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Do This to Wow Your IT Job Interviewer

Most IT professionals are looking to differentiate themselves in interviews for IT jobs.  Your IT recruiters and IT staffing companies will certainly advocate for you, but you also will want to really stand out in your interview.  Here is one way that you can really impress your interviewer (and by extension your technical recruiters and IT recruiting firms).

Before you interview, get a good, thorough idea of what the job will entail from your IT staffing agencies and IT recruiting companies.  Then think through any potential challenges you’ll face if you get the IT job.  Make a list for yourself, and then work on some basic strategies you’d apply to these challenges.  If you’ve faced similar challenges, think about what strategies did work in these instances.  Now practice going through these.  When you go to the interview, you can use these challenges and solutions if the interviewer seems open to hearing them.  If your examples are good, your IT recruiting agencies and IT staffing firms will likely hear some great feedback about you!

IT job interveiws
Make a list of challenges you anticipate the IT jobs you’re interviewing for. Then try coming up with potential solutions.

Don’t Quit Your IT Job Yet!

When your IT job is unpleasant or stressful, it can be tempting to simply quit and focus solely on finding new IT  jobs with your IT staffing companies and IT recruiters.  Technical recruiters and IT staffing agencies will tell you that this isn’t a good idea, though.  Here’s why you need to tough it out in your current job until your IT recruiting companies and IT staffing firms find you a new job.

  1. If you work as an IT contractor, your resume is already probably full of shorter stints at a lot of companies. This isn’t a problem on its own.  However, if you quit a job without having another to move into, these things combined can create a red flag.  Hiring managers want to be able to trust that you’re reliable and resilient, even if you’re faced with a tough project, team, end-user, etc.
  2. Quitting a job without having another lined up will make it easier for hiring managers to assume you were fired or about to be fired. While your IT recruiting firms can try to explain these things, it’s better to have nothing for your IT recruiting agencies to explain for you. Do your best to keep your resume as pristine as possible, because you never know what other candidates you might be up against.
IT job search
Don’t quit before lining up a new job. It could really hurt your IT career.

How to Resign Your IT Job Gracefully

 

After a long search for new IT jobs with your IT recruiters and IT staffing firms, you’ll have one more task: resigning from your current job.  Sometimes technical recruiters and IT staffing agencies hear about people handing this poorly.  Here are some tips to make your resignation graceful so you don’t burn any bridges.

  1. Tell your manager in person if you can. If not, tell them over the phone.  IT recruiting companies often hear about how people feel intimidated about actually resigning with their bosses.  While it might seem scary, the best way to handle this is to directly tell your manager.  Do not hide behind email, no matter how tempting it is.  It probably won’t be bad at all, anyways.
  2. If your manager asks for it, write a short letter of resignation. This letter can be a single sentence.  IT staffing companies and IT recruiting agencies would advise you to keep any grievances out of it.  Don’t give any feedback or list the reasons why you’re leaving.  Simply state that you’re resigning and when your last day is.
  3. Now back to that feedback: Should you share it? Only if you can do so constructively and you have somebody you think will be ready to hear it.  If you think your manager or HR won’t be interested or take it well, it’s best to just hold back.  Vent to your family or friends, maybe even your IT staffing agencies. It’s better to leave with positive relations at your job, even if you never want to work there again.
IT Letter of Resignation IT Jobs
Your manager may request a letter of resignation before you leave your IT job.

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.

1 Easy Way to Make Your IT Resume More Effective

There is plenty of advice out there on how to polish your resume to attract IT recruiters and IT staffing companies.  While some advice is mediocre, here is one tip that will definitely get you a lot more attention from technical recruiters and IT staffing agencies: Break up and cut down any big blocks of text in your IT resumes.

Why will this make a difference to IT recruiting companies?  It’s all about making it easier for IT staffing firms to see that you’re a great fit for a job.  When IT recruiting firms are trying to find the best IT professional for a job, they’re looking at hundreds of resumes. It really slows readers down when your resume is full of dense blocks of text—and time is of the essence for IT recruiters.  So make it more likely that IT recruiting agencies will be able to quickly scan your resume and see how accomplished and experienced you are.  Use bullet points that are concise and cut out extra info that’s too technical or unnecessary.  It might just help you win your next IT jobs!

An IT Job Interview Mistake You May Not Know You’re Making!

Great IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies help their candidates fully prepare for interviews.  And great IT professionals put a lot of work into prepping for interviews on their own.  But you can still miss landing the IT jobs, even if you prepare well.  One surprising reason that your IT staffing companies and technical recruiters might relay to you that you didn’t get the job: your answers sounded more like you were focused on saying what they wanted to hear than giving a truthful, genuine answer.

Why would this be a problem?  While taking your preparation and tips from IT recruiting firms seriously is important, interviewers really want to get a good sense of your technical proficiencies, experience, and personality.  If your answers sound like something your IT staffing firms and IT recruiting agencies helped you carefully construct to meet expectations, they will just frustrate the interviewer. You’ll be obstructing their hiring process, which will guarantee some bad feedback to your IT recruiting companies! To avoid this issue, focus on making sure your answers are honest and helpful, not just finessed and polished.

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?

IT Professionals Are Still Making This Mistake on Their IT Resumes!

Despite the fact that many IT staffing companies and IT recruiting firms warn against it, IT professionals are still starting their resumes with objectives.  Worse, many IT recruiting agencies and IT staffing firms come across resumes with vague objectives that list qualities like ‘team-player’ or ‘thinks outside of the box.’  These objectives don’t even tell technical recruiters, IT staffing companies, or hiring managers anything useful about the candidate.  If you’re actually concerned about deleting your objective on your resume, IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies appreciate a brief, well-worded summary.  Focus on listing your major technical skills, how much experience you have in the field, and any major achievements in your career.  If you construct a brief, fact-oriented, concise summary, IT recruiting companies will b much more able to sell your candidacy to hiring managers.

IT resumes IT jobs
The IT professionals who get the job aren’t wasting resume space with vague objectives.

Is Your Tech Resume Turning Off IT Recruiters and Hiring Managers?

The kind of resumes IT recruiters, IT staffing agencies, and, most importantly, hiring managers, love are efficient.  Resumes that show thoroughly but quickly that an IT professional has the experience and skills to succeed in IT jobs are the ones that IT staffing companies and technical recruiters all love to show hiring managers. IT recruiting firms and IT staffing firms don’t always want IT professionals to stick to the 1 page rule for resumes – even though it’s the norm in most other industries.  However, it is important that IT professionals really cut down their resume to only relevant and recent job experience and skills.

What does this mean?  The best resumes will not stretch beyond a page (or more!) to include experience from more than 15 years ago or experience that just isn’t really relevant to IT jobs.  When you stretch your resume out to, say, 7 pages to include experience from your earliest jobs, you may actually be turning off IT recruiting agencies.  Instead of being thorough by including extra experience, you’re actually making it harder for IT staffing firms to decide if you’re a good fit for a job.  They may well pass over your resume for one that is faster and easier to read.  The same is true if you’ve included jobs, hobbies, or other information on your resume that isn’t immediately and obviously relevant to the IT jobs you want to be considered for.  Especially if your resume exceeds a page, including this extra information may irritate IT recruiting companies rather than strengthen your candidacy.