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IT recruiters, IT contractors, and IT managers alike all have to attend plenty of meetings.  Getting through them is easy enough, but making yourself heard can be a challenge.  For technical recruiters and IT consultants, the most important challenge of any meeting is making sure their key ideas are heard.  Below are a few ways that IT professionals can ensure their ideas are presented in the most powerful format possible:

1. Try to give your ideas in the beginning or end of a meeting.  Humans remember firsts and lasts best.  Make your idea one of those two.
2. Frame your idea in a way that appeals to your listeners, particularly your most important listeners.  Framing your idea as a solution to your managers’ biggest problems, for instance, can make it that much more memorable.
3. Strengthen your idea—don’t attack it.  It’s a natural impulse for IT recruiters and IT professionals, particularly women, to start an idea with qualifiers like ‘This may not be on the right track, but…’  Don’t do this if you really want your ideas heard.  Similarly, try to test an idea before presenting it.  Suggest why it defies objections that you can anticipate coworkers and managers raising—before they raise them.  Even just raising and defying a few of these as you present an idea will give it a very rosy presentation.