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Tag Archives: IT recruiting agencies

How to Answer This IT Job Interview Question

Your IT recruiters and IT staffing companies probably let you know what technologies to study up on before you interview for IT jobs. If they’re good technical recruiters and IT recruiting agencies, they probably even let you know what soft skills would be important to emphasize.  However, there’s one question they’ll leave to you to answer: Why should we hire you?

How can you answer this question so the hiring manager wants to immediately contact your IT recruiting firms and IT staffing agencies to talk about hiring you?  The key is not only to answer the question comprehensively, but also uniquely.  Most candidates will be able to explain why they have the experience and skills to excel at the job.  You and your IT recruiting companies will benefit if you can explain why you are not only qualified to do the job, but that you have some unique experiences, accomplishments, or skills that will be an asset in the role.   While you don’t want to give any unprofessional answers, something a bit offbeat will be effective here.  Maybe you have work experience in a unique organization, like Outward Bound.  Perhaps you have achieved something interesting in your IT career.  Whatever the case, if you can talk about it as an illustration of your candidacy for the job, it will make you stand out all the more in your interviewer’s mind!

Unlimited Parental Leave and Other Work-Life Balance Benefits at IT Jobs

IT recruiters and IT staffing firms are starting to see a lot more discussion among employers and IT professionals about benefits like parental leave.  More and more companies are telling technical recruiters and IT staffing agencies that their IT jobs now come with benefit meant to provide work-life balance.  The newest company to jump on this bandwagon is Netflix, who is now offering unlimited parental leave.

This policy might seem too good to be true—and the reality is that it could be. As with unlimited vacation time policies, IT staffing companies and IT recruiting firms are likely to find that their candidates simply don’t use this benefit.  In companies where the workload is intense, company culture can make it hard to actually take vacation time or parental leave, let alone unlimited time.  This is for a lot of reasons: perhaps IT professionals are worried about letting down their managers or their teammates.  Perhaps they are simply surrounded by a lot of workaholics and find it hard not to act similarly.  Whatever the reasons, these work-life balances are a good first step, but IT recruiting agencies aren’t likely to see them used just yet.  It will definitely require an adjustment!

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Don’t Make This Major Mistake in IT Job Interviews

There are plenty of things that your IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies will remind you to do on IT job interviews (maybe study up on a particular technology, for instance).  There’s also plenty of things technical recruiters and IT staffing firms expect that you know to do (like wearing a suit).  However, even if you do all these things, you could still hurt your chances of winning IT jobs by doing something so subtle you don’t even recognize you’re doing it: by being a ‘What’s in it For Me’ candidate.

What does this mean?  Your IT staffing companies and IT recruiting firms might not explicitly be warning you against this, but it’s important not to make your interest in benefits and compensation more obvious than your interest in the job itself.  Of course everyone does IT jobs to make money.  However, if you seem interested in a job mainly for the money and benefits, a hiring manager will never hire you.  They want people who are interested in the work, the company, and the corporate culture as well.  An employee who is deeply engaged in their work and team will go the extra mile and contribute a lot.  An employee who is merely interested in a paycheck will do the bare minimum.  So let your IT recruiting agencies handle the conversations about compensation for you—you can focus on building your candidacy that way!

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

2 Tips for Your Thank You Notes For IT Job Interviews

After interviews for IT jobs, most IT professionals know they need to send a thank you note to their technical recruiters and IT staffing agencies to pass along to their interviewers.  Your IT recruiters and IT staffing firms may even give you some tips on what to include in these notes.  It’s imperative not to just scribble off a quick note, though!

Keep these 2 things in mind as you write your note. Firstly, make sure it doesn’t sound like a generic form letter.  Add in details that make the note stand out and really remind the interviewer of your time together.  A generic thank you note might be as useless as not giving any to your IT recruiting companies to present on your behalf.  Secondly, don’t forget to finish your thank you note with a strong reminder of why you’d be great for the job.  This is your final impression—your IT staffing companies and IT recruiting agencies probably won’t be able to say much more for you at this point.  So finish strong and leave a great final impression in your interviewer’s mind.

Facial Piercings and IT Job Interviews

More and more IT professionals are facing an odd dilemma as they interview for IT jobs: what should they do about unconventional facial piercings.  As the millennial population rises in the IT field, IT recruiters and IT staffing firms are encountering more and more candidates with nose rings, eyebrow piercings, or ear piercings beyond the usual 2 at the bottom of the lobes.  What should technical recruiters and IT staffing companies tell candidates to do about these piercings when they go to interviews?  Is it better to hide them or take them out?

Candidates should make sure they check with their IT recruiting companies and IT staffing agencies before they go on interviews if they do have unconventional piercings.  Usually IT recruiting agencies will have a good idea about whether these companies are ok with piercings on a daily basis.  For most interviews, it’s best to hide the piercings.  Even if they’re accepted on a daily basis, it’s better not to stand out for something like a piercing.  If the company doesn’t accept piercings on a daily basis, it’s important for the candidate to really think hard about this before being submitted to the job.  While it may seem like a small thing, this may be indicative of a larger culture fit issue.  The candidate and their IT recruiting firms may want to re-visit how well they might fit into the corporate culture overall.

 

 

A New Way To Prep for IT Job Interviews

If you’re preparing for interviews for IT jobs, you’ve probably practiced answering questions with a friend or family member.  This is a good start, but there’s another way to practice for your interviews so that you impress your interviewer (and your IT recruiters and IT staffing companies!).  Try switching roles for a bit and play the interviewer. 

How do you do this?  Your technical recruiters and IT staffing agencies can give you a basic idea of what questions your interviewer will ask.  It’s also worth it to think about you’d want to know if you were hiring for this position.  As you practice from the interviewer role, you’ll force yourself to think about what kind of experience, skills, and personality traits your interviewer (and your IT recruiting agencies and IT staffing firms) want you to highlight.  You can think about what the ideal candidate would sound like.  Take that perspective with you to the interview—even if you don’t get the job, you’re bound to leave a lasting impression on your interviewers (and make your IT recruiting companies eager to continue to work with you!).

 

 

 

Write Powerful IT Job Interview Thank You Notes

Most IT professionals have some practice writing thank you notes for interviews after IT jobs.  Whether you sent them along yourself or your IT recruiters and IT staffing companies send them to your interviewers, you’re likely to have written a few thank you notes.  Not everyone knows how to write a really strong, effective thank you note though.  IT recruiting firms and technical recruiters can all attest to the vast number of generic thank you notes they’ve handed back to hiring managers.  Here’s a tip on how to really make your thank you notes impressive and leave a lasting impression on your interviewers (as well as the IT staffing agencies and IT recruiting firms you’re working with).

As you write your thank you note, make reference to a couple of specific duties of the job and explain why you’re prepared to excel at them.  Your interviewer will really appreciate seeing that you not only grasp the job generally, but you also have thought about the specific responsibilities of it.  This will make them take you more seriously as they consider candidates.  Even if you don’t get the job, you’re likely to get great feedback from the interviewer that will make your IT staffing firms and IT recruiting agencies eager to submit you for more IT jobs.

 

Highlight This Quality in Your Next IT Job Interview

In interviews for IT jobs, it’s obvious that you need to demonstrate your skills and accomplishments with technical tools.  If a job requires Java, you won’t impress your interviewer or IT recruiters and IT staffing firms if you can’t speak to your comfort with Java.  But there is one skill that is very important to demonstrate in interviews and phone calls with IT staffing companies and IT recruiting agencies: empathy.

Technical recruiters and IT recruiting firms love to work with IT professionals who are well versed in a lot of technologies, but these people are hard to place if they don’t have empathy.  Why?  Because empathy is a quality that make somebody easy to work with.  In a field like IT, being easy to work with is of the utmost importance.  IT staffing agencies need people who are great at customer service, working with teams, and taking feedback on their coding, troubleshooting, etc.  So in your next conversation with IT recruiting companies or in IT job interviews, try to demonstrate that you’ve got empathy—for your teammates, clients, customers, and superiors.  (But make sure you demonstrate it—not just say you are empathetic!  This won’t play well.) It may just win you the job!

 

 

Is Your Tech Resume Turning Off IT Recruiters and Hiring Managers?

The kind of resumes IT recruiters, IT staffing agencies, and, most importantly, hiring managers, love are efficient.  Resumes that show thoroughly but quickly that an IT professional has the experience and skills to succeed in IT jobs are the ones that IT staffing companies and technical recruiters all love to show hiring managers. IT recruiting firms and IT staffing firms don’t always want IT professionals to stick to the 1 page rule for resumes – even though it’s the norm in most other industries.  However, it is important that IT professionals really cut down their resume to only relevant and recent job experience and skills.

What does this mean?  The best resumes will not stretch beyond a page (or more!) to include experience from more than 15 years ago or experience that just isn’t really relevant to IT jobs.  When you stretch your resume out to, say, 7 pages to include experience from your earliest jobs, you may actually be turning off IT recruiting agencies.  Instead of being thorough by including extra experience, you’re actually making it harder for IT staffing firms to decide if you’re a good fit for a job.  They may well pass over your resume for one that is faster and easier to read.  The same is true if you’ve included jobs, hobbies, or other information on your resume that isn’t immediately and obviously relevant to the IT jobs you want to be considered for.  Especially if your resume exceeds a page, including this extra information may irritate IT recruiting companies rather than strengthen your candidacy.

 

 

Not Looking for an IT Job? Don’t Hang Up On That IT Recruiter Yet!

If you’re not actively searching for IT jobs, it may feel like a waste of time to take phone calls from IT recruiters and IT staffing companies. Don’t rush to get off the phone with technical recruiters and IT recruiting agencies, though.  Even if you’re really satisfied with your current IT job, it’s worth making good relationships with IT recruiting firms you trust.

What should you do if you get a call from IT recruiting companies about jobs you’re not interested in?  Maintain a polite, professional air.  However, be honest with the IT staffing agencies you’re talking to.  If they’re good, they’ll want to know what kind of job you do want in the future.  Finish the call by letting them know you’re not interested for now, but you’ll keep their information.  Then, when you need to search for IT jobs, you’ll be ready and have IT recruiting firms on hand that you trust and already know what you want.