Tag Archives: AVID Technical Resources

Review: “Talent Management Systems: Best Practices in Technology Solutions for Recruitment, Retention and Workforce Planning”

“Talent Management Systems: Best Practices in Technology Solutions for Recruitment, Retention and Workforce Planning” discusses how web-based applications have revolutionized the job search, talent acquisition process, and human capital management. Cutting-edge practices discussed in the book will assist IT recruiters and other proffessionals in the technical recruiting industry in using technogy to their advantage when pursuing potential candidates. IT staffers need to step up their web-based recruiting tactics in view of a continually advancing technological landscape.

Schweyer’s expertise in recruitment technology can benefit technical hiring managers working for an IT staffing firm in the technical recruiting industry. Best practices, according to him, include understanding that in a knowledge-based economy, what a technical employer values most in an IT candidate is the individual’s information reserves. A quality so qualitative cannot fully be captured on a resume, which is where an IT staffer’s specialized knowledge value comes into play: assessing those skills, and separating the technical candidate as a fully-rounded worker from his or her accomplishments. As professionals working in a fast-growing industry, IT headhunters can’t afford not to be up-to-date on the latest technological recruiting practices.

Review: “Ace the IT Interview”

Any technical recruiter who has guided a technical candidate through the interviewing process for an open IT job knows the importance of interviewing skills. This book serves as a practical guide to landing IT jobs, which is a skill an IT staffer wants to be well-versed in for the purposes of best advising technical candidates. The book provides a bird’s eye view of the IT interviewing process, and how technical employers view candidates and their answers to standard interview questions.

Accordingly, Moreira discusses the power of first impressions, and how technical candidates can make the best possible fist impression. The ability to anticipate re-occuring interview questions is a key skill for a good interviewing impression, so a portion of this book is devoted to key technical interview questions. Any technical employer will be interviewing multiple candidates for any open IT position, so the next step for a candidate who has mastered the skills of fitting in, and presenting according to expectations, is to go beyond that level of interview performance and stand out from the competition in a positive way — a way that will make him or her memorable in an interviewer’s mind. IT staffers will find this book invaluable for giving technical candidates the best possible interview prep for closing an IT job that will last till contract end, or be extended.

Review: “Invaluable Knowledge: Securing Your Company’s Technical Expertise”

“Invaluable Knowledge: Securing Your Company’s Technical Expertise” focuses on the retention side of technical talent management. Any technical recruiter who has had the experience of placing a highly qualified technical candidate in a high-paying IT job, only to have the candidate leave the position prior to the contract end for a higher salary, more attractive benefits, or any other incentive elsewhere, knows the importance of talent retention. The skill and financial loss creates a void, and an IT staffer who can develop skills to prevent this scenario will have higher success rates than his or her peers in the recruiting industry.

According to Rothwell, one of the secrets to getting top talent in the first place is to agressively recruit from competitors. Once that process is underway or complete, the next essential step to ensure a placement in an IT job is careful candidate grooming. The technical candidate must be technically proficient at a minimum — the rest: killer interviewing skills, attention to dress code, culture fit, language use, and more are the responsibility of the technical recruiter’s coaching right up until the point a candidate enters an interview. Without thorough prepping, an IT staffing expert is setting up his or her candidate to either fail, or miss his or her potential by a slim margin. No technical staffer can afford either scenario, so a careful read of this book will equip the competitive IT staffer for top sales performance.

Technical Recruiters, Are You Getting Enough Sleep?

Pritchard’s “101 Strategies for Recruiting Success: Where, When, and How to Find the Right People Every Time” discusses the technical hiring process, and how best to manage the process of finding and keeping great technical candidates. Any technical headhunter knows that the longer a top technical candidate stays in a contract, the better it is for the IT staffing firm that handled the placement, so the skills to keeping skilled people happy in their position is key. Pritchard identifies two facets to this skillset: a common sense approach and a corporate one. Recruiting assignments can present challenges, and as a former recruiting professionals with over 20 years of experience, this book offers solutions for broaching them.

Topics covered include: techniques for attracting top technical talent, how to engage in proactive IT staffing, how to recruit with diversity in mind, how to match client company needs with technical candidate qualifications, and retention techniques. As noted in the book, retention involves the art of maintaining a strong relationship with a technical candidate throughout the full period of the contract. Allowing the relationship to slip once the contracts are in and the candidate has put in a first day or a first week could be the difference between keeping the candidate for the length of the contract and having them seek employment elsewhere. Learn about contentment in a technical candidate, and how to be instrumental in maintaining it in this insightful read.

Review:”Technical Recruiting Success for IT Firms”

AVID Technical Resources reviews “Technical Recruiting Success for IT Firms” by Dawson.  In the book, Dawson speaks from his high level of success in technical recruiting, and his perspective as a technical staffing consultant. His recruiting techniques involve IT staffing secrets he has identified and developed over time. His check lists offer ways to run through a list of tips, and apply them to each IT candidate, leading to higher placement rates and higher chances of turning technical candidates into working technical contractors.

One challenge a technical hiring manager may face is difficulties maintaining exclusivity. In the competitive IT recruiting industry, other IT staffing agencies may seek to interfere with a headhunter’s exclusive job coverage. Dawson reveals techniques for protecting those exclusive relationships, and turning them into solid placements for good IT professionals. He also covers the art of negotiating rates, a key factor for a technical candidate’s contentment and likelihood of staying in a role on a long-term contract. He closes with tips on managing references, and interview strategies. Pick up this book for a thorough look at a technical recruiters’ task list!

Review: “Trend Watch List Extended – Your World In Their Hands – Converging Trends Driving Your Talent Strategy”

Talent professionals employed in the technical recruiting industry will find Vanderbilt’s book on important employment trends helpful for placing technical candidates in IT jobs that offer a great skill & culture match to the employer. “Trend Watch List Extended – Your World In Their Hands – Converging Trends Driving Your Talent Strategy” discusses how technical headhunters at AVID Technical Resources and other technical staffing firms can best capitalize on the IT recruities strategies that maximize the broader trends being reflected in the job market as a whole.

According to Vanderbilt, workforce strategies centered around changes in the job markets are some of the most key areas that technical staffers can focus in on to increase their performance levels. Vanderbilt terms the intense competition for job placement capital the “staffing war”. She reveals the tactics top IT staffing agencies will need to acquired to acquire and maintain a competitive edge. Recruiting companies that want to stay abreast of the latest technical recruiting trends will want to grab a copy of this book.

Review: “Secrets from a Body Broker: A Hiring Handbook for Managers, Recruiters, and Job Seekers”

Technical recruiters will find Rey’s book, Secrets from a Body Broker: A Hiring Handbook for Managers, Recruiters, and Job Seekers, packed with valuable tips for personnel management. She starts by revealing two secrets – Secret #1 is “Discrimination is the cornerstone of each and every hiring decision. This is because hiring decisions are personal decisions made by people, and people will discriminate, even at the most subconscious of levels”. Secret #2, she tells us, is “A large percentage of managers who are in charge of hiring have little or no formal training in interviewing and hiring process”. The takeaway for technical recruiters is that hiring decisions may not be based purely on technical credentials.

A technical recruiter specializing in headhunting may see a technical candidates’ resume as an ideal match for an open IT job he or she is trying to place, but the hiring manager may feel differently. Whether the IT position is a remote job, requires an in-person interview, or a series of phone interviews, fit matters. A technical hiring manager wants not just the skill-set, but also someone he or she can respect and work well with. Even for a remote IT job, communication between a hiring manager and technical candidate via email may still play a key part in the project completion process. A hiring manager’s priorities will be affected by bias — as Rey notes in secret number 1, and discrimination for some small imperfection in a technical recruiter’s mind, such as sub-par communication skills may be crucial for a hiring manager’s comfort levels when working with a technical candidate. For this reason, a marginally less-qualified technical candidate may be selected over a standout from a skill perspective, because there is more to the big picture in a role than simply qualifications.

It may seem frustrating to an IT staffer that predicting the success of candidates that seem qualified can seem as chancey as betting, but at the end of the day, that’s the game of the technical staffing industry, and IT recruiters just have to keep their batting averages as high as possible.

Review: “Managing Engineers and Technical Employees: How to Attract, Motivate, and Retain Excellent People”

In Managing Engineers and Technical Employees: How to Attract, Motivate, and Retain Excellent People, Soat discusses techniques technical recruiters can use for attracting strong technical candidates. Outstanding technical professionals seek desirable work environments. The takeaway for the technical headhunter seeking ideal candidates for top IT job openings is to determine what factors technical candidates most often consider to make a given job environment attractive. Using that ammo, a technical hiring manager can execute a smoother recruiting process, from phone screen to successful placement in a technical job. One of those key factors, Soat identifies, is not surprisingly, compensation.

A technical manager’s salary expectations will be specific and within a range, non-negotiable, so IT staffing firms that collect that piece of information accurately up front from a technical candidate will be in the best position to consider viable job matches. On the same note, technical company benefits packages will factor heavily into a technical candidate’s decision-making process. Lastly, Soat advises, top-tier technical talent seeks reputation. Technical candidates want to work for a company that not only has an excellent reputation from a work atmosphere standpoint, but also from a products and services perspective. Technical recruiters and IT staffing firms that know how to assess companies according to this criteria will have a better chance of knowing which IT positions to match top technical candidates with for a lasting fit. IT recruiting in the technical staffing industry is a matter of understanding what technical candidates are looking for, and what the firms that hire them want. Put those two pieces together, and you’ve got a win for technical candidates and hiring managers alike!

Review:”Technical Screening – SQL Server Developer”

Obi Ogbanufe’s Technical Screening – SQL Server Developer helps technical recruiters develop a more efficient technical screening process for vetting candidates. The book discusses how to compare a technical candidate’s skills and background to the technical role requirements, and use cues in a candidates’ technical resume to best determine a match. One challenge Ogbanufe identifies for the technical recruiter is the issue of appearing confrontational when asking screening questions that ultimately determine whether or not the recruiter will get an interview with the employer. The nature of these types of questions is that they weed out the weaker links from the stronger ones, so offending a candidate accidentally by touching on a candidate’s technical limitations during the screening process is an easy mistake to make. The trick to preventing stepped-on feelings in technical candidates during the screening process is a technical recruiters’ savvy and diplomacy when delivering the questions. This book enumerates strategies and tactics to make conversations with the best technical candidates, as well as the not-so-best go smoothly. Technical Staffing Agencies can take cues from these concepts to make interviewing technical candidates a breeze.

The book also tackles the issue of efficiency. The IT Staffing Firm that can land more technical candidates in less time without sacraficing quality in the skills of the candidates submitted will make better use of company time than less-efficient IT Staffing Agencies. Technical Staffing Firms know that time is money, so time well spent means happy technical recruiters and technical hiring managers. If technical headhunting is a game of minutes, Ogbanufe shows how to best track those minutes to add up to hours that count. Technical recruiting companies will find tips in this book on understanding the job description of the SQL Server Developer more fully in order to best understand the type of technical candidate best suited to filling the role, and a guide to the technical terms most common in job descriptions for these roles. Finally, the book delves into the art  and science of building relationships with these technical candidates, and keeping the communication lines open. That’s something that anyone in technical recruitment will find valuable!

Review: “Hiring The Best Knowledge Workers, Techies & Nerds: The Secrets & Science Of Hiring Technical People”

Technical recruiters are in the business of  hiring for technical jobs. Their area of expertise is finding the best technical candidate for an open job position, and building relationships with the best techies on the market leads to success in the technical staffing industry. IT firms specialize in the “secrets & science” of hiring top technical candidates, and Weinberg’s book focuses on just that topic. According to him, technical people are great problem solvers. Determining which technical candidates are the best is an art that involves skills in job-description writing, candidate-sourcing, mixed-media ad creation, and more.

He covers how to review resumes efficiently and in a profitable way. He also delves into interview techniques that allow technical recruiters to interview a diverse technical candidate pool in a courteous and respectful way. The type of questions technical staffing firm reps ask technical candidates is a big factor in achieving the interview balance; another key part of the equation is how the questions are phrased. Phone screening the technical candidate is a key skill the IT staffing recruiter needs to get a handle on.  So is the reference check. He closes with tips on extending an offer. This book has everything recruiters at IT staffing agencies need to close the deal for their best technical candidates.