Tag Archives: IT contractors

Tardiness in IT– Not So Straightforward

The IT job board, Careerbuilder, conducted a recent survey on tardiness to work illuminates some interesting trends, but it doesn’t tell the whole story for the nuances of what is acceptable in terms of tardiness for jobs in information technology. This year, the survey reports, over a third of hiring managers surveyed had to fire an employee for being late.  In the IT field, IT consultants tend to be doubly responsible in their jobs for tardiness—they report to their IT managers, but they also are technically reporting to IT recruiters Boston, too. If they are fired for lateness, IT contractors are not only losing their own IT jobs, but possibly losing future business for the IT staffing companies who placed them.  This, of course, could burn that bridge for the IT consultant, making IT recruiting agencies reluctant or simply refusing to work with him/her in the future.

Though technical recruiters and IT managers both would certainly prefer uniform promptness, the sheer variety of roles for IT professionals dictates a wide range of lenience for tardiness. The severity of the consequences for lateness definitely vary from role to role.  For instance, a programmer, who works more independently and in a “backroom” capacity, wouldn’t likely cause much of an issue if he was late for his company or his IT staffing agencies.     A help desk role, on the other hand, which is very visible more “front of the house” would certainly hurt his and his IT recruiting firms reputation if he was constantly late and holding up any trouble shooting operations. The permanency of an IT professional is also a factor.  IT contractors hired on a temporary basis (and requiring payment both for their own work and the IT headhunters’ fee) are far more vulnerable to scrutiny than permanent hires.  This scrutiny obviously includes tardiness.

One factor that seems pretty universally irrelevant throughout the IT staffing industry is the reason for tardiness.  Too much of it is always a problem, whether it is because one is busy putting a raincoat on their concrete duck or due to traffic.

Leadership in IT: Just do “it”?

Information technology as a field offers a wide variety of leadership roles: Project manager, Lead programmer, etc. The obvious perks of these roles are higher salaries, more prestige, more intriguing work, and more benefits or vacation days, etc.  However, does it ever make sense to turn one of these roles down, if offered?  Or to ask IT recruiters not to submit you for one? Recently, it has become more popular for business writers and leaders to openly discuss the benefits IT consultants and their IT staffing agencies might reap from turning down that leadership role.

Forbes blogger Mike Myatt states what would be obvious in almost any job market but the achievement-oriented, financially-driven American one.  If, as Myatt blogs, “You’re chasing a position and not a higher purpose,” then you’re probably setting yourself up for an unpleasant, if not unsuccessful, leadership experience.  Technical recruiters may offer to submit you for a high-powered project management position, but if you’re only taking it for the power or money you might reconsider.

It doesn’t serve you, your IT headhunters, or your potential new IT manager if you take a job that you don’t have the experience for or interest in. At best case, you will competently perform your job until you quickly burn out.  At worst, you will fail in meeting your job expectations and sully not only your reputation, but that of the IT staffing firms that placed you (and thus burn two bridges—your IT recruiting firm and your previous employer). IT contractors will get the most out of a job that really intrigues them and they can thrive in.  IT staffing companies will get the most of placing a successful fit in IT jobs and thus reflect their outstanding recruiting abilities.  So what should be your litmus test for those roles that move you up the ladder?  Let IT recruiting agencies and IT recruiters CA or technical recruiters Boston submit your resume for a role you would be excited to take on– even if the move was lateral in terms of salary and/or power.

“Bob” – The Bane of IT staffing companies

Information technology has always had plenty of room for procrastination and general wasting of time.  Productivity becomes difficult for IT managers to monitor when IT consultants spend most of their time on the computer. IT headhunters are often concerned about how disciplined an IT consultant might be, as they face the very real siren call of the internet and its black hole of time-wasting websites.  The worst nightmare for IT recruiters is a skilled IT consultant who becomes too busy wasting time to properly perform his or her IT job.  Really, a technical recruiter’s worst nightmare is “Bob,” the Verizon employee who actually outsourced his own job to China.

IT contractor “Bob” (code-named such by Verizon in its own records), apparently found a way to subcontract his IT job, thusly fooling his IT manager and any IT recruiting agencies he may have worked with to get the job.  While “Bob” showed up for work each day, he merely surfed the net, especially reddit, and occasionally emailed his IT manager.

Obviously, Bob is an extreme, if not amusing example of a real problem that IT staffing firms face.  The process of weeding out IT contractors who will provide strong, efficient, effective work product is not a science.  Assets like great references, a strong history of increasing responsibility in a company or role on resumes, and great IT job interviews tend to be helpful in this process.  However, IT staffing agencies must really be able to hone a sixth sense about what makes IT professionals great candidates who will really perform in IT jobs. The consequences for IT recruiting companies are nothing less than their reputation.

How Europe Affects IT Recruiting Firms

As illustrated in last week’s exploration of Israel as nursery of a surprising portion of America’s information technology industry, IT recruiting firms, IT managers, and IT consultants are often impacted by global trends.  The Big Data Revolution, a driving force in creating the plethora of IT jobs that IT staffing agencies have been filling most recently, has been affected pretty heavily by global trends.  Europe in particular has affected the way American IT recruiting agencies and IT contractors experience the Big Data Revolution.

Europe’s main effect on Big Data has been in the way they protect consumer data.  Europe’s laws and policies are, depending on your source, more protective of the consumer than the laws and policies America’s.  Even if you disagree with the sentiment, the method Europe uses to protect consumers is different from US methods—different enough to warrant a dialogue between the US and EU on how to achieve the task of protecting consumers as the Big Data Revolution washes over our respective continents. How does all of this affect IT recruiters Boston and the IT consultants and IT managers they serve?  The way data is controlled, culled, and utilized is changing and will continue to change until the US and EU have more compatible, if not similar laws and policies protecting consumer privacy.  This change will be reflected directly in the tasks that IT contractors carry out daily, the descriptions for  an IT job that technical recruiters seek to fill, and possibly the amount of IT jobs IT staffing firms are given. 

Generally speaking, IT headhunters, It contractors, and IT managers should not be ignoring the information technology industry news in Europe or any other part of the globe.  It could, and likely will, affect their own jobs.

Dealing with ethical concerns in the Technology Industry

IT recruiters and IT professionals encounter many issues when it comes to finding IT jobs for themselves or filling them for IT managers.  Though it often may not be the most pressing concern, ethics and human rights are inescapable issues in information technology as a field.  Apple is clearly one of the companies that has dealt with human rights criticism most recently, but due to the nature of technology they are not the only ones.  One major factor that makes human rights infractions harder to avoid in overseas factories is the way technology constantly updates and stages large, anticipated release dates.  Every time a new release date is set, a factory tends to require a sudden spike in labor, often resulting in a plethora of workers completing a great deal of overtime hours.

While Apple and others are working towards abolishing terrible conditions in their production, what can IT consultants and IT headhunters do in considering what companies to work with? Ethisphere creates a yearly list honoring particularly ethical companies in a myriad of industries that IT recruiters CA or IT contractors could check before submitting resumes if they have particularly rigorous standards.  When considering a specific company’s ethical track record, technical recruiters and IT professionals can benefit from a quick Google search.  Human rights infringements are, of course complicated matters.  IT recruiting agencies or IT consultants may need to skim a few different articles to get a balanced perspective on exactly how ethical or unethical a company is.  It’s important to note that the search doesn’t have to just be for one’s own edification.  IT professionals in IT job interviews or IT staffing firms in meetings with IT managers or potential clients can definitely display interest in a company with a mention of its stellar ethical record.

A lesser-known neonatal unit of America’s IT Industry

Since the IT job market often insists that it’s not what you know, but who you know, it seems it would be wise for IT consultants to know who has the technical job opportunities they’re seeking.  The source of many of the IT jobs that technical recruiters are working on is actually an area more known for its political conflict than its technical acumen: Israel.  Despite all of its internal (and external) turmoil, Israelis can all seem to agree that innovation is key.  Dubbed “The Startup Nation,” Israel has birthed 12 companies alone that just Cisco has bought in the past decade or so.  With such high contributions to the information technology industry, there is no doubt that most IT staffing firms are filling jobs with Israeli origins.

 What makes Israel a natural origin of some of the jobs IT headhunters have on supply?  The Economist posits that Israel’s innovative nature comes from its land: as desert dwellers, Israelis are highly practiced at creativity.  Living with a constant water deficiency turns out to be a perfect problem-solving boot camp.  IT recruiting agencies and IT contractors might also find themselves working with Israeli-born companies because English is highly prevalent there, as are all of the standard business practices of a largely democratic nation.  IT recruiters MA and IT recruiters CA may hardly notice they are working with a foreign-born company when they encounter of the many Israeli start-ups the American market has acquired.

What can IT staffing agencies and IT consultants do with this information?  Use it for even more preparation in IT job interviews and the process of submitting prospective candidates and their resumes.  Knowing that a sizeable portion of the Information Technology market has originated in Israel, IT recruiters can further inform their research.  A candidate or IT recruiter who knows more about the company they’re working for is always more successful.

H-1B’s Might Drive Change for IT Recruiting Companies

It might be January, but today feels more like Christmas Eve to the information technology industry.  As a bipartisan group of senators are set to present a bill that will increase the H-1B cap (and increase it again, depending on the demands of the market), IT recruiting firms, IT managers and IT contractors are waiting with baited breath.  IT jobs are very often sought-out by immigrants in need of H-1B’s and IT recruiters Boston and IT recruiters CA will likely be affected with the rest of the technology market if the bill is passed.

In addition to a general strengthening of the industry, IT headhunters are likely to see a surge in foreign applicants’ resumes for technical jobs if the bill is passed.  Previously, technical recruiters and IT consultants alike tended to count on the number of H-1B’s evaporating quickly.  This bill may change the game for IT recruiters San Diego as IT jobs become more open to immigrants and as companies reap the more indirect benefits of the bill.  Even if the bill does not pass, it marks considerable progress toward a bill like it passing one day in the future.  Whatever the result, IT staffing firms are sure to remember this day for a long time.

Keep Cautious and Carry On: Social Networking Policies and IT Professionals

What’s in your Facebook news feed?  Freedom from restrictive IT staffing workplace policies.  Well, limited freedom, anyway.  IT recruiters and IT consultants have long extolled the value of having a blog or Twitter account to display one’s information technology acumen for potential IT jobs.  The well-edited, visually appealing blog or Twitter stream is nothing short of a living extension of resumes.  However, even as social networking technologies are becoming the new breeding grounds for IT contractors and IT recruiters MA, caution rules the content.  Workplaces scrambling to protect the reputations of their IT recruiters Boston and IT staffing companies have been implementing policies that can run the gamut from lenient to incredibly restrictive.  IT recruiters CA, of course, have always advised acting on the safe side and following these Policies, no matter how much they might hinder one’s expression.

A recent article in the New York Times seems to indicate some freedom for bloggers, tweeters, facebookers, and other social networking technology users.  The National Labor Relations Board has taken several noticeable stands on the issue lately, including re-instating workers who were terminated for (allegedly) incorrect social media usage and pressuring companies to write more lenient social media use codes.  Facebook, Twitter, and their ilk should all be given the same freedom of expression that we have around, say, a water cooler. Extending the water cooler metaphor, IT recruiting companies would caution IT consultants to exercise the prudence that a newbie at work might have.  A newbie at an IT job wouldn’t freely vent about supervisors or co-workers at the water cooler (even though it is technically allowed) because they are concerned about making a solid, positive first-impression.  IT headhunters would rather that IT contractors, who are particularly vulnerable as they search for IT jobs or begin new ones, keep the content of their “living resumes” as palatable as possible to hiring managers and IT staffing agencies.  Venting about workplace issues or co-workers at IT jobs is still a risky move for those seeking IT job opportunities.  Even as the National Labor Relations Board brings new freedom to social media use, technical recruiters would suggest that IT consultants and IT contractors post, tweet, etc. with care.

Programming a bridge over the Gap (Model)

Could IT Professionals use some practice communicating?  IT staffing firms Boston to IT recruiting companies CA have long been aware of “The Gap” model— A method of looking at the gap between IT consultants and the IT recruiters they serve.  Hiring managers and IT headhunters are certainly looking for IT contractors who can deeply comprehend and create what IT recruiters Boston need.  However, there tend to be a few barriers that obstruct great communication between those who hold IT jobs and the IT recruiters San Diego they serve.  Generally, the Gap Model tends to note that IT consultants tend to have a higher reliance on logic and rationality, lack empathy for less experienced information technology users, have less of a need for social interaction, have a higher propensity for perfectionism when it comes to technological issues, and to operate on ‘IT time,’ or to take longer than expected to complete IT tasks.  Of course, these qualities tend to be the opposite of what technical recruiters possess, creating a conflict in work styles and communication within IT staffing agencies themselves.

When people discuss the Gap Model, they tend to compare these communication barriers between users and IT recruiters MA to the kinds of communication conflicts caused when people are actually speaking different languages.

Whether the comparison is an exaggeration or not, the Gap Model certainly suggests an important problem—one that the information technology industry, including the IT staffing industry, IT contractors, and hiring managers would all do well to consider.  Resumes, Linkedin and Monster profiles, and IT job interviews would be great places for prospective candidates to make sure they stress their willingness to communicate with a variety of IT recruiters LA.  With some of that trademark IT professional obsession and perfectionism, the Gap Model could easily become a thing of the past.

IT Recruiting Around the Holidays

IT recruiting companies slow down around the holidays as a direct result of their clients closing down or running with a reducted staff.  However, while there are fewer IT job placements, the holidays are a great time for IT recruiters to identify prospective candidates simply because most people are off work and home.  Therefore, the very best technical recruiters will actually step it up and focus on connecting with information technology professionals that might not otherwise have the chance to speak with various IT staffing companies.

The holidays are also a great time for IT staffing salespeople.  Ultimately, their clients and IT managers are typically in more festive moods, which translates into a willingness to meet with various representatives of IT recruiting firms.

Finally, the holidays also give IT recruiters Boston and IT staffing companies MA a chance to say thank you to the IT contractors and client companies that supported them over the past year.  While some clients cannot accept gifts, all IT managers can accept a simple thank you and a hand-shake.

Therefore, for all IT recruiters San Diego in the IT staffing industry, be sure to capitalize on the holiday season, thank you clients and put in some extra work to find prospective candidates.