-do lists will be required by insurance carriers and laws to start paying more attention. This means IT recruiting firms will be searching for more tech professionals with the skills to help employers meet these laws and regulations.
The last reason that IT staffing companies will see an uptick in cyber security jobs in the near future is because it makes good business sense. Some businesses won’t need laws or regulations to take these threats seriously—it’s already affecting their business. These employers will look to IT recruiting agencies to help them make an investment in an important, somewhat new, business practice: protecting their data.
