Tag Archives: IT jobs

A Checklist for Your Tech Job Search

January 5, 2018

While the tech job market always seems to be hot, January is an especially good time to be searching. Many companies begin their fiscal year in January and have the budget to hire new IT professionals. IT recruiters also find that companies often start development life cycles in January. With new applications to develop, companies will have their technical recruiters looking for new software programmers, web developers, UX/UI developers, etc to hire. It’s also worth noting that it’s very advantageous to get hired at the beginning of a development life cycle. Having experience with a project from beginning to end (or beginning to maintenance) looks excellent on a resume. IT staffing firms love to see that kind of experience on your resume. So if you’re ready to look for new IT jobs, January is the time to do it! Here’s a checklist to prep yourself.

Your Resume: Get it updated and clean out old/irrelevant experience (probably anything older than the last 10 years or anything that’s in a totally different, irrelevant field). Remember to use your bullets to show off your contributions and achievements at the companies you’ve worked with. Help hiring managers and IT recruiting agencies see the value you bring as an employee. Post your updated resume on the job boards, especially if it’s been a while since you last searched.
Your LinkedIn Profile: This is almost as important as your resume. Since the vast majority of people in tech use LinkedIn, it can sometimes be considered a red flag if you don’t have a profile there. Make sure you update your LinkedIn profile more concisely than your resume. You can use your resume to elaborate on your technical skills and experience.
Your References: Check in with them and let them know you’re job searching. Give them an idea of the kinds of roles you’re looking for. Thank them for their help with your job search. (And don’t forget to thank them again when you land your new job!)
Your Portfolio: If you’re a Graphic Designer, Web Developer, UX/UI Developer, or have a skill-set in a similar vein, you may want to get your portfolio ready. Make sure you have your latest and best samples of your work added in. Be aware of copyright issues and don’t openly break them if your company won’t allow you to share examples of your work for them. No employer wants to hire somebody who seems untrustworthy.
Call IT Recruiters: If you’ve already developed a relationship with recruiters, give them a call and send along your latest resume. If you haven’t worked with IT staffing companies before, now’s a great time to do it! Find an IT recruiting firm that has a great reputation and reach out with your job search materials. A good technical recruiter will help you find a job that you love and can succeed in.

Tech job search checklist — Get ready to land a great new IT job. Photo credit: TeroVeslainen via Pixabay.

The Key to More IT Jobs in 2018

December 21, 2017

Do you plan to look for new IT jobs in 2018? If so, you should consider adding blockchain to your arsenal of technical skills. IT staffing firms are already seeing the need for blockchain ramp up, but it’s only going to grow in the coming year. Here’s a little more info about what blockchain is and where it can help you land a new job.

What is blockchain? Blockchain is allows users to execute secure and reliably tracked transactions online. It was originally created for digital currency and Bitcoin in particular. Blockchain lets digital info be distributed, but not copied. It can help users create a ledger system that is permanent, public, invulnerable to tampering, and accurate. With these capabilities, it’s easy to see why blockchain isn’t just applicable to the finance sector. Companies and organizations across a wide variety of industries are asking IT staffing companies to help them find blockchain developers.

What kinds of jobs can blockchain get me? Since blockchain helps create reliable and public ledgers, the possibilities are nearly endless. Finance jobs are an obvious case here. Finance has accepted blockchain as the way of the future so wholeheartedly that major giants like JP Morgan and the big four accounting firms are all testing or using blockchain. Outside of Finance, blockchain is applicable in more creative fields, like the music industry. Blockchain is already being used to track payments and creative fees owed to artists. Government is another industry that’s happy to embrace blockchain. The UN, The World Bank, and Russia’s government have all used or are about to use blockchain. Nonprofits have also jumped on the bandwagon here. Most notably, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is finding uses for blockchain in its operations.

Want to see our open IT jobs? Follow us on LinkedIn. We post new jobs daily!

IT job search 2018 — Ready for a new IT job? Photo credit: markusspiske via Pixabay.

Programmers: Are You Holding Your Own Career Back With This Mistake?

December 11, 2017

JavaScript frameworks like React and Angular are trendy skills for Programmers to have right now. This is true for a few reasons. Firstly, both are the latest shiny new technologies. Secondly, one of the main reasons React is popular is because it’s great for mobile application development. One of the biggest reasons Angular is popular is because it’s simple and easy to use since it’s built with HTML. No matter how many reasons you can list for Angular or React’s popularity, though, it’s not going to help you to focus solely on them. It won’t even help you to focus on the next hot JavaScript framework. If you just try to chase the latest JavaScript framework, you’re probably doing yourself a disservice. Here’s why it’s imperative to focus on the fundamentals of JavaScript if you want to further your career or widen your tech job search.

Avoid falling victim to obsolescence

While it’s always helpful to have the newest, hottest technologies on your resume, IT recruiters would suggest that you also don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket. JavaScript frameworks will come and go, but the fundamentals of JavaScript will always be useful to you. Don’t focus on flashy new frameworks like React to the exclusion of JavaScript basics. You’ll be glad when React becomes dated and you’ve got the base knowledge to master the new, trendy famework!

Ensure your success once you land the job

You might find yourself up the creek without a paddle if you don’t have a good enough base of JavaScript fundamentals. Knowing the latest and greatest framework might get you in the door, but IT staffing companies see people land in hot water when they’re missing a solid base of JavaScript knowledge. Perhaps you need to do something more complicated than what React will help you achieve. Perhaps the company has not changed all their code over to the new framework because of security concerns, lack of funds, or lack of staff. You may still need a solid understanding of JavaScript to complete your work, even if Angular was talked up as more important in the interview. It’s also worth noting that because of the speed of technology, projects and job descriptions can change all the time. A Node project today could become a Node and JavaScript project tomorrow to meet new business requirements. The job your technical recruiters helped you land today may not be the one you need to do next week. If your employer needs more from you, it’s important not to get caught without a strong base of JavaScript!

Programming careers — Are you just chasing the next hot framework? Photo credit: Markusspiske via Pixabay.

What to Cut from Your Tech Resume: Experience

December 1, 2017

Tech professionals don’t have to heed the same 1-page resume rule that most other professionals do. IT recruiters and hiring managers are usually a lot more permissive of longer resumes. This doesn’t mean that you want to submit novellas, though. To land a new job, you need to be able to show some restraint and edit your resume down to something more concise. Here’s how to edit your experience.

Cut anything over 10-ish years. There are certainly exceptions to this rule, but in general, you won’t need anything over 10 years. Since technologies change so frequently, you’ll be discussing technologies and skills that may be completely irrelevant to the roles you’re applying to. Don’t waste space on your resume talking about obsolete technologies you’ve used. Keep that space open to talk about your more recent jobs!

Focus on the jobs you’ve done in the last 5 years. This is true for anyone, no matter how much experience you have on your resume. Technical recruiters sometimes see resumes with equal bullets dedicated to each and every job. That’s not only unnecessary; it actually may hurt the overall effectiveness of your resume. Your resume should help a hiring manager imagine you in their open role. The most recent jobs are likely the ones that have prepared you to do this kind of work. Detail out what you achieved in your last few roles, the technologies you used, and how you contributed to your team/company. Giving this kind of crucial information is what helps you land great IT jobs.

Cut any irrelevant experience. If you worked a job in a completely different industry, don’t worry about adding it into your resume. You only want it there if you need to account for your career in the last 5 years. Even then, if you need to have the job on your resume, just list it and the years or months you worked. IT recruiting agencies would suggest that you never waste bullets on irrelevant experience.

Want to see our open IT jobs? Follow us on LinkedIn. We post new jobs daily!

tech resume tips — Don’t leave any experience over 10 years on your resume. Photo credit: naturalpastels via Pixabay.

Don’t Forget This Step in Your Tech Job Search

November 20, 2017

Are you hunting for new IT jobs? If so, you probably know that one of the best ‘tools’ in your job search toolbox is your references. A good reference can help you land the job, just like a bad reference can ensure you lose it! IT recruiters have certainly seen candidates ace the interview, but lose the job because their references weren’t good. While most people know how important references are to their IT job search, they often skip a crucial step: writing thank you notes to their references. Here’s why you need to write a thank you note to your references, as well as how to do it effectively with little effort.

Why

Why should you write your references thank you notes? Thank you notes are a way to make sure your references continue to see you as gracious professionals that they want to help. Taking the time to share a quick thank you note always makes a big impact on the recipient. Remember that references are taking time out of their (probably busy) days to aid in your job search. Don’t let them imagine you’re anything but very grateful for that.

Thank you notes to references can be especially important in IT. In a field where thank you notes are becoming largely forgotten (as technical recruiters we often have to remind candidates to write them for interviewers), they can really make you stand out. They can also make you stand out in a field that is awfully small sometimes. Especially within certain sectors, or when it comes to people who use certain technologies, the circle of people can be very small. It becomes even smaller when you factor in LinkedIn. Since much of the tech community is on LinkedIn, people can easily conduct ‘backdoor references’ on you. They simply need to reach out to people you’re mutually connected to. Taking all of this into consideration, why wouldn’t you want to polish your reputation and be known as the person who thoughtfully sends thank you notes to their references?

How

The best way to handle this task is to wait until you land a new IT job. Take the time to write hand-written notes to each reference. Your notes don’t have to be long. Simply thank them for taking the time to act as a reference. Let them know that, thanks in part to their words, you landed a new job. If it’s true or appropriate, finish the note with a mention that you’d be happy to return the favor and act as a reference. If it’s not, you can end the note by letting them know you’re always happy to reciprocate if they need a favor from you. IT recruiting firms suggest hand-written notes over emails because they clearly require a little more effort than a quick email. While you could do these notes as email, recipients will appreciate the extra effort! If you don’t know your references’ home addresses, you can simply send them to their work addresses. Unless you speak to your references frequently and know them well, asking for their home addresses isn’t preferable. You may want to maintain boundaries (some people like to keep their home addresses private). You also don’t want to bother them with another email or call.

IT job search tips — Don’t leave thank you notes to your references off the checklist! Photo credit: Tero Vesalainen via Pixabay.

How IT Recruiting Firms Can Help You Relocate

October 26, 2017

Sometimes you have reasons to move across the country: your spouse or partner got a new job, you want to be closer to family, or maybe you just need a change of scenery. When it’s time to make a huge move like this, getting a new job will be a big piece of the puzzle. To figure out this part of your moving plan, you should seriously consider working with IT staffing companies. In fact, IT recruiting firms are especially helpful with this kind of task. Here are 2 reasons why:

They’re local to the area. Reaching out to IT staffing firms can be a great way to conduct your job search if you’re picking an area that you’re not familiar with. Or perhaps you’re looking at an area that you’re a little familiar with but haven’t been back to in a while. Either way, good IT recruiters will advise you on what jobs can give you a good commute or they can advise you on what part of town you should live in to optimize your options for IT jobs.
They can help you find the job that suits you. Besides knowing the area geographically, IT recruiting agencies know detailed information about the employers in it. They can tell you what technical skill-sets is in-demand in each area so you can build up or tailor your resume. They can also tell you which companies have good reputations as employers (and what companies don’t). This is the kind of information you need to be able to find a job that you can be happy and succeed in. It’s not just about landing any job that will hire you! You want a job that values your skills and experience and has a corporate culture you fit into and enjoy. It can be hard to find this on your own, but luckily you don’t have to. Good IT staffing agencies build strong relationships with local employers. They make it their business to know what technical skills and experiences these employers need, as well as what kind of work environment they offer. You can capitalize on this insight when you build a good relationship with technical recruiters wherever you relocate.

How to Add Volunteering and Community Service to Your Tech Resume

October 20, 2017

There are sections of your technical resume that are obviously necessary: your technical proficiencies, the jobs you’ve held, your education section, etc. But there are some parts that aren’t so clear. Do you include an objective? Should you include your hobbies? One section that candidates often have questions about, and one that could actually add a lot to your candidacy if done correctly, is volunteering and community service. When is it advantageous to add your volunteer and community service experience to your technical resume? When does it hurt you? How do you add it? Here are some tips from IT recruiters for deciding what you should keep—and cut—from your resume.

Keep: If you’re applying to a job with a non-profit or a company that really values community service and volunteering, then keep it all. (You can ask your technical recruiters about a company’s interest in community service if it’s not obvious.) Show off any relevant experience on your resume to build yourself up as the kind of candidate that fits well into their culture of giving back to the community.

If you’re not applying to a non-profit or company like this, you may still want to keep some of your volunteering experience. IT staffing firms sometimes come across candidates who’ve donated their technical expertise to the community or local organizations by creating web sites, blogs, or other technical projects for free. This is very relevant to your candidacy. Include it on your resume, especially if the project you worked on could be similar to the work you’d be doing in your target jobs.

Cut: As mentioned above, when you’re applying to companies that aren’t as concerned with volunteer or community service (often these are more corporate employers), then cut that section. Use the space on your resume to build up your candidacy better. Talk about your technical skills and experience. You only get to submit one resume to hiring managers and IT staffing companies. Make sure every single letter, punctuation mark, and space on that resume builds your candidacy. (If talking about your volunteering and community service interests is really important to you, you may find time to discuss it in job interviews– if it’s relevant to the discussion, of course!)

How to Add it: Create one brief, separate, section at the very bottom of your resume. Put it below your education (which will often be the last section). Format your volunteering stints as jobs. If you have information about technical experience, list it in bullets like you would under a job. Keep the language unemotional here, as you would on any other part of your resume. While you might feel passionate about your volunteer activities, keep subjective phrasing out of this section. Simply state your contributions to the organization and highlight how it might strengthen your candidacy.

If the work is especially relevant to any particular roles, you should take advantage of that. As you tailor your resume to the role (ideally candidates tailor their resume to each role their IT staffing firms submit them to), make sure your description of this volunteer experience explicitly highlights the similarities between that and the projected work for the role. Don’t be afraid to really spell it out for hiring managers. They’re skimming many, many resumes. Make yours stand out!

Want to see our open IT jobs? Follow us on LinkedIn. We post new jobs daily!

Use This Tip in Your Next Tech Job Search

October 4, 2017

IT staffing companies hear about plenty of secret weapons candidates can pull out when searching for new IT jobs. Sometimes it’s a great interview question. Sometimes it’s a suit that makes you feel confident. Here’s another to add to your arsenal: take the time to show a deep interest in everything about the role that really matters to tech employers. It’s not just about saying you love the job description. Hiring managers in tech want to see an interest in 2 particular areas: The corporate culture and the company’s work. Here’s how to effectively demonstrate interest in both.

Corporate Culture: Other industries may be catching up to tech in this respect, but corporate culture has been nearly imperative to tech employers for a long time. With the popularization of Scrum and Agile, it has been even more important. If you don’t fit into a team on a social level, then collaboration, and thus real success, will be difficult. So how do you make it apparent that you’re interested in a company’s corporate culture? Start with research. Check out their Glassdoor reviews. Talk to your technical recruiters. Check out their website. Be able to discuss their corporate culture and come up with questions of your own about it. Try asking questions like these: It seems like [fill in the blank with relevant soft skills] are necessary for being successful at this company. Is this true? Are there other soft skills they prize more? What do you love about working at this company?

The company and its products: As an IT professional, it’s obvious you’ll be asking about things like the tech stack, the projects the role is assigned to, etc. IT recruiting firms find that the candidates who land jobs go a little further, though. Hiring managers in tech love when candidates are interested in the way the technical workload supports the business. Demonstrate, for instance, that you’re thinking beyond what you’ll be coding. You’re thinking about what you’ll be coding and how it can serve the client better. To show an interest in the business-side of the company, not just its tech side, do some deeper research than just a quick Google search of the company. Look at their website, but also look at recent news articles. Ask your IT recruiters if they have any recommended materials to check out. A good test of the depth of your knowledge is if you can talk about the company in terms of what others say about them, not just what they say about themselves.

Should You Use Resume Gimmicks?

September 29, 2017

If you’re an IT professional searching for your next job, you probably want to steer clear of any resume gimmicks. We’ve all heard or read about tricks that make your resume “stand out” to IT recruiters or hiring managers. Maybe it’s sending your resume in hard copy, using a creative, flashy format, or any number of other unconventional ideas. The problem is that resume gimmicks are usually terrible ideas that will actually seriously hurt your credibility with IT staffing companies and employers. The one exception to this rule is if you’re formatting to show off artistic skills that are relevant to the job listing. Graphic designers, UX/UI developers, and similar roles can often benefit from a resume that’s formatted with aesthetic creativity. For everyone else in tech, though, here’s why you need to create the standard, conventional resume if you want to land great IT jobs.

Resume gimmicks make your resume look even more generic. Ideally, IT staffing firms suggest that you tailor your resume to every job you’re applying to. This shows a real interest in the role, the work, the company, or all three. Tech employers are notorious for asking technical recruiters to help find candidates who are passionate about the work they do, their company culture, etc. When you offer a gimmicky resume, it doesn’t help make your resume look like you’ve tailored it to the role, and thus can lead employers to think there’ s a lack of passion for the position, technologies, company culture, etc. Often people will mass produce and send out gimmicky resumes. Gimmicks are rarely tailored to the employer. Based on this pattern, you’ve already potentially taken yourself down a few notches in the employer’s eye.

Resume gimmicks make it harder for employer and IT recruiting agencies to see exactly what skills, experience, and technologies you have. Most tech positions require that you have certain technologies, skills, etc. Not having them can be a huge problem and seriously impede your ability to handle the workload. For this reason, the strongest resumes cleanly lay out what skills or technologies the candidate has and how they’ve applied in them in previous positions. Don’t distract IT recruiters or employers with something flashy and irrelevant, like an unconventional format. You also don’t want to take space away from achieving this goal. Often, these gimmicky resumes require extra space for graphics—space that you could be using to show off your technical acumen. You don’t want to hurt your chances for landing a job because an employer sees your funky resume, but isn’t sure you have hands-on experience with a certain programming language or web platform.

Resume gimmicks make it seem like you’re trying to hide something. Often the people who use gimmicky resumes do so because they’re not confident in their experience or technical skills. Rightly or wrongly, some supspicious hiring managers will nix a resume just because it’s gimmicky-looking. Particularly in tech, where positions are so imperative to a company’s success and salaries are higher, a manager can’t risk making a bad hiring decision. It’s just too expensive. Don’t risk being rejected just because your gimmicky resume set off a suspicious hiring manager’s radar! Create a simple, straight-forward resume that shows why you’re ready to contribute to an employer.

Why Some Employers Won’t Tell You Why You Didn’t Land the Job

September 18, 2017

For some candidates, the hardest part of searching for new IT jobs is not getting feedback when they don’t land the job. IT professionals are often pretty disappointed to hear nothing back after they apply for a job, after their IT recruiters submit them for a job, or after they interview. Here’s why you might not get feedback—and what you can do about it.

You may not hear back from employers because they simply don’t give anybody feedback unless they land the job. Many companies are nervous about giving feedback for 4 reasons.

Firstly, companies don’t want to say anything that can even remotely run the risk of opening them up for a lawsuit. Even if they haven’t done anything wrong, companies can still be sued over hiring decisions.

Another reason an employer might not give feedback is because they’re concerned a candidate may only see it as an opening to argue for their candidacy. IT recruiting firms see this happen relatively often. Candidates can have a hard time taking feedback without arguing for their candidacy. This is so uncomfortable that many employers simply created a blanket rule to never give any feedback.

Additionally, you may not hear why you didn’t land a tech job because the hiring manager simply doesn’t have time to give the feedback. Often in tech, managers are working against release dates and deadlines that move at the speed of technology. Searching for new employees on top of that can leave their plate very full. Some managers simply won’t have time to give a reason why they rejected candidates, particularly if they didn’t make it to the interview stage.

The last reason an employer might not give feedback is because their candidate liaison isn’t technical enough to do it. Sometimes HR will act as liaison with candidates, and they simply don’t have the technical expertise and experience to understand, let alone share with the candidate, why they didn’t land the job.

What can you do if you don’t hear feedback? Can you do anything to try to get feedback? Here are 2 tips.

Start by re-calibrating your expectations. If you go into the job search process expecting feedback from employers, you’re likely to be let down. Especially when you don’t make it to the interview stage, it’s very likely you won’t hear why you were passed on. You may be slightly more likely to get some feedback if you’re working with technical recruiters, although this also isn’t a guarantee, either. It’s better to be pleasantly surprised with feedback rather than upset when you don’t get it!

Remember that feedback may not help you much anyways. IT recruiting agencies find that the reason why candidates don’t land the job isn’t always something they could have improved upon for next time. Perhaps a candidate didn’t land the job because they needed to get more experience with this programming language or that development method. But it’s also possible you didn’t land the job because the company liked another candidate better, decided they wanted to hire somebody with a slightly different skill-set than they initially posted, etc. When you don’t land a job, it doesn’t mean that you failed. You just didn’t land that job. It’s important to keep in mind that you want to land a job that you’re totally qualified for, would reasonably enjoy, and would be able to be successful in right now. If you don’t land a job, consider it a blessing. You’ve been saved from a job that just wasn’t a good fit for you. You don’t need detailed feedback to take comfort in that information.