Tag Archives: IT contractors

IT Recruiters: The Best Way to Avoid Multiple Job Interviews

The information technology field has yielded yet another new reason for IT contractors to work with IT staffing firms: avoiding an endless parade of job interviews.  IT recruiting firms build relationships with their clients that yield a more streamlined job interview and hiring process.  With the new trend of IT consultants going on 6, 7, or even 10 interviews before hearing feedback, IT staffing agencies and their streamlined processes have become an even more attractive option.

Why are so many companies requiring a myriad of interviews?  Despite growth from the recession, the economy is still not back to full health.  This makes hiring managers nervous about investing in new employees who may not even be a good fit.  IT recruiting companies provide extra knowledge and experience in the hiring process that speeds up the interview process. Clients, especially repeat clients of IT staffing companies can trust that IT professionals they recommend for jobs have already been vetted extensively.  Using good technical recruiters saves a company some energy in the process of filling IT jobs, making only one or two interviews necessary instead of 6 or 7.  Of course, this process also benefits IT job candidates.  One or two interviews is just as preferable for a hiring manger as they are for an IT consultant, which means both should very seriously consider working with IT headhunters.

IT Recruiters Rocking Out– and Networking in Austin

An IT recruiter and a music lover walk into a bar.  No, it’s not a joke, it’s happening in Austin this year– over and over again– at the highly-anticipated music festival South by Southwest.  While South by Southwest (often lovingly referred to by insiders as SXSW) the festival has become an increasingly popular haven for IT recruiting firms and IT consultants.  New technology is being marketed in the midst of what used to be a particularly grassroots musical festival, making it suddenly surprisingly relevant to the IT recruiting agencies across the nation, from IT recruiters CA to IT recruiters Boston.  IT staffing firms will find not only the place where indie artists like Bon Iver got their starts, but their next IT jobs or IT contractors to fill them.

SXSW 2013 will likely feature plenty of 3-D printing-oriented businesses for IT staffing agencies to peruse, as well as some involving space travel and wearable electronics.    IT recruiting companies may want to leave their nice briefcases at home, though.  No matter how much the information technology field is invading it, SXSW is still a gritty music festival at heart.

Not Optional: Bring Your Own Questions to IT interviews

IT staffing firms often prepare IT consultants to answer tough, detailed questions that you’d only encounter in the information technology field. Technical recruiters Boston should be equally focused on making sure that IT contractors interviewing for IT jobs are able to ask their own questions.  IT recruiting companies need their job candidates to answer questions for a few different reasons.  The first is to give the impression that IT professionals have their own, independent thought process. Critical thinking is an imperative skill that can be put on resumes, but IT staffing companies are much better served when a job candidate verbally demonstrates critical thinking abilities.  Secondly, IT recruiting agencies need job candidates to ask questions so they can indicate that a true engagement and interest in the job.  Not asking questions could easily translate to a disinterest in a job or company, leaving job candidates and their IT recruiting firms left out of the running to fill a position.

What are the best kinds of questions for IT staffing agencies to prepare their job candidates to ask?  Questions could be about the culture of a company, what a typical day looks like for the person who will fill the position in question, or why the position has become available.  IT headhunters can also encourage their candidates to inquire about management styles, how much or little team-work is required, and what kind of person they have worked best with previously. One major area to stay away from, however, is compensation.  IT recruiters add an extra layer of complication to the mix and IT job candidates generally makes an interviewer uncomfortable when they bring up compensation before an offer is made.

Education is Working Now to Change the IT Market of the Future

IT recruiting firms are well-aware of the disparity between the IT jobs available in the US and the number of people who actually study and graduate with the right training to be IT professionals. Everyone knows Math and Science need some heavy promotion among students, but few know it on the kind of practical level that IT staffing firms do.  Every time technical recruiters attempt to fill IT jobs and see how few US citizens’ resumes meet the requirements, they see firsthand the way US schools have not promoted Math and Science.  Enter Code.org.

Code.org may very well change the pool of IT contractors that IT recruiting companies choose from.  With its exciting, celebrity-laden video and solid, well-researched missing, code.org may bring computer coding to more of today’s students, propelling them into the hands of IT staffing firms of the future.  Of course, Code.org is not the only proponent of increasing US proficiency in skills viable for the information technology field.  Obama is an outspoken champion of Math and Science in schools and brings many other voices with him in his rallying cry.  Though it might take some time for all this advocacy to actually bear any fruit, IT staffing agencies will almost certainly see more US IT consultants and they can work with in the future.

Is Cutting Telecommuting in the IT Field A Blow to Women and Families?

Yahoo’s recent anti-telecommuting decision has thrown the practice into the spotlight, but IT recruiters have been debating its merits for years.  IT staffing firms are often given IT jobs to fill that provide options for IT consultants to telecommute.  The benefits are numerous for IT staffing companies, IT contractors, and companies.  Costs are saved for companies when they don’t have to supply water, heat/electricity, food, and other expenses to their employees.  Additionally, if many studies are to be believed, the productivity of workers is higher when they are allowed to telecommute.  IT recruiting firms also encounter arguments counter to telecommuting including that productivity does not go up, collaboration and creativity or work product suffer, and IT managers feel a general lack of control.

While most of the perceived benefits and detractors of telecommuting are obvious (particularly in the information technology field), a more subtle element in the debate is how feminist or family friendly the practice is. Especially with Mayer’s recent policy change at Yahoo, how telecommuting affects men and women with child-rearing needs becomes a prominent part of the debate.  IT recruiting agencies have often marketed IT jobs with flexible hours and telecommuting policies to women and men with family obligations.  IT professionals with families often appreciate the chance to telecommute so they are able to spend more time at home.  When telecommuting is cut, it can be seen as a blow to families and women (who tend to elect to work in flexible arrangements for child-rearing purposes more often than men).  When Mayer, a prominent woman in a male-dominated field who just recently had a child of her own cuts telecommuting, the move becomes a very complex discussion of how technical recruiters and their clients are or are not doing enough for women and families.

Resumes: To Write, or to Have Written. That is the Question.

In an increasingly saturated information technology market, IT recruiters respond best to resumes that are crafted with extra care and attention to detail.  Technical recruiters are not only looking for resumes that list previous job experience.  Clean, efficiently-worded descriptions and well-utilized key words are really what make IT staffing firms pay attention to IT consultants resumes.  At the same time, mid to late career IT professionals can extend their resumes beyond a single page.    IT staffing firms would certainly prefer to find an IT contractor with extensive knowledge and experience—which sometimes takes a slightly longer amount of page space to articulate.

For those seeking IT jobs who have the resources to put more into their search, resume writing services can be a good investment.  One can certainly catch IT staffing companies eyes with a resume that a professional has carefully constructed around key words, perfect grammar and spelling, and thoughtfully edited and arranged job duty descriptions.  IT recruiting agencies have certainly been impressed by Careers Plus Resume, Inc.  Backed with a guarantee and years of establishing themselves as insiders in the HR business, this company offers a personalized approach that will result in the kind of resume IT recruiting companies chase.  So is it imperative for gaining an IT headhunters interest to use a professional resume writing service?  No, but it can definitely help.

Americans Aren’t Convenient to Overlook in IT Field

Recently the news has noted quite a bit of American opposition to the H-1B reforms, especially in the information technology industry.  IT contractors have been alleging that technical recruiters already have a track record of favoring alien workers over American workers to fill IT jobs (even when they should not be).   IT staffing firms, they say, will only overlook American IT consultants more as H-1B reforms take place.

While the issue is obviously very complicated, IT recruiting firms obviously do not intend to overlook all American candidates, and very often are presented with a dearth of them.  IT headhunters follow the laws regarding H-1Bs and puts as much energy as possible into finding American workers because it’s in America’s interest and in IT recruiting agencies’ best interest to do so in terms of business.  IT staffing agencies can save a significant amount of time and money if they do not focus their efforts on IT contractors who require sponsorship. The hours, energy, and fees  IT recruiting companies might have to spend with immigration attorneys, clients, and job candidates are certainly not desirable when IT staffing Boston can find American workers who don’t require any of that. IT jobs, like the rest of the field, tend open and fill quickly, so time is of the essence to IT staffing companies.  All across the country, IT recruiters Boston to IT recruiters CA know that an American candidate is much easier to place in an IT job.

One Man’s Hacker is Another Man’s IT Professional

IT recruiting firms, like the rest of the world, might increasingly find themselves forced to reconsider their stances on hacking.  IT staffing companies have already been dealing with IT contractors and consultants who may openly or covertly already hack in order to sharpen their own skills and value as potential hires.  As a Bloomberg writer mused back in July, perhaps hacking behind closed doors is perfectly harmless in many instances.  Technical recruiters may often be working with IT consultants who have hacked their own iphones, etc and subsequently learned some valuable development, support, or other skills relating to the device.

Of course, hacking can have more victims than one’s own iphone.   IT recruiting agencies are also finding themselves filling IT jobs that defend against hacking for large amounts of personal information or even information that affects national security.  IT staffing agencies may also knowingly or unknowingly be filling IT jobs that focus on hacking in self defense.  As more and more large companies like Burger King become vulnerable, techniques like placing false information become acceptable to IT staffing firms and the companies they represent.  IT recruiting companies, with the rest of the world, are witnessing the rules change at the speed of the Internet.  What was punishable by law one day may become resume staples for IT contractors and IT recruiters.

Meetups: An Old-Fashioned Use for Technology in IT Recruiting

In a world saturated with technology, one of the job seeking methods that is rapildly-growing in popularity for IT consultants and IT recruiters is actually very old-fashioned: the meetup.  Of course, the meetup is not entirely old fashioned.  Advertised and arranged over the Internet, meetups are also full of technical recruiters and IT contractors exchanging information on their smart phones.  IT staffing companies will later tend to store this information and use it on their office computers to fill future IT jobs that come across their desks.

All enabling technology aside, though, meetups for IT contractors and IT staffing agencies require extensive amounts of decidedly old-fashioned skills.  Hearty handshakes, hard copies of resumes, and personable small talk all come in handy for IT recruiting agencies and IT professionals.  Possessing these skills can actually set IT recruiting firms, which so often rely on their Internet savvy and suave email presence to fill an IT job.  The meetup really reminds an industry so enamored with technology that ultimately, a workplace might operate with machinery, but it operates on something Apple or Googlehas never constructed: people.

Cyber Warfare: Suiting Up for IT Battle

One niche area of information technology that IT recruiters are working with is Cyber Warfare.  While the name might connote violence, IT staffing agencies are actually filling IT jobs that require either defending or attacking networks.  Often attacking networks comes down to finding and exploiting software flaws, while defending them requires the opposite: finding and fixing software flaws.

IT recruiting agencies face a surprising dearth of qualified IT professionals when searching to fill these IT jobs.  IT staffing firms are coming up short in finding IT consultants to fill Cyber Warfare jobs because the skills required tend to be fairly specialized and to be especially well-honed with experience.  Since Cyber Warfare has only really begun to grow as a sector since circa the Bush Administration, the pool of experienced IT contractors that IT staffing firms can cull from is understandably still quite small.  The field is also understandably concentrated in particular areas.  IT recruiters Boston or IT recruiters CA, for example, are far less likely to come across IT consultants with Cyber Warfare skills and experience than technical recruiters in D.C. and Virginia.

Simply put, for IT professionals looking to make themselves more appealing to IT recruiting firms, it’s never been a better time to polish one’s technological combat skills.