Tag Archives: IT contractors

Keeping Workers Productive in IT: It’s About the Big Picture

IT recruiters and IT managers are always on the lookout for IT contractors that are self-starters, focused, and productive.  Sometimes the burden of making sure an IT consultant fits that bill might fall upon the IT manager, though.  In order to be truly effective as an IT professional, or really a professional in any field beyond information technology, somebody needs to have a good understanding of the bigger picture. 

So what does this mean exactly and how can it achieved?  To make sure workers understand the meaning of their IT jobs, they need to understand the goals of the company and how their individual job fits into those goals.  To know the significance of one’s daily tasks gives them a greater sense of urgency.  If managers are clear about the greater effect of somebody’s work upon the company’s productivity, they can really appreciate why their work is important and why they need to stay focused.

Knowing the potential impact of having an understanding or the way one’s role fits into a company’s larger goals, how can managers provide this for their reports?  There are a myriad of ways, but the most effective ones can be very small.  Adding an extra sentence into an email about a project, taking an extra minute to mention the relevance of a task when training, or even forwarding an appropriate email about company-wide goals can help.

The key in providing this info is to make it empowering, not to leave employees cowering.  The message should be ‘you and what you do are important to our company,’ rather than ‘messing up this task will have serious ramifications for you and the rest of this company.’

 

How to Network Better in IT

Even in a field largely populated with introverts, like information technology, it’s important to know how to network.  IT contractors need to be able to network with IT recruiters, IT managers, and other IT professionals.  There are ways for even the most introverted IT consultant to network effectively, though, whether with IT recruiting agencies or other IT professionals.

  1. Make your networking goal-oriented—towards the right goal.  Good networking is done to help others, not oneself.  If  you have a purpose in conversation, mainly to see how you can help somebody else, you will have a far less awkward and uncomfortable conversation.  The payoff will obviously come later when you operate with this goal, but it will come in spades.  People will remember you fondly and be eager to return the favors you’ve done in the future.
  2. Focus on the quality of your connections, not the quantity of them.  Don’t spread yourself too thin.  Have a manageable number of contacts that you can reliably offer to help once in a while.
  3. Find venues that you enjoy.  You don’t have to network at ‘networking events.’  Meeting new people who are in your field can be done anywhere.  Keep business cards on you even when you’re off duty.  Be open to small conversations in unexpected situations.  These will make for the best connections anyways—they will be the most memorable.

 

How to Get your Ideas Heard in IT Meetings

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.

 

How Older IT Consultants Should Job Search

Since the recession started back in the early 2000’s, IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies have seen an influx of older IT consultants looking for IT jobs.  Though the information technology market hasn’t suffered quite as badly during the recession, older IT contractors seeking jobs have certainly had a harder time getting hired (while the field was not at its peak).  There are a few reasons why the older IT professionals get their resumes tossed off the pile first, but with a little attention, they can get around this and get the attention of technical recruiters and IT managers alike.

Focus your search appropriately: There are some fields that will always value older workers.  These include health care, education, government, and nonprofits.

Limiting your resumes: You may look a bit older than 35, but your resume doesn’t have to betray that right away.  Hold back on the impulse to make your resume more than a page.  List the most relevant recent experience, so it’s still powerful, of course.  Just limit your experience listed to the relevant stuff-  you can talk about the other experience if needed in an interview.

Keep your skills current: Even if you aren’t young and fresh, your skills can be.  You may really impress IT recruiters and managers if you do this, because you’ll be exceeding their expectations.

 

When Your IT Manager is a Bottleneck

As in any industry, IT professionals are sometimes faced with IT managers that are bottlenecks.  Sometimes it’s because there are simply too many things going on—Information Technology is of course a very busy industry.  However, sometimes the manager just is disorganized or inefficient.  There are a few things that IT recruiters would suggest that IT consultants can do in these circumstances.

1. IT contractors can anticipate the problem and do what they can to avoid it on their end.  If it’s obvious that getting approval from a manager is difficult, making sure that they’re handed something for approval well in advance of the date it’s need it will help.  So will trying to finish everything one can without that manager’s approval before going to them.  There are a lot of ways that one can address the problem subtly without going directly to the manager about it.

2. IT professionals can try to simplify things and make them as easy as possible for their managers.  After doing IT jobs for a while, people begin to see how their managers’ work styles and preferences.  Catering to these will streamline things a bit, even if it seems like a pain on the outset.

3. As a last resort, IT consultants can be direct with their managers.  If they have the right relationship, a conversation noting the issue and offering some solutions might go a long way.  Offering solutions is a key part here because it separates the truly valuable employee from the disposable ones.  Managers, particularly busy ones, really appreciate the extra effort.

 

Brooklyn: IT’s Newest Home

IT staffing agencies and IT headhunters are used to seeing an ever-growing concentration of information technology companies (particularly startups) in California, but Brooklyn seems to be starting its own colony of startups now, too.  IT recruiting agencies and IT recruiters are finding more and more interesting opportunities for their IT contractors on the East coast as the Brooklyn Tech Triangle slowly expands.

The Brooklyn Tech Triangle, arguably the start of this Brooklyn boom, was started in March 2012 by some local non-profits seeking to build the economy of the area.  Since this very successful launch, a steady flow of tech companies have come to Brooklyn, seeking a haven for like-minded companies, IT consultants, and IT managers, as well as surprisingly low rents.  In addition to boosting the local economy, the companies have also brought with them some new career possibilities for minorities in New York City and its surrounding suburbs.  The number of minorities in IT has jumped significantly.  Brooklyn, New York City and its citizens, and IT all seem to be winning with this newfound home on the East coast.

 

How to deal with Distractions in IT

Information technology as a field is already fraught with distractions for IT professionals.  Add in the effect of technology itself, including smartphones, social media, and the ever-increasing allure of the internet, and IT contractors and IT managers are constantly under siege from distractions.  Some studies show that the average worker is distracted every 3 minutes, to be exact.  Below are some methods by which IT consultants and IT headhunters can reduce distractions at their IT jobs.

Carve out time for deep thinking:  Blocking off time to work alone and without distraction from the phone, coworkers, or the internet can be incredibly useful.  It’s easy to get through because it’s finite—you aren’t unavailable all day, just for perhaps the length of a meeting or a long meeting.

Talk to people in person or on the phone: Making inquiries on social media or via email can mean several interruptions in the form of messages.  Have one conversation in which you deal with all aspects of an issue in person or on the phone.  Then move on to get the work done.

Reduce and schedule email time: Emails are distracting.  If possible stop answering them as they come in.  This only increases your emails in the future.  Instead, schedule a few times a day and answer and write emails then and only then.  Turn off email notifications and try to make people aware of your system if it helps them.  They may even want to try it themselves!

 

Weird Questions in IT Job Interviews

Periodically all IT professionals and IT recruiters encounter odd questions in interviews for IT Jobs. Questions like “What kind of cereal would you be?” or “What is the color of money?” are common, if not the prevalent in interviews for IT consultants and IT managers.  What is their use, though?

IT contractors and IT staffing agencies should take these odd questions seriously because they demonstrate a few important things about a candidate that resumes do not.  For one thing, IT jobs, especially customer-service oriented ones like tech support, tend to require the ability to think on one’s feet and respond to unexpected and sometimes stressful situations.  Questions that are bizarre can be the opportunity to test that in a job interview.

Another imperative reason to take these questions seriously is that they can be a moment to demonstrate how you are a cultural fit for an organization.  More than anything, these questions are good moments to showcase your personality.  If you know you’re interviewing at a team-oriented company or perhaps a company that really values creativity, these questions are the moment to show you have these qualities (rather than simply tell somebody you have them).  So be prepared to really give these questions a go—they might be the ones that get you the job!

 

Yahoo and the Country: Looking for a Magic Bullet in IT

IT Professionals, along with professionals in fields other than Information Technology, have been closely watching Yahoo and its semi-celebrity CEO Marissa Mayer for a long time.  Its ups and downs took on a whole new level of scandalous when Mayer’s first big hire, Henrique de Castro was fired by the famed CEO herself.  While Yahoo’s stock prices haven’t been particularly hard, the company is certainly hurting from the recent move.

In some ways, the company seems to be a stand-in for the country at-large as it tries to turn itself around from a terrible economy.  Like Yahoo, the US has been trying to find a road back to prosperity on the wings of new technology.  Everyone from IT contractors, IT recruiting agencies, to IT managers can testify to the ramped-up demand for IT consultants and work in places they’ve never been used before.  And with this new magic bullet, the economy has fared about as well as Yahoo: some success, some steps backwards, and plenty of speculation about what is to come.  IT turns out that both a tough global market and a record-breaking recession are not easily vanquished by even the magic bullet of technology—no matter how dazzling or quickly-evolving it may be.

 

The First 30 Days of Your New IT Job

The new year is a common time for IT recruiters to be placing IT contractors in new IT jobs.  There are plenty of obvious pieces of advice that IT staffing agencies give to their IT consultants starting new jobs.  There are a few subtle things that IT professionals can do to really impress their IT managers in their first 30 days on a new job.

Learn your new company’s business:  Learning your role and your job expectations is pretty par for the course, but to really stand out you can make a concerted effort to learn about the bigger picture for your company.  What are some of the major factors of your its industry?  What are the big challenges your company faces currently?  What are its goals?  Knowing these things and how your role might relate to them will make you really stand out from the crowd quickly.

Show passion and excitement for your new role:  Without getting on your managers’ or coworkers’ nerves (or taking up too much of their time), display an enthusiasm for your upcoming workload.  Show initiative and try to find ways to make sure you will truly succeed in your role.

Build relationships:  Build relationships with coworkers and managers, but also with contacts in your industry.  Create relationships with people who can act as resources within and outside of your company—whether it be the obvious, like potential clients, or the not-so-obvious, like a vendor that might get you a nice discount on some material your company uses.