Tag Archives: IT staffing firms

How to Keep your Tech Job Search Discreet

May 4, 2018

With such a hot IT job market right now, it’s a great time to be looking for a new one. With so many open IT jobs, the hardest part may not be finding one. The hardest part will be be conducting your job search without tipping off your boss. Here are some tips from IT staffing companies for discreetly going about your next search.

Location, Location, Location. Utilize local coffee shops for calls with recruiters and phone screens when you have to take a call during work hours. You can also take a call in your car during a break or while driving to or from work. The key is to pick a quiet location where you have good service on your phone. You don’t want to spend a call with a hiring manager fervently whispering or worrying a coworker will overhear you. The most ideal circumstance, if you can achieve it, is to set up any calls before work or after and take them at your house, on a landline, in a room by yourself.

Keep your resume posted as confidential and don’t make your LinkedIn updates public. Your job search will be conducted almost entirely online, but you don’t have to make it obvious. IT recruiters suggest posting your resume as confidential on job boards and choosing the right settings on your LinkedIn. (Obviously, you don’t want to make your tagline ‘Seeking new opportunities,’ either.) Even if you think your boss would never look online or go on LinkedIn, you don’t know who else may see evidence of your job search. People may gossip about your search or even tell your boss directly.

Don’t discuss your job search with coworkers. While it can be tempting, this is a mistake that might really sink you. As tempting as it is to talk about your search, it can be even more tempting for your coworker to talk about it with somebody else. Even the coworker who’s your best friend might accidentally let news of your job search slip. IT staffing agencies suggest you only talk about your search with people outside of work, like family and non-coworker friends. It’s your safest bet.

Change for interviews outside of the office. If you need to change into a suit for an interview (and IT staffing firms always suggest wearing a suit), don’t change in your office or come into work wearing a suit. Stop off at a coffee shop, a local mall, etc. Wearing a suit when you normally don’t will certainly spark curiosity. Worse, you may have to answer questions about it and be forced to lie. It’s worth it to just change elsewhere to avoid any of this!

Take enough PTO when you schedule an interview. Technical recruiters suggest taking ample time for an interview. You may have to do things like coding tests or whiteboarding sessions. You might also get the chance to meet more team members, hiring managers, etc. So take enough time off work to do whatever you need for your interview. You don’t want to miss out on the job because you had to rush back to the office!

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

it job search discreet — Don’t discuss your search with your coworkers, no matter how much you want to! Photo credit: philm1310 via Pixabay.

Do You Really Need to Wear a Suit for Tech Interviews?

April 6, 2018

Dress codes have been moving towards a more relaxed feel in all industries, but especially in IT, for a long time. IT recruiters have been working with employers who have a jeans and t-shirt dress codes for years. There’s just one problem with this trend: Technical recruiters find that often, candidates will assume they can come to interviews in jeans. Even for the most casual of workplaces, 99% of IT staffing firms agree: It’s important to go to your job interview in a suit.

Why do you need to wear a suit when everyone around you will be wearing jeans? There are a few reasons. Firstly, wearing a suit indicates that you understand basic professional norms. Interviewing has required a suit for decades and it will likely continue that way. When IT staffing agencies tell you to wear a suit to your interview, they’re helping you send a message about more than just your closet. They want you to show employers that you know how to be a professional—right as you walk in the door. If you show up wearing jeans and t-shirt, employers have a moment to wonder what else you’ll do in a job. Do you come in late? Do you leave early? Do you swear or tell inappropriate jokes? So wear that suit and iron it. Have a strong handshake, and set the stage for employers to assume you’re a seasoned professional who knows how to act in an office.

The second reason IT recruiting firms tell you that you need to wear a suit to a job interview is because it helps you demonstrate a level of respect for the employer. As a candidate, you’re coming into the employer’s office and you’re doing it at their invitation. They’re taking time out of their busy schedules to interview you. Show that you’re grateful and you know you’re on their turf by wearing a suit. If you get the job, you can wear jeans and t-shirts with the other employees. However, as a candidate, the balance of power is different. Wearing a suit shows that you understand this.

The last reason you should wear a suit to interview for IT jobs is that it gives you an advantage. A suit makes anybody look a little better, a little more polished. It helps interviewers envision you as a capable, accomplished professional. Why eschew this advantage? Your technical skills will speak for themselves, but there’s no harm in adding that extra oomph to your candidacy with your suit. It’s one easy way that IT staffing firms suggest you can help yourself land the job!

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

tech interviews — You might not wear a suit to work, but you still need one for the interview. Photo credit; RoyalAnwar via Pixabay.

Mobile Developers: Pick Up This Language in 2018!

March 23, 2018

In 2018, Android mobile development will be experiencing tremendous growth. If you want to hop on that train, and search for new development jobs in that particular area, here’s one language you might want to pick up: Kotlin. Never heard of it? (Or haven’t heard much about it?) Here’s why IT staffing firms think Kotlin can expand your tech career!

What is Kotlin exactly? Kotlin is programming language that is completely compatible with Java. It’s also made to be a strong alternative to Java for a few reasons. Kotlin is less verbose than Java and doesn’t require NPE’s. This makes it cleaner, faster to use, and arguably less vulnerable to errors or memory leaks. It’s also easier to implement, troubleshoot, and faster to code in. Kotlin isn’t just some shiny new tool, though. It’s around 8 years old (though it only went open source in around 2012) and meant for enterprise projects. Like Java, it’s object-oriented and open source, which makes it ideal for budget-conscious companies. Plenty of IT jobs will be asking for Kotlin in 2018 and beyond.

Why do you want to learn Kotlin? For one thing, Kotlin will be easy to learn, especially if you already know Java. It’s built on Java and has a great deal of similarities. It’s also got some big fans. Google, Amazon, Netflix, Pinterest, Uber, and CapitalOne all use Kotlin. Considering these companies often light the way when it comes to tech trends, this speaks volumes about the future use you’ll get out of Kotlin. It’s also worth bringing up again the popularity of Android mobile app development. Considering the fact Android users seem to be about 85% of the market, with Apple taking up a bit less than the remaining 15%, Kotlin is a good bet. IT recruiters suggest that you hop on this language because it’s serving the future: a society that spends most of its time on its Android phones! One last reason learning Kotlin is likely to bring you more opportunity in 2018 and beyond: developers want to learn it. Several polls have placed Kotlin high on developers’ wish lists of hot new technologies to get their hands on. In such a job seeker’s market, IT staffing agencies find that what the developer wants to work with becomes just as important as what the employers want to work with. So follow your fellow developers and add Kotlin to your arsenal. It will pay off for years to come!

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

IT job search — Mobile app development is only getting bigger. Make sure you get a piece of the pie. Photo credit: Geralt via Pixabay.

How Employers Can Compete in 2018’s Tech Job Seekers’ Market

March 16, 2018

If your company is looking to hire new tech talent in 2018, you’ll need to get even more competitive. Per the New York Times, the labor market has gotten tighter with our overall unemployment rate at a 17-year low of 4.1%. Tech has an even lower unemployment rate at 2.9%. Add to these numbers the usual dearth of tech talent in the US, and you’ve got a recipe for a very competitive hiring process. Don’t despair, though. If you want to hire great talent for your IT job openings, you can do it with a little elbow grease and these tips from IT staffing companies:

Sell the company more, especially during phone interviews and in-person interviews. IT staffing firms may not have suggested this. Ideally, an interview is more of a 2-way street. It’s about finding the right fit—for both employer and employee. In a labor market so tight, even candidates with prison records are suddenly being considered more frequently, the game has changed a bit. You’ll want to dedicate more time to telling the candidate about your perks, your company culture if it’s fun and collaborative, and any hot technologies you can offer employees a chance to get experience with. It can also be a good idea to consider giving a tour of the company, introducing candidates to the team, and highlighting your Glassdoor reviews if you have a lot of good ones and a high overall score. Taking steps like this helps the candidate to picture themselves working for you—and enjoying it!
Make your hiring process faster. IT recruiters find that one of the best ways to excite a candidate is to make them feel valued. Make a candidate feel like they’re your top choice, and your chances of having them join your team soar exponentially. There are a lot of ways to do this, but one especially effective method is to make your hiring process faster. The quicker you can get back to a candidate, the more confident they’ll feel in your interest and/or offers. No candidate wants to feel like a company spent days upon days, or worse, weeks, debating whether they were a good fit…it leads them to feel insecure! Even companies like Google and Amazon have been rumored to quicken their hiring processes lately to deal with a tighter tech labor market! This process has the added side benefits of helping you get better talent overall. IT recruiting companies have long bemoaned slow hiring processes. Even in the best of markets for employers, they’ll still lose you tech candidates, who are often juggling multiple interview processes and are frequently passive candidates. If you can quicken your hiring process, it will help you not only in this intensely competitive job seeker’s market. It will also help you later on if you can keep it up.
Provide flexible work schedules when possible. There are a few things that attract a candidate: the hottest technologies, high salaries, fun perks, and a good commute. Perks and salary are hard to change, since employers often have limited resources. The same is true of commute, of course (your office is located where it’s located, there’s not much that can be done about that, usually.) The technologies you give your employees access to is dependent on your own company goals. It’s not always feasible to change over to a new hot technology when you’re already busy working with another on important projects. This leaves flexible work schedules as your secret weapon in the war for winning top talent. Everyone loves a flexible work schedule. Recent grads, to working parents, to older workers who are possibly busy taking care of elderly parents all appreciate a little work-life balance. The best part about flexible work schedules is that it doesn’t often cost more than trust to implement. You simply have to trust your employees to do what they need to, when they say they will do it. There’s no need to move buildings, find extra money in the budget, or move all your existing code onto a hot new technology you’re not even sure you’ll use next year. Create the kind of environment that supports flexible work schedules– one where nobody ever feels nervous or uncomfortable asking to take a day to work remotely, move their hours, etc. Then sell it to your potential employees. Talk it up in interviews, on your website, on your social media, and make sure your IT recruiting agencies talk it up to candidates! Candidates will be flocking to you in no time!

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

Graduating in May? Jump Start Your Tech Job Search Now!

February 23, 2018

It’s only late February, but if you’re a college senior or finishing up your grad school program, you can get going on your search for your first (or next) IT jobs right now. If you take the right steps, you can land yourself a job to start after graduation. Here’s what IT recruiters would suggest you do now.

1. Create (or polish, if you’ve already started) your resume. This is the first and most important step. You can’t do anything else until you have a resume to give to hiring managers and technical recruiters. IT staffing firms suggest you do 2 things in particular to create a strong resume for a recent grad. Firstly, you typically want to put your education section at the top. You can keep your GPA in there if it’s high enough for up to 3 years past graduation. (How do you know your GPA is high enough? Put it on there if it’s anywhere between 2.8 and 4.0. However, it’s worth noting that anything lower than 3.0 may put off companies that are particularly picky).

The second thing to make sure you do on a recent grad resume is to create a strong, thorough ‘Technical Proficiencies’ section. Then detail out in the bullets under your experience how you used the technologies you gave in that Technical Proficiencies section. If you don’t have much professional experience yet, detail out how you’ve used the technologies in your Technical Proficiencies section in bullets under projects or internships you’ve done for school. Employers need to be able to see how you’ve used a technology, not just that you claim you’ve learned it.

2. Build your LinkedIn profile. If you don’t have one yet, you need one now. Most recent grads don’t think they need a LinkedIn profile until after they land their first job, but this is a rookie mistake. Take the time to build yourself a profile, because especially in the tech field, there are plenty of hiring managers that won’t hire a candidate who doesn’t have one. IT recruiting agencies suggest that you build a profile that isn’t too long or detailed. Your resume should be elaborate and give deep technical detail on your experience. Your LinkedIn profile should give a rough outline of your experience and skills. That’s it!

3. Reach out to your local IT recruiting firms. The time to build relationships with recruiters is now. Plenty of companies are already working with IT staffing agencies to start the process of hiring May graduates. In fact, some of the best jobs are going to be less available as the Spring goes on. You’ll actually give yourself an advantage to land some of the best-paying IT jobs at the coolest employers if you start searching now (rather than after graduation).

4. Start networking. Go to networking events in the cities you’d like to live in. Start reaching out to people you have connections to in the tech field. Let your family and friends know that you’re ready to start your job hunt. You never know who might have great connections and the ability to open the right doors. Now is the time to let everyone know you’d accept help in your job search!

What’s Big in Tech Hiring Right Now?

February 9, 2018

The goal of the hiring process is timeless, but there are definitely trends that come and go for interviewing and evaluating applicants. One of the more recent trends was the creative, Google-style question which seemed to cross between whimsy and the hardest brain teaser you’ve ever heard. Another trend (that should certainly die, but hasn’t yet) is the ‘Stress Interview’, in which an interviewer deliberately upsets a candidate to see their true colors. Right now, IT staffing firms see a big trend in the tech field: a huge boom in contract – to permanent job openings. Why is contract-to-perm so popular in tech, especially now? Here are 3 reasons.

Firstly, contract-to perm allows employers to staff quickly for projects so nothing gets slowed down. Permanent hiring is a much more complicated process for employers because of legal requirements as well as the cost and labor for onboarding new employees. It’s much easier for employers to get funding approved to hiring a contractor for the duration of a project than funding for a perm employee that will be with the company for the forseeable future. When employers have an urgent tech project that they need to staff for and get moving, contract-to-perm hiring is a good option.
Another reason technical recruiters are seeing a lot more contract-to-perm roles is that these roles let a company see how well a candidate can perform. Because technical skills are so specialized and rare in the US, this is an especially important concern for employers. Even with coding tests and references, it’s hard for a company to know with 100% certainty if a candidate has the technical skills and experience to handle the work they’re being hired for. A contract-to-perm stint allows an employee to really demonstrate this, and then be taken on permanently once the employer sees they can be successful in the role.
The last reason employers might be hiring on a contract-to-permanent basis more frequently these days is because of the profusion of Scrum, Agile, and their hybrids. Since companies are now using development methodologies, which require much more teamwork than the old Waterfall and similar models, how the candidate fits into the team is paramount. Hiring a candidate contract-to-perm allows employers to see firsthand how well they mesh with the team. If it’s not a fit, it’s easier for candidate and employer to part ways when it’s a contractor relationship. (This is a benefit for the contractor, too. Nobody wants to work on a team they’re ostracized from or have tension with!) If it is a fit, it’s easier for a company to take the candidate on permanently now, since they’re already working there as a contractor.

So it’s easy to see why employers like hiring contract-to-perm, but why would you, as the job seeker, want to be hired this way? Here are a few reasons IT recruiters see that candidates benefit from this kind of hiring.

You get more opportunities when you’re open to this style of hiring. Plenty of companies don’t post all of their jobs online. The jobs they don’t post are the contract-to-perm jobs. This is for a variety of reasons, but mostly it’s because companies don’t have the time or manpower to post jobs that aren’t guaranteed to be long term. Work with IT recruiting companies you trust and let them know you’re open to contract-to-perm jobs. You’ll find that suddenly there are plenty more IT jobs you can be submitted to—jobs you didn’t even know existed before.
You’ll get hired faster. As mentioned earlier, the permanent hiring process is much more complicated. There are many legal concerns, financial concerns, and the time and money needed to onboard a permanent employee. Perhaps you want to jump ship from a bad employer now (or yesterday), perhaps you need a new job that makes money faster, or perhaps you’ve been unemployed for a while and need a job period. Letting your IT staffing agencies submit you for contract-to-perm jobs increases your chances of getting hired somewhere new quickly.
You get in the door places where you couldn’t before. As discussed earlier, companies are taking less risk in hiring somebody contract-to-perm. This emboldens them to try hiring candidates who may not fit every bullet of a job description perfectly. As a permanent candidate, you might be an automatic no for a company. Maybe you don’t have the Ivy League degree they want or are short a few years of experience in a certain programming language. However, as a contract-to-permanent candidate, you might be a yes. Having most of the requirements for the job can be enough for an employer to take a chance on you (because they know that if the arrangement doesn’t work out for one or both of you, it’s easy to end it). If you’ve wanted to work somewhere prestigious like a Google or Facebook, or simply want to try to take the next step up in your career, contract-to-perm hiring is a great way to do that.

Tech hiring — Contract-to-perm is a great way to get your foot in the door of a prestigious company. Photo credit: geralt via pixabay.

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

What Technologies Will Get You a Job in 2018?

February 5, 2018

What will be the hot skill sets for tech job seekers in 2018? IT staffing firms are finding that technologies that pertain to mobile development and UX are highly in demand right now and will likely continue to increase in popularity. If you’re thinking about ways to expand your options for IT jobs in 2018, here are 2 reasons why you should pick up mobile development and UX skills.

User experience is becoming imperative for a business’s success. Having a stellar website has become key to attracting and keeping Whatever the business, customers want to be able to do more online—from deciding whether to purchase the product or service, to using or maintaining it. Consumers are demanding online tools where they once accepted in-person and phone options. But it’s not just about providing those tools online. It’s also about making sure those tools are attractive, easy to use, and even enjoyable. Having a website with tools like that gives a company the edge over competitors in world where consumers do all their buying (and arguably, much of their living) online. As one high level executive says, “In a global, internet-saturated market, anyone from anywhere in the world can compete in any time zone. Competition is fierce and many “contemporary” UI elements come out of pre-canned toolkits. The piece that cannot be canned, the key market differentiator, is the delightful experience that can only be captured via a deep contextual understanding of the user and what they are trying to do.” In light of all of this, IT recruiting firms are finding that more and more companies are investing in their UX teams. This means more open UX roles for people with the right skills.

Mobile development is key because mobile devices are rapidly overtaking desktop ones. When it comes to consumer behavior, mobile is becoming key. On Black Friday of 2017, stores estimate that 40% of sales came from mobile devices, not in-store sales. Companies that want to engage with customers online (which really should be every business, as mentioned above), must make sure their website translates well to mobile devices like cell phones, tablets and laptops. There’s also the element of SEO. Companies that want to be ranked higher in Google searches must have a decent mobile presence. In fact, websites that don’t translate well to mobile get dinged by Google and presented further down in search results. Considering how frequently most consumers look to Google to find their next vendor, companies can’t afford to ignore this information. Between consumer behavior and SEO rules, businesses are changing their priorities to be competitive. Technical recruiters are finding that employers are putting significant resources into expanding their mobile development team. If you have mobile development skills, you’ll likely enjoy a short, easy job search!

So if you’re ready to consider diving into mobile development and UX jobs, what technologies do you need to focus on learning or sharpening? For mobile development, IT recruiters suggest that candidates learn Swift, Object-C, Cocoa Touch, Kotlin, C, C++, Python, Java, Phone Gap, Xamarin and Xcode. If you want to get a UX job, you’ll want to buff up on javascript frameworks (especially Angular) and HTML5. (Of course, UX also includes plenty of other skills that are less technical and more artistic/design-oriented.) Whichever direction you go in, you can be sure you’ll become a much more attractive candidate to employers and recruiters.

IT job search tips — Are you ready to look for a new job? Swift, Object-C, and Cocoa Touch might help! Photo credit: StockSnap via Pixabay.

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

4 Questions for Tech Interviewers

January 26, 2018

Hiring for open IT jobs can be difficult. It can be difficult to write job descriptions which accurately ask for the candidate you need– especially when most tech projects are a moving target. Add to that the fact that there’s already a lack of qualified IT professionals in the US. This creates a strong job seeker’s market, where the candidate can set the terms and be picky about the jobs they take. Add to that the usual stresses of hiring: how do you find somebody who can do everything they say they can do and mesh well with your team? But while hiring for open tech positions can be difficult, figuring out what questions to ask shouldn’t. Here are 4 questions IT recruiters suggest using that will help you find the best candidate for your team.

1. What was the environment like in the last job you held? The one before that? IT staffing firms suggest this question, especially first, because it gives you strong sense of a candidates’ technical experience. The candidate should respond to this question by giving you an idea of what technologies they used in their past jobs, what development method was used, and the size and scope of responsibilities. With this info, you’ll quickly hear if the candidate is prepared to handle your company environment. If, for example, your candidate is a Sys Admin coming from a small company, you’ll know they may not be ready to take on a huge company with numerous servers instead of one or two.

2. What do you like to do? What don’t you like to do? IT recruiting firms find this question helps create an open, honest dialogue about the job description. Since, as discussed earlier, IT professionals are in demand, most feel comfortable being blunt about what they want in their next position. Listen carefully to see if the candidate quickly lists off work that will be a big part of the job description. You’ll also be likely to hear how happy (or unhappy) a candidate is to interact with a team, end users, etc. If you don’t hear any of this, then you can certainly go back and ask it explicitly.

3. Describe the biggest accomplishment you’ve had at a previous job. This won’t necessarily get you a technical answer, but it probably will, especially for more advanced technical jobs. Technical recruiters find this question will reveal more than technical skills and strengths, though. The way a candidate answers this question will also tell you about how teamwork-oriented they are. Listen for the pronouns. Does the candidate use a lot of ‘we’ or ‘I’? How does this mesh with your company culture?

4. What is one of the biggest challenges you’ve faced at work? This question reveals a few things, both technical and not technical. You should get a more technical answer from candidates who are applying to higher level roles, like an ERP Systems Analyst, Solutions Architect, Lead Developer, etc. This will illuminate some of their strengths for you. Beyond technical skills and experience, the answer to this question will also tell you a lot about the candidate’s attitude as an employee. Listen for the tone of the answer and the solution. Does the candidate focus on the challenge and how much it hindered them, or do they focus on what they did to overcome it? IT staffing agencies find that great candidates will use this question to show off their technical acumen. They should use the opportunity to tell a story of how their skills helped them fix a major issue, not badmouth former employers, bosses, coworkers, etc.

tech interview questions — Start by asking about the technical environment at the candidate’s last job. Photo credit: rawpixel via Pixabay.

Why Tech Employers Should Still Consider Candidates with Big Gaps on their Resumes

January 18, 2018

When you’re hiring for tech positions, it can be tempting to toss out any resumes with a gap of 6 months or more. IT recruiters see this all the time, especially because the tech job market is so hot these days. (To put that in perspective, the unemployment rate for IT professionals in the first quarter of 2017 was 2.5% according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The overall unemployment rate in the first quarter of 2017 was almost double that! It was 4.5%.) IT staffing companies find that employers often think if somebody is unemployed for long, there’s something wrong with them. The truth is, there are some legitimate reasons candidates might have big gaps on their resumes. Here’s why you may want to consider a candidate, even if they have a long gap on their resume.

1. Their reasons for a gap are solid. It’s becoming more and more common for people to leave the workforce temporarily to care for a relative. This will only continue as the Baby Boomer generation continues to age. Taking time off to care for a new baby or sick relative doesn’t tell a hiring manager anything about a candidate’s skills, performance, or dedication to work. The truth is, many people may face caregiving dilemmas over their lifetimes. Sharp, efficient, talented IT professionals and unskilled ones alike take time off for caregiving. So the next time you see a resume with a large gap taken for caregiving, remember that you could just as easily be in the same boat one day! It’s also important to remember that there’s a very real dearth of IT professionals in the US right now. You don’t want to limit your talent pool any further than it’s already been limited.

2. Their technical skills may not be impacted by a gap. With all the options for independent study, online classes, certifications, and more, it’s possible that a candidate has taken time off from a formal job but they haven’t taken time off from keeping up their technical expertise. If you see a resume with a sizable gap and it concerns you, check out their technical proficiencies section. Some people might even have a better arsenal of technical skills after taking time off from the workforce. They may have used the time off to learn more than they would if they were working.

3. Their base of technical skills might be enough, even if they don’t have the hottest new technologies under their belts. Especially recently, IT staffing firms notice that companies will hire candidates with strong, basic foundations of technical skills. Then they’ll just teach them the technologies they lack. This works because there are many languages a candidate can learn that will prep them to quickly and easily acquire more languages. Even if a candidate was out of work for a period of time and isn’t up to date with Python, for example, they might still have Ruby on Rails. Knowing Ruby on Rails will make it easy for the candidate to pick up Python and perform a role that requires it.

4. Their technical skills might not be up to date due to time taken off work, but they could have more vital skills. As mentioned before, candidates can be (and are!) often caught up with technical knowledge on the job. IT recruiting companies find that for some roles that require soft skills, companies will hire people with those skills. They’ll then catch them up on the technical skills they need. For some roles, like Helpdesk or Sales Engineer, having soft skills is imperative. It’s arguably more important that having the right technical skills or experience. For instance, a Sales Engineer who is charming and engaging with clients but needs to learn SAP on the job is a better hire than a candidate who knows SAP but is rude and off-putting to clients.

Tech resumes — Is a big gap always a problem on a resume? Photo credit: rawpixel via Pixabay.

Why Were You Rejected from that Tech Job?

January 9, 2018

So you polished up your resume, you built a stellar list of references, and you got yourself submitted to some IT jobs that look perfect for you. But lo and behold, your IT staffing firms called you to let you know you didn’t land the job (or maybe even the interview). What happened? What should you do? Here’s a little insider info from IT recruiting firms.

Why didn’t you get the job? There are a lot of factors why people are rejected from the hiring process. You may never know which reasons apply to you, but it can be a comfort to know them, because many of them are completely out of your control and have nothing to do with your marketability as an IT professional. Here are the main reasons IT recruiters see people rejected from a job.

The project or the role changed. This happens all the time, especially with more technical roles. The kinds of projects that IT professionals work on are subject to change for all the usual reasons a company’s project changes, but also because technologies themselves change so quickly. Perhaps a company plans to use Angular for a project, but decides they’d like to move on to a hotter new technology and use Angular 2. That means the roles they’re hiring for drastically change, just like that! Roles will also change if they’ve been open for a long time. If a company is having a hard time finding the perfect software developer, the life cycle development of a project still won’t stop. A team could need a software developer with different skills as the project progresses.
You weren’t a culture fit. This may seem like a small thing compared to technical acumen, but IT staffing agencies find that it’s not. In fact, one of our own technical recruiters estimates that culture fit issues account for 50-60% of the candidate rejections he sees! The days of heads-down coders are over and Scrum and Agile are all the rage. Companies usually want a team that gels well, because they’ll be working together closely. For roles that are client-facing or customer service oriented, this becomes all the more imperative. If, for instance, you’re applying for a Helpdesk role or Sales Engineer role, having a warm, engaging personality is one of the explicitly stated job requirements.
Maybe other candidates really were just better. It’s natural to feel like you’re the best candidate for the job. The truth is, though, you’ll almost always be competing against other candidates. You never know if your completion has more experience, a better arsenal of technologies at their disposal, or is just more pleasant to work with. You may always feel like you’re the best fit for the job, but statistically speaking, you can’t always be the best fit for the job. Sometimes another candidate is a better match.

What can you do if you don’t get the role?

You can start by politely asking your IT recruiters for feedback. If they have it, they’ll often be happy to share. It could be that you can get actionable feedback, like a suggestion to get more experience with a particular technology, or that you came across as rude in your interview. On the other hand, sometimes there is no feedback.
It’s important not to try to argue your candidacy with the recruiter, and especially not the hiring manager. This strategy never lands somebody the job. In fact, often it burns a bridge and blacklists you at that company in the future. Hiring managers don’t appreciate being told that they don’t know how to make good decisions for their teams. They also don’t want to hire people who look arrogant. You will likely accomplish one or both of those if you push back when a hiring manager rejects you.
Try to remember that if you don’t land a job, it’s like dodging a bullet. Whether you’re rejected by IT staffing companies at the application stage or later after an interview, what you’re essentially hearing is that the employer doesn’t have confidence you’d be successful in the role. Even if you could do the role just fine, who wants to work in a job where their boss isn’t sure they can hack it? A rejection is just saving your from pain down the road and opening you up for a job that you can succeed and be happy in.