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Tag Archives: IT recruiting firms

Don’t Forget to Add Awards to your IT Resumes!

If you’ve ever worked with IT recruiters and IT staffing companies in your search for IT jobs, you have some idea of how to format your resume or the basics of what to include.  Your technical recruiters don’t know everything about your career, though.  This means if you’ve won any awards or honors, particularly ones in your industry, your IT recruiting firms may not have told you to include them on your resume.

It may seem obvious, but there are a lot of reasons to include awards on your resume, even if they’re not entirely relevant to your industry.  Even in IT (an industry that has far more jobs than candidates) you still want to make sure you make your candidacy as appealing as possible to hiring managers and IT staffing agencies.  Awards that show off a skill that could be relevant to your job, or be translated into a skill relevant to your job, can provide a competitive edge.  For instance, an academic award is appealing to IT staffing firms, even if it’s not directly in IT.  It shows your ability to work hard as a student—and perhaps you can apply this skill in learning new technologies.  The same could be true of an athletic award, or maybe one in a different field.  If you could articulate how the award or honor showcases a talent that’s relevant to an IT job, it’s worth adding to your resume!

How to Write Follow Up Emails After IT Job Interviews

Landing IT jobs definitely gets easier when you enlist some strong IT recruiters and IT staffing firms to help you in your job search.   There are some things you need to do on your own, though, to strengthen your candidacy.  One of the most important things that your technical recruiters can’t do for you is to write a thank you note after job interviews.  How do you do this well?

Firstly, take notes in the interview.  Are there topics of conversation you will want to re-hash in the thank you note?  Maybe something the hiring manager said was vital to the job?  Write it down for yourself during the interview so you don’t forget it later.

Secondly, tell your IT staffing companies you’d like to write thank you notes to your interviewers.  IT recruiting agencies are usually thrilled to pass along thank you notes for candidates, so this won’t be a problem.  You may even be beating them to the punch—sometimes IT recruiting firms will ask you to write a thank you note themselves.  For a timetable, you should try to aim for about 24-48 hours.  A quick response will reflect well on you and the IT staffing agencies you’re working with.

Lastly, do more than just thank the interviewer for their time.  Continue a piece of the conversation you may have been having with the interviewer, mention a resource, or offer some thoughts on what you’d do if you were offered the job.  The point is to show a little initiative and interest in the position itself.  A generic thank you note won’t mean much.  However, one written with real thought about the position, company’s needs, or even just the interview itself, will make a big impact.

 

 

Keep This in Mind for Your IT Resume

Technical Recruiters and IT staffing firms all offer a lot of advice on fixing up resumes.  Your IT recruiters may give you advice on formatting, content, or even proofread your resume.  Some of this advice is objective, but sometimes it’s simply tied to the preferences of their particular IT recruiting firms.  Here’s one rule of thumb that aIl IT Staffing Companies would agree on, though: treat the space on your resume as very valuable– particularly on the top of the page.

What does this mean?  For both the IT staffing agencies and hiring managers who look at your resume, time is precious.  This means that these IT recruiting companies might only take a few minutes to check out your resume.  Knowing this, you should edit your resume down to its most concise form.  This ensures that everything gets seen and given ample consideration.  You should also put the most important parts of your resume first, because they will likely be given the most consideration.  Put things like your summary and technical proficiencies first.  These give hiring managers and IT recruiting firms a quick answer to the most important question for them: can you probably do this job?

 

Build Your Best IT Resume

There’s no shortage of advice on how to build resumes that attract IT recruiting firms and win IT jobs.  For most IT professionals, this is probably overwhelming—some advice conflicts.  Even more confusing, some of this conflicting advice comes from competing IT recruiting companies and IT recruiters.  So how do you sort through the tips from all the technical recruiters and IT staffing agencies and actually build a great resume?

Firstly, try not to get overwhelmed.  Even if advice conflicts, it’s probably not going to make a staggering difference if you take some IT recruiters’ advice over others.  The important stuff, the actual content of your resume, will probably overshadow any formatting choices you make.

Secondly, make sure to check over your resume and ask IT staffing companies to do the same for you.  The more times people check for errors, the better.  Getting the best formatting for your resume is nice, but it’s more important to have something that’s as close to error-free as possible.

Lastly, try focusing on results.  When you list bullets for a job, list your achievements.  When you describe your career, think about achievements you can provide.  No matter what format tricks you use, these results are what will shine through to hiring managers.

Improving Communication Skills for IT Jobs

As expected, IT staffing firms and IT recruiters prize technical skills in a candidate when staffing for IT jobs. It’s important to know that communication skills are nearly equally important for some IT recruiting companies and the jobs they’re filling.  Here are some tips for cultivating communication skills that will impress IT recruiting firms, technical recruiters, and hiring managers.

  1. Keep in mind the perspective of the other person.  When you show that you care about others’ wants and needs, they’re more likely to connect with you.  This makes for better communication and better relationships (which can be key at work).
  2. Keep the playing field even.  Whether you have more degrees, success, a better, title, etc, is irrelevant.  Coworkers, bosses, and IT staffing agencies will respect you more if you show respect to them and treat them as an equal.
  3. Listen more than you speak.  It might take practice, but listening pays off.  People appreciate this deeply and they will appreciate you more if you can be a good listener for them.

 

Unexpected Questions in IT Job Interviews

IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies can often provide you with an idea of questions you should be prepared to answer in interviews for IT jobs.  You may not even need IT recruiting firms to help you anticipate these questions—they could already be on your radar.  Sometimes, though, hiring managers will ask questions you or your IT staffing companies and technical recruiters didn’t anticipate.  Here are some ways you can respond to these questions gracefully and with the maximum positive impact to your candidacy.

Firstly, take a breath.  Don’t rush in to answer—it’s ok to pause and think for a second about your response.  Interviewers won’t mind that, particularly if you can give a great answer to their question.

Secondly, try to think about what the interviewer is looking for. Even if the question seems straightforward, it’s worth just considering that the interviewer is seeking a little more information.  For instance, one company asks how its candidates picture their retirement.  What they’re really seeking is the candidate’s interests and whether they align with the job in question. Good candidates will pick up on this kind of thing.

Lastly, don’t hesitate to ask a question in response.  If you give your answer but are unsure you’ve satisfied the interviewer, it’s ok to ask ‘was that what you wanted to know?’  Perhaps you think a question is meant to reveal certain qualities about you as a candidate.  Go ahead and ask.  You may even drive the conversation in a direction the interviewer appreciates, but didn’t even expect.  If you show that you’re thinking about the interviewer and hiring company’s perspective, then you’ll make a good impression on them and the IT recruiting companies they’re working with.

 

Tips for IT Office Parties

As the holidays approach, plenty of IT staffing agencies and IT companies will be having office parties.  These may seem unnecessary, but they’re actually a great moment for you to network with technical recruiters, colleagues, and possibly increase your chances of landing IT jobs in the future.  Here are a few tips from IT staffing firms to help you ace your holiday office parties.

Firstly, be a little more casual and comfortable.  Events like this don’t call for exactly the same manners, dress code, etc as work.  In fact, if you’re too stiff, it will be detrimental.  IT recruiting agencies would recommend relaxing a bit, making a few jokes, and coming in clothes that aren’t quite business professional.

Second, don’t bring your smart phone with you and don’t cling to your date.  IT staffing companies would suggest that the best way to make the most of holiday parties for work is to be fully engaged.  Don’t spend long spans of the party checking your phone in the corner.  Don’t only speak with your date.  Work the room and be social with your coworkers and managers—it’s the reason you’re at the party.

Don’t indulge too much on the alcohol.  It seems like common sense, but it’s worth repeating.  IT recruiting firms would absolutely recommend keeping your drinking to a minimum so you’re fully in control for the whole evening.

 

 

Ace your IT Interviews by Telling Stories

IT staffing firms and IT recruiters are always looking for job candidates who excel in ways beyond just their technical skills.  Having certain skill-sets might make it seem like somebody is a great fit for particular IT jobs.  Howevever, it’s important for IT staffing companies and technical recruiters to be able to present candidates who not only have great IT skills and experience, but are able to demonstrate they’re excellent assets to their teams and managers.  How do you demonstrate to IT recruiting firms, interviewers, and hiring managers, that you’re an asset to the teams you work on and will work on in the future?  Tell some stories.

Tell IT recruiting agencies or interviewers a story about a time you stepped up and owned a process, fixed a problem, or did something else that was out of your job description.  Talk about how this affected your team and managers (positively, obviously) and what you learned from it.  These kinds of stories will demonstrate initiative, follow-through, team-work, and reliability.

Tell IT staffing companies or a hiring manager a story about a time you met somebody’s expectations—before they even expected it.  Maybe you anticipated a manager’s need, headed off a potential problem with a project, or were just prepared for something your team wasn’t.  These kinds of stories demonstrate that you are not only capable of doing your job, but doing it with little supervision.  This is a manager’s dream.

 

Why Use IT Recruiting Firms?

Ever wondered why IT recruiters are useful in your search for IT jobs?  Why not just do the search yourself instead of working with IT recruiting companies?  There are few reasons you should cultivate a relationship with technical recruiters—some of which are not obvious.

Firstly, IT recruiting companies have access to far more job openings than you do as the average job seeker.  Not all job openings are posted publicly.  Sometimes hiring managers have IT staffing companies working on a job that you may not even know exists.  Working with them means you will know about them and be able to apply.

Secondly, IT recruiting agencies have strong relationships with the companies they’re working for.  This means they can recommend you (as somebody whose expertise the hiring managers trust), make sure your resume doesn’t get lost in a stack of resumes, and even fight for you to get the salary or pay rate you want.  All these benefits are hard to put a price on, but they’re very important in a competitive job market.

The Golden Rule for Success in Your IT Jobs

So you’ve worked with some IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies to land your dream job.  How do you excel at your new gig so your boss and coworkers notice and IT staffing companies fight other IT recruiting companies to place you for your next IT jobs?  There are a lot of ways to ensure success, but there is one golden rule everyone should try to follow: Bring your boss solutions, not problems. 

How can you do this?  Make sure you think one step beyond issues that arise or you’re concerned will arise.  IT recruiting firms have an easy time placing the kind of employee who not only notices a problem, but can then anticipate for his boss what some possible solutions would be for it.   Employees who make solutions, not just identifying problems, their focus are easy to manage and work with.  These are the kind of people IT recruiting companies get requests for—employees that make life easier for their teammates and bosses.  Take a shot at this the next time you spot a problem—you’ll be surprised at how well this habit will impact your job performance and career.