Tag Archives: information technology

3 Mistakes IT Managers Commonly Make—and How to Deal With Them

Information technology, like all industries isn’t immune to poor management techniques.  All IT recruiters and IT consultants have had direct or indirect experience with terrible IT managers at IT jobs.  Below are the some of the most common mistakes that technical recruiters and IT contractors have to deal with—and how to deal with them.

  1. Speaking negatively: Managers who speak negatively about people who are currently on their staff, people who have quit or been fired, or the company itself, are certainly hurting their team’s morale.  Feeling like your manager has no hope for your department’s success, or the success of you and all your teammates, quickly kills your own motivation.  While you can’t change their outlook, you can do your best not to share in it or to be influenced by it.  Try to respond in a neutral way to any negative talk like this and quickly change the subject.  Avoid repeating it and avoid thinking about it.
  2. Doing their staff’s work for them: Sometimes managers will want to save time and complete a task that their staff either can’t do correctly or at all.  This is a serious mistake.  It doesn’t give the staff the chance to learn how to do the task and ensures the same exact scenario, except probably with increased frustration, in the future.  If your manager is doing something for you, do your best to stop them and ask for feedback on how you can do it yourself.  Take the opportunity to learn whatever the task is and take notes so you can do it in the future.
  3. Letting staff break the little rules: It may simply feel like too much energy for a manager to have to exert to make sure all rules are followed.  But here’s the problem:  Breaking the little rules, especially when it comes to coding, programming, and other IT tasks, can lead to bigger issues down the line.  While you can’t control what your manager does and doesn’t enforce, you can hold rigorous standards for yourself and encourage them (gently!) in your teammates.  Everyone will thank you later down the line.

France’s Email Decision: Will it Affect IT Workers Worldwide?

By now, most IT professionals around the world probably know about the big move by the information technology field’s labor unions in France.  The move to give IT contractors, IT recruiters, and IT managers the right to disconnect from their IT jobs and email after 6 pm has made epic waves around the internet.  In fact, the story has made a particularly large impact just because it’s been misinterpreted so often.  Some are taking the story as France banning email after 6 pm for all workers in all industries.

While the story has largely been impactful because of its misinterpretation, it may be impactful in the future for actually affecting more than just IT consultants and IT headhunters.  This movement was actually a pretty niche one, only affecting a small part of France’s population.  However, it has already begun a surge of blog posts and op-eds about how the policy should be affected world-wide in a far more concrete way.  This story may be only the beginning of a bigger revolution around the world.

 

Three Ways to Make Mondays Better at Your IT Job

Mondays always wind up being the slowest day of the week, whatever side of the information technology field you’re on.  IT recruiters, IT contractors, and IT managers all feel the drag on Monday.  But there are a few things IT professionals can do that will make their Mondays go as quickly as their Thursdays.

  1. Start by looking ahead on Thursday and Friday.  If Monday is often slow, it’s because it tends to be more of a catch-up day.  The catch-up, of course, comes from the preceding days: Thursday and Friday.  IT consultants and technical recruiters don’t need to sprint on Thursday and Friday, but keeping the pace consistent with the rest of the week will even things out come Monday.
  2. Plan ahead.  Whether it’s during your commute or on Friday at 4:50, make sure you have a list somewhere of the things you need to accomplish on Monday.  Don’t leave the prioritizing and triaging until Monday morning.  It only slows down the rest of the day, and sometimes the week!
  3. Read your email on Monday morning, but only selectively.  Don’t go through every email you’ve acquired since you left on Friday.  Go through anything that is urgent and relates to your priorities for the day.  Leave everything else that’s less urgent for later.  Responding to everything first thing Monday morning will only start a terrible cycle of email all day long.  Hold off and get some stuff done before engaging in the cycle.

 

3 Ways to Communicate Better With Your IT Managers

Like most managers, IT managers are pressed for time and sometimes (if not often) stressed or overwhelmed with deadlines and projects.  For IT contractors, communicating with a manager at their IT jobs can be intimidating, especially when they don’t know them well.  Below are a few tips for IT consultants to improve their communication with managers.

  1. Say what you have to say with confidence.  This is for a few reasons, especially for time management.  Managers don’t often have time to hear you puzzle out the best response.  Probably the most important reason, though, is because managers want to believe they can trust you to deliver answer and information that they can rely on.  IT recruiters presented you as the best candidate and your manager went through stacks of resumes to find yours.  This alone should be enough reason to feel a bit more confident when you are relaying information to a manager.
  2. Keep your communication organized and to the point.  Relaying info in the form that makes it easiest to digest and use will make you a superstar to your manager.  They don’t want to waste time wading through a long email or presentation.
  3. Use the most concise and professional language possible.  In information technology especially, it’s important to demonstrate that you know what you’re doing and what you’re talking about.  Using the best and most up-to-date terms will give off a great impression when speaking with managers.

 

How to Say No to IT Managers Gracefully

IT professionals are often pressed for time, as the information technology industry tends to run on a 24-7 schedule.  When IT managers hand their IT contractors one project too many, what is the best way to gracefully say “no thank you!”  Read on to see some tips for the best ways IT consultants can say no without damaging their reputations with their bosses or IT recruiters.

  1. Don’t say the word “no.”  The key is to phrase your response so it feels like something that agrees with, or at least doesn’t overtly clash with, what the manager has asked for.
  2. Try giving some context.  If you can’t do a project because you’re already overloaded, try giving that context.  Note that this shouldn’t be done in a whiny way.  Simply ask for some help prioritizing, then list all the projects you have on your plate.  This may be enough to make a manager rethink the assignment.
  3. Offer a different solution and attempt to make it seem perfectly in line with your boss’s original idea.  People tend to want to say yes to things when you make them feel like it’s their own idea.  Your best case scenario is to make your boss feel like they actually wanted to assign the project to somebody else in the first place.  If you can’t do that, ask humbly, “Can I make a suggestion?”  and find another way the project can get done (without you staying in the office til midnight).

 

The Best Way to Polish an IT Resume

As in any field, there’s plenty of bad advice on how to create resumes passed around the information technology field.  One of the worst pieces of advice that IT professionals might have encountered is to just list out their skills.  While IT managers and IT recruiters want to be able to clearly see what IT contractors can do, simply listing things, particularly soft skills, isn’t the best strategy.  The IT consultants that get the jobs demonstrate their skills on their resumes, too.

How does one do this?  Look to the bullet points listed under each job in your resume.  If you are listing accomplishments and contributions you made to each company, you’ll find it easy to demonstrate your strengths.  If you’re a great communicator, mention how you used your communication skills to lead a key project.  If you’re a detail-oriented, mention how you used that strength to deftly de-bug a program.  Comb your resume for opportunities to show your worth, and before you know it, you’ll have IT staffing firms and managers knocking down your door.

 

Why IT Managers Can’t Be Friends with Reports

As in every industry, some IT professionals occasionally come across a moment when they have to make a decision: Can they be friends with their boss?  Or if they’re an IT manager, can they be friends with the IT consultants who report to them?  Whether you’re in information technology or zoology, the answer to this question is pretty much always a resounding no—both for the sake of IT contractors and managers.  Here are a few reasons why managers and their reports need to hold off on friendship—for the sake of their IT jobs and their own mental health.

  1. An imbalance of power.  The nature of friendship is usually that both parties are equal in most aspects.  Things get awkward and uncomfortable quickly when it feels like one person is better in a really significant way.  It’s pretty much guaranteed this will happen between managers and the people whose resumes they heavily influence and judge.  For your own sanity, then, it’s better to hold off on this kind of friendship.
  2. Friendship involves some vulnerability—something you don’t want to have with your manager or reports.  Friends help each other out in tough times or advise each other.  They’re also honest and open about most things.  As a manager or report, you don’t want any of this in the workplace. Managers should be resources, but pretty much only on work-related matters.  Reports should support their managers, but only on work-related matters.  Things will get confusing and awkward quickly when you add personal problems and vulnerability to the mix.
  3. Managers sometimes need to—and do—fire their reports.  Firing somebody or being fired are traumatic enough events.  Adding friendship to the equation makes an already unpleasant circumstance unbearable.  Don’t take that risk, even if things look very rosy right now.

3 Ways to Start Your IT Work Day Off Right

IT professionals from all over the Information Technology industry can agree that there are universally wonderful and terrible ways to start the day at their IT jobs.   Here are a 3 ways everyone from IT recruiters, to IT consultants, to IT managers can start their days.

  1. Get up right away.  Sleeping beyond one snooze button isn’t doing your body any favors and actually makes it harder to wake up.
  1. Check and update your calendar and to do list.  Making a plan for the day is helpful whether you’re one of the IT headhunters crowd or a programmer.  Being organized and having goals for the day will help you accomplish more by COB.
  2. Glance at email- but don’t deal with it yet.  If there are any glaring emergency emails, by all means, respond to them.  Leave the rest for later and get going on your actual work.  The more you respond to emails, the more you’ll invite.  And the more emails you invite, the more distractions you’re creating for yourself.  Start the day off with fewer emails and see how much more you can get done.

5 Ways to Blow an IT Job Interview

IT recruiters and IT managers are admittedly hard up for IT professionals these days.  The information technology field is absolutely a job seeker’s market right now.  However, that doesn’t mean that IT consultants can’t perform well in interviews.  If IT contractors make any of the major mistakes below, they’re actively taking themselves out of the running for IT jobs. 

  1. Winging it: Not coming to a job interview prepared is a huge red flag.  It wastes everyone’s time and indicates a lot about the kind of employee you might be.  Don’t project that kind of future.
  2. Being too demanding:  Nobody would recommend being a doormat.  However, if you spend most of your interview or conversations with IT recruiters talking about what you want, you need to take a step back.  While it is a job seeker’s market, no employer wants a one-sided deal.   Making sure you’re coming across as worth something before you ask for it is key.
  3. Not putting your phone away:  It’s simple.  If you’re in an interview or meeting with a recruiter, your phone should be out of sight and on silent.  Not doing this signals less than 100% interest in a job.
  4. Talking too much or too little:  This is actually a pretty hard mistake to make either way.  It will be obvious quickly if you’re not giving enough information or too much.  If you get either signal, pay attention to it and correct yourself immediately.  Both are tough to overcome if you spend the whole interview doing them.
  5. Don’t bring anybody else into the decision.  Your parents, your spouse, your significant others, etc may hold weight in your decision.  However, you need to keep this information to yourself.  It’s extra information for recruiters or potential employers and it will absolutely hurt you if you complicate the process with more people than just you, your potential employer, and your recruiter.

 

Complaining about IT Coworkers Effectively

IT professionals in every corner of the Information technology industry—from IT consultants to IT headhunters—have to deal with the occasional issue with a coworker.  The best case scenario is to have to avoid bringing the issue to IT managers.  However, sometimes IT contractors and IT recruiters have no choice.  For those unfortunate times, here are some strategies to complain about a coworker with minimal damage to your reputation or theirs.

  1. Assess the situation first:  Is this an issue that impedes your ability to get work done, or is it merely irritating.  If it’s irritating, you may want to shelve this issue for now and try to avoid it.  If it impedes your work, try to pinpoint for yourself exactly how it does so and what the effect is for the company and/or your team.
  2. Write down your grievance and try to brainstorm a few ways that your manager could resolve it.
  3. Bring your grievance to your boss at a time when they’re neither busy, nor upset about something else.
  4. Present your issue and brainstormed options to your manager in a calm way.  Try to mention a few things the person does well beforehand to cushion the blow.  Keep the conversation away from the realm of personal vendetta.  This is a work issue and your boss will likely want to help you solve any work issues.  Personal issues are a waste of their time.