Tag Archives: IT recruiting companies

Get References That Will Land You IT Jobs

IT recruiters usually find that candidates have their resumes ready when they first start their job search.  What many candidates don’t have ready to give their technical recruiters is a good list of references.  Here are 2 tips for compiling a good list of references to share with your IT staffing firms.

  1. Make sure the references you provide your IT recruiting companies are all people you’ve kept in touch with and are happy to act as your references. If it’s been a while since you worked with IT staffing agencies to find IT jobs, you shouldn’t assume you can simply use all your old references.  Call them up, catch up with them briefly, and make sure they’re still willing to speak well of you to potential employers. If you don’t want to call them, an email or message on LinkedIn is also a fine option.  It’s better to find out a reference is too busy or doesn’t feel comfortable speaking for you before sending them to your IT recruiting firms.
  2. Aim to build your list out of previous managers who can talk about your technical skills. The most ideal reference would be previous managers who can speak to technical skills you have that are relevant to the kinds of positions your IT staffing companies will be submitting you to.  Coworkers can be ok references, but managers will impress hiring managers and IT recruiting agencies far more.  Managers have the best view of the value you can add to a company.

 

IT Job Search References
Don’t wonder if that reference will still talk about your programming skills. Call them and check in! Photo credit: niekverlaan via Pixabay.

 

 

Better LinkedIn Profile Picture, Better IT Job Search

LinkedIn has become so important in the hunt for IT jobs that now many IT recruiters find candidates there, rather than other sites.  While the format of a LinkedIn profile certainly differs from a resume, the picture may be the most obvious difference.  Here are some tips on how to use your Linked profile picture to make your profile more attractive to IT recruiting firms and hiring managers.

Firstly, don’t skip the picture.  Even if you don’t love taking pictures, it’s best to use a picture here.  IT staffing firms will be more likely to check out a profile with a picture than one without.

Secondly, make sure your picture is a good representation of you as a professional.  This means a couple things, starting with the fact that the picture will ideally be of just you.  Keep out family members, pets, etc.  IT staffing companies are trying to figure out if you are right for the job (not your wife, kids, friends, etc).  Don’t distract technical recruiters with other people or animals.  Or worse, don’t make it hard for them to figure out which person in the picture is you!  Making the picture a good representation of you as an IT professional also means a few things about the way you look.   IT recruiting agencies want to see you in at least somewhat professional clothing.  Even if you go to work in jeans and a T-shirt (as many IT professionals do!) it’s better to go with at least business casual clothing for your picture.  This makes it easier for IT recruiting companies to picture you in various company environments.

The last, and possibly most important, tip to make your profile picture more attractive to IT staffing agencies is to smile in a natural way.  Many, many IT jobs don’t just require you to be able to do the work.  You usually need to be able to work well within a team, with managers, or even in a customer service capacity or with end users.  When you smile in a friendly, unforced way, you can project that you’ve got good communication skills and are easy to work with.  Looking serious or grumpy in your picture will likely make IT recruiters think twice about contacting you!

LinkedInProfile Pictures IT Job Search
Using a vacation picture for your LinkedIn photo won’t help your IT job search. Photo credit: SplitShire via Pixabay.

 

1 Way to Improve Your IT Resume

Here’s one straightforward way you can improve your resume to attract more IT recruiters and hiring managers: replace every bullet that starts with ‘responsible for’ with a professional achievement.

Why aren’t ‘responsible for’ statements on your resume as attractive to IT staffing firms?  Because these statements simply tell IT recruiting companies what the description is/was for your IT jobs.  While this is somewhat useful, it doesn’t really bolster your candidacy.  The best bullet points, the ones that IT staffing agencies love, demonstrate the value that you can bring to a new employer.  These kinds of bullet points may give some information that overlaps with a job description, but they’re very different to a hiring manager or technical recruiters.

How do you write bullet points that IT staffing companies and hiring managers want to see?  Think about times you’ve improved a process, gotten a tangible or measurable result, or been commended.  If you don’t have any examples like this, think about you responsibilities in various jobs.  Try to identify who benefited from these responsibilities and how.  You can use this information to create results-oriented statements about what you did.  These are the kinds of things you want added into your resume under each job.  They help employers picture what value you might be able to add to their company, team, etc.

So try taking some time to improve all these ‘responsible for’ statements on your IT resume.  It will help you attract a lot more IT recruiting firms and hiring managers.

 

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‘Responsible for’ statements don’t help your candidacy for IT jobs. Photo credit: picjumbo via Pixabay.

 

 

Don’t Ignore These in IT Job Interviews

Sometimes in interviews for IT jobs, hiring managers bring up concerns they have about your candidacy.  It can be tempting to quickly wave off these concerns off, especially if they seem small or not legitimate to you. IT staffing firms would suggest you don’t ignore these, though.

Here’s why you can’t wave off an interviewer’s concerns:  IT recruiting companies don’t want you to respond in a cavalier way to an interviewer’s concerns because, even if it’s something that seems small, it probably has been an issue in the past for them.  It’s important to take these concerns seriously and respond to them thoughtfully.  IT staffing agencies would also caution that minimizing an interviewer’s concerns can make you look like you have poor communication skills or are generally difficult to manage.  IT professionals who succeed at their jobs are able to make the managers, end users, or clients they speak with feel heard.  They’re also willing to adjust their priorities to fit those of their team, company, client, etc. If you brush off a hiring manager’s concerns about your candidacy, you may be signaling that you’re not capable of any of these things.  That will certainly make it less likely that your interviewer tells your IT recruiters they want to move forward with you in the hiring process.

Here’s how IT recruiting agencies would suggest you respond if an interviewer expresses concerns about your candidacy.  Start by making sure you acknowledge them and show that you’re listening. Next, make sure you completely understand the concern.  If you’re unsure, ask for clarification.  Now move forward by making a case for why these concerns aren’t applicable to you, or what you’d do to compensate for them.  The more specific you can get here, the better.  Technical recruiters certainly see employers hire candidates they were initially unsure about.  These candidates are usually just excellent at advocating for themselves in interviews.

 

IT Job Interviews Concerns
Brushing off an interviewers concern can make it see like you have poor communication skills. Photo credit: Hans via Pixabay.

 

Leave This Off Your IT Resume!

When you polish up your resume to attract IT staffing firms, you may be tempted to create fancy tables or graphs to show your technical proficiencies or achievements.  Perhaps you’ve even heard that these kinds of elements might make you stand out to IT recruiting firms and hiring managers.  This is terrible advice, though.  Here’s why IT staffing agencies will respond better if leave fancy tables graphs, pie charts, etc off your IT resume.

Firstly, while it may take skills to create a pie chart or graph on your resume, this isn’t the impression that elements like this often give to IT recruiting companies and hiring managers.  If you have a strong resume with good experience and a great arsenal of technical proficiencies, you don’t need any special gimmicks to make your resume stand out to IT recruiting agencies.  If you do use these elements, you’re distracting from the strength of your candidacy and suggesting you may not understand professional norms.

Another reason IT staffing companies wouldn’t suggest you use any graphs, pie charts, etc on your resume is that these may make your resume more difficult for hiring managers or technical recruiters to read.  Since IT recruiters and interviewers are often pressed for time, they won’t usually appreciate a graph that will require them to slow down and decipher it.  Even if it’s simple, an element like this will still require more time to read than a simple, well-formatted resume.  At best, you’ll simply irritate interviewers or technical recruiters.  At worst, they may actually abandon your resume altogether in favor of one that is easier to look over (and thus establishes great candidacy faster).

So use a simple, clean format for your IT resume.  Fancy charts won’t win you IT jobs.

 

Pie Chart IT Resumes
Don’t put one any pie charts on your IT resume, no matter how beautiful you can make them. Photo credit: OpenClipartVectors via Pixabay.

 

 

Don’t Let Tough Questions Sink You in IT Job Interviews

If you’re working with IT recruiting companies to find your next IT job, your IT recruiters will likely give you some idea of questions to prepare for before interviews.  Even with plenty of practice and research, most IT professionals do encounter some questions that are just uncomfortable to answer.  For instance, IT recruiting agencies often find that candidates who have been fired don’t enjoy answering ‘Have you ever been fired before?’  Here’s how IT staffing firms would suggest you deal with it if you get asked a question that you don’t feel good about answering.

  1. Don’t be vague or try to hide anything. Your technical recruiters don’t want you to spill your guts about every gory detail of a firing, unpleasant situation, weakness, etc.  However, they also want you to make your interviewer feel like you’re untrustworthy.  Interviewers can usually tell when you want to hide something, and they don’t give your IT staffing companies good feedback when that happens.
  2. Try to stay calm. You can guide how your interviewer feels about your answers to a question by appearing comfortable yourself.  If you are visibly nervous, ashamed, or upset by something, your interviewer is all the more likely to feel like it’s a bad thing.  IT staffing agencies want you to remember that everyone has flaws.  Seeing those flaws clearly and having a plan for how to work on them is what sets you apart.

Don’t assume your IT recruiting firms will always tell you that you lost IT jobs because you’ve had to divulge less than flattering info about yourself.  Whatever the question, there’s usually a way to respond to it honestly, but without reflecting poorly on you.  (For example, if you’ve been fired before, you can state that simply– and mention what you learned from it.)  It’s even possible to turn uncomfortable questions into an opportunity to show something positive about yourself as an IT professional.

 

Tough Questions IT Job Interviews
Don’t be afraid. If you’re calm and open, you can answer tough questions at your IT job interviews. Photo credit: SEVENHEADS via Pixabay.

 

Don’t Say This Phrase in Your IT Job Interviews

When you’re interviewing for IT jobs, there are plenty of clichés you may be temped to reach for.  IT recruiters can understand this.  Saying you’re a ‘team player’ or that you’ll ‘be the first one in and the last one out’ may actually be true.  The problem is that these clichés have become pretty meaningless.  IT staffing firms can guarantee it won’t help you at all in job interviews to reach for any of these common phrases.  Here is one particularly harmful one that IT staffing companies would suggest you avoid: ‘I’m a quick learner!’

Why will your IT recruiting companies want you to avoid saying this in your interviews?  As discussed above, the phrase has been rendered pretty meaningless.  You may make yourself look a bit unprepared for the interview or even damage your candidacy by using such a meaningless phrase.  Good candidates can speak about their assets in specifics and are often prepared with concrete examples of professional achievements.

If you’re tempted to say you’re a ‘quick learner’ or something along these lines, here’s what IT staffing agencies would suggest instead.  Take a breath and reach for an anecdote about a time you actually did this.  Was there a time you needed to learn a new programming language in a short time?  Was there a time you needed to assimilate quickly to a team’s processes?  By telling these stories, you’re demonstrating your value to your interviewer.  Not only that, but you’re doing so in a way that helps them imagine you in the role you’re interviewing for.  So at your next interview, remember that your IT recruiting agencies will be more likely to give you good news about your interview if you stay away from saying you’re a quick learner!

 

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Can you tell a story about a time when you actually were a quick learner? Photo credit: Hans via Pixabay.

 

This May Be the Most Important Part of Your IT Resume to Update

Often, when IT recruiters and hiring managers are looking over resumes to fill IT jobs, they don’t have the time to really scrutinize them in detail.  If you’re an IT professional who may want to attract technical recruiters to help in your job search, this means you need to make it easy for IT staffing agencies to quickly confirm you’re a great fit for positions.  One surefire way to do this?  Create a thorough, well-formatted ‘Technical Skills’ section at the top of your resume.

IT recruiting firms often see that candidates will update their experience, but may not create–  or just as bad, update–  a section that solely lists their technical skills and certifications. If you leave skills off this section, you might just be losing IT staffing companies’ interest.  Often this is the first part of the resume that IT recruiters will scan.  It will also help to keep and maintain IT staffing agencies’and hiring managers’ interest if you format your technical skills section in a neat, easy-to-read manner.  Complicated or messy diagrams may lead IT recruiting companies to pass on your resume or to miss an important skill.  The last and most important thing to keep in mind is that you should put your technical skills section right at the top of your resume. By making this section the first thing people read, it will help IT recruiting agencies to be able to quickly decide you’re a  good fit for a position.

 

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Update your technical skills section– it could be what gets your IT recruiter’s attention! Photo credit: Stokpic via Pixabay.

 

 

Tips For Better Research Before Your IT Job Interviews

You’ve probably already heard from your IT recruiters that you need to research a company before going to interview for IT jobs there.  Besides brushing up on relevant technologies and skills for the role, any IT staffing firms will tell you that knowing about the company is the most imperative part of interview prep.  If you really want to stand out, though, you need to direct your research in a more targeted way than simply Googling the company.  Here are 2 ways that IT recruiting companies would suggest you approach your research.

1. Look for what the company is proud of.  Your first step here may be just asking your technical recruiters if they can list anything for you, as they know the client best.  Next, check the company’s website for a press or awards page.  If they don’t have anything like this, be sure to Google the company to see if they’ve been honored or achieved anything impressive.  Being able to rattle off some of the company’s recent achievements or awards will help build a nice rapport with your interviewer because it gives them a moment to feel positive—and perhaps direct some of the positivity towards you!  Additionally, knowing this information shows that you’re knowledgeable about the company.  If you think it will sound natural, try to note some of these points in speaking about why you want to work with the company.

2. Look for information about the company’s competitors or industry.  Plenty of IT staffing agencies work with candidates who research the company itself.  You can set yourself apart by extending beyond this view to a bigger picture.  Are there major issues in this company’s industry?  Interesting new technologies that competitors are using?  If you can find a way to briefly mention this kind of information in your interview, your IT recruiting firms are likely to hear some great feedback about you.

 

ResearchITJobInterviews
Go beyond getting basic facts about the companies you interview at. Photo credit: FirmBee via Pixabay.

 

Don’t Let This ‘Surprise’ Mess Up Your IT Job Interview

IT recruiters hear about a lot of things that throw IT professionals off in an interview.  No matter how diligently candidates prepare, surprises can still pop up that your IT staffing agencies couldn’t have predicted for you.  Here’s one potential surprise that you can prepare yourself for: a grumpy or disinterested interviewer. It’s easy to see why IT recruiting companies hear that a grumpy or disinterested interviewer really throws candidates off.  At best, it’s uncomfortable.  At worst, it’s a sign of a difficult boss or work environment.  If you encounter an interviewer who isn’t very friendly or enthusiastic, here’s how to deal with it gracefully.

Firstly, try not to take this personally or as a definite sign of a bad work environment.  IT staffing firms work with plenty of employers who have good reasons why they’re unenthused about an interview.  Perhaps they’re already slammed at work and don’t have time to do interviews on top of that.  Maybe they’re dealing with personal issues outside of work.  Your interviewer may just be having a terrible day.  Keep in mind that interviewers are people and they deal with the same issues as the rest of us.

Secondly, IT recruiting firms would suggest that you complete the interview cheerfully and to the best of your ability.  Try to pretend the interviewer isn’t in a bad mood.  This also means not showing concern or asking what’s wrong.  In any other circumstance, a little sympathy would go a long way.  In an interview, you don’t want to be cold, but you do need to stay on track.  Trying to cater to your interviewer’s emotions could distract you, your interviewer, or just make things awkward.

The last thing IT staffing companies would suggest is to reach out to your technical recruiters after your interview.  Let them know how it went.  Ask them if they think this is a sign of other issues for the team or if it’s more of a temporary thing that you can just disregard.  Your IT recruiting agencies want you to land in a job that you’re happy– it’s hard to be successful otherwise!

 

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Don’t let a grumpy interviewer throw you off at your IT job interviews. Photo credit: Aquilatin via Pixabay.