Tag Archives: IT staffing firms

Do This if You Don’t Understand Questions in IT Job Interviews

December 4, 2015

If you’re working with technical recruiters and IT staffing companies to search for new IT jobs, sometimes you’ll have moments where you don’t understand your interviewer. Some IT professionals might feel nervous and uncomfortable asking for clarification. However, if your interviewer asks you a question you don’t understand, there’s a couple ways you can get clarification without your IT recruiters and IT staffing firms getting bad feedback about you. In fact, your IT recruiting companies will want you to do one of these tactics listed below so that you can answer all interview questions to the best of your abilities.

Don’t be ashamed to ask the hiring manager to repeat the question for you. You can soften this a bit by apologizing if you prefer. The only caveat here is that your IT recruiting firms will get bad feedback about you if you ask your interviewer to repeat more than a couple of questions. A good IT professional listens and has good communication skills. Don’t make it easy for interviewers to assume otherwise about you.
If you’re asked a technical question, but you’re unsure of exactly what kind of response your interviewer is asking for, try asking a clarifying question. One way to do this is to suggest that you “think they’re looking for X information and you’re happy to expound on it if that’s true. If they’re looking for Y information, you’ll happily give that instead.”
Consider inserting a little humor into the situation. Whether you ask for clarification or for the interviewer to repeat the question, this could be a good moment to show off your ability to build rapport. Good communication skills can really make you shine in IT roles. If you think your interviewer would like it, make a small, tasteful joke if you don’t understand a question. They may like you all the more for it.

IT Job interview questions — If you don’t understand a question, your IT recruiters want you to clarify before answering it! Photo credit: Colin Kinner via Flickr.

Ask This Question in IT Job Interviews

December 2, 2015

Plenty of IT professionals have a hard time coming up with great questions to ask at the end of interviews. There are a lot of standard questions out there that your IT recruiters and IT staffing companies can give you. This won’t really wow your interviewer and guarantee some good feedback to your technical recruiters and IT recruiting firms, though. The questions that make a strong impression show that you’re interested in finding new IT jobs that are a good fit for you. Here’s one example of a question that will really wow hiring managers.

Start by identifying things you really want in your next IT job. Maybe it’s a more collaborative environment, working with a particular technology, or something else. Run it by your IT staffing firms. Ask them if the jobs you’re interviewing are likely to have this quality. If your IT staffing agencies are good, they’ll be submitting you for jobs that are a good fit anyways. These jobs will likely have the qualities you want.

When you go to the interview, you can tell your interviewer that this quality is something you’d really like in your next job. Then ask them whether this IT job will offer it. If they don’t say much more than yes, you may want to ask your interviewer to expound on that a bit. Your interviewer will really appreciate this question because it will help them to see that you’d be a good fit for the company and role. When you show them your priorities and values are in line with the company’s, you can really strengthen your candidacy. Your interviewers will also appreciate that you don’t just want any job—you’re working with your IT recruiting companies to find a job that you think you could succeed in and enjoy for a long time. This is their ideal employee.

IT job search — Take time to think about what qualities you want in your next IT job. Photo credit: Marc Eliot via Flickr.

Don’t Do These Things After IT Job Interviews

November 30, 2015

When you’re interviewing for IT jobs, it’s normal to feel pretty nervous, no matter how well you prepared for them with your IT recruiters and IT staffing firms. The best way to move forward is to stay in touch with your technical recruiters and avoid making these mistakes:

Don’t post anything on your social media accounts that’s offensive or that could reflect poorly on you. IT recruiting agencies have found that candidates do get cut out of the running for IT jobs because of poor judgment with their social media use. Also, if you hadn’t already done it before starting your IT job search with IT staffing firms, clean up all of your social media accounts completely.
Don’t make yourself unreachable to your IT recruiting firms. They may need more info for hiring managers, need to set you up for new interviews, or have an offer for you. You don’t have to pick up calls from your IT staffing agencies on the first ring, but try to get back to them within a few hours at most.
Don’t halt your search. Even if you’re on a second interview with an potential employer, let your IT recruiting companies keep submitting you for other positions that interest you. You can’t guarantee you’ll get a job, no matter how good your chances seem. Keep the odds in your favor and continue your IT job search full steam ahead until your IT recruiters call you with an offer!

Social Media IT Job Search — Be careful about updating your social media as you look for IT jobs. Photo credit: Highways Agency via Flickr.

How to Talk about Long Employment Gaps in IT Job Interviews

November 27, 2015

Sometimes when you’re interviewing for IT jobs, you may be asked about how long you’ve been unemployed or job searching. If you have been searching or unemployed for a long time, you need to be delicate in how you respond. This is especially true in IT, where IT recruiters and IT staffing firms usually find that people have particularly short periods of unemployment. Here are a few tips that will help you represent yourself and your IT recruiting companies well.

Firstly, keep any negative emotions out of your answer. If you’ve been working with technical recruiters and IT staffing companies for a while to find an IT job, you might feel disappointed or discouraged. Make sure this doesn’t come through when you respond to the hiring manager or interviewers. Keep a positive, upbeat tone and project confidence that you and your IT recruiting firms will find something that you’re a great fit for. People want to hire IT professionals who are emotionally stable, happy people who are confident in themselves and their abilities. Don’t do anything to ruin that image of yourself.

Secondly, keep the language positive and stress that you are in control of your job search. One way to do this is to suggest that you’re being very judicious in your search and don’t want your IT staffing agencies to place you in a job that’s a bad fit. Another is to let your interviewer know if you’ve purposely taken time off from your search. People do take time off from work or a job search for some legitimate reasons. Some of these are: caring for a family member, travelling, dealing with health issues, moving to a new part of the country, or just to take a break—though this is the least desirable response.

Lastly, practice talking about this before your interviews. You might get feedback from your IT recruiting agencies or just practice with a family member or friend. Whatever the case may be, it will help you feel prepared and calm if you’ve practiced talking about this before the IT job interview.

Travel IT job search — Sometimes IT professionals take longer periods of time off between IT jobs to travel. Photo credit: Kate Ter Haar via Flickr.

More Bad IT Resume Advice to Avoid

November 23, 2015

To continue the recent theme of bad resume advice, here’s one more mistake that IT recruiters and IT staffing firms don’t want to see on your resume. Do not list your children on your IT resume. You will absolutely turn off technical recruiters and IT staffing companies if you list info about your children or if you list raising your children as achievements or experience.

Does this really happen? Unfortunately, yes. IT recruiting agencies do sometimes receive resumes with these listings. Sometimes this is only because of cultural differences. Some countries outside the US do require listing family members, marital status, etc on resumes. Especially if you’d like to convince IT staffing agencies that you’re ready to perform well and fit into a US workplace, you’ll want to remove this information from your resume.

If you are not from another country, you’re likely just following some bad advice if you include this info on your IT resume. Some IT recruiting firms have come across people who are trying to explain a resume gap by listing time to raise children. A brief mention of this is fine. However, listing child-rearing and domestic duties as experience will turn off hiring managers and IT recruiting companies. These activities are certainly honorable in their own right, but they aren’t relevant to a resume. This is because these skills aren’t entirely applicable to the professional world, but more importantly, they can’t be measured or evaluated by a manager. There is nobody to vouch for your quality of work in these areas. The end result is that listing domestic and child-rearing duties makes you look out of touch with professional norms. Don’t risk it—leave details about your family off your resume!

RaisingFamilyITResumes — Raising a family certainly takes skills, but you don’t want to add it to your IT resume! Photo credit: Philippe Put via Flickr.

How to Make Your IT Resume Just Technical Enough

November 20, 2015

As you polish your resume for your IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies, you might be wondering how technical to make it. Technical recruiters and IT recruiting firms do sometimes come across resumes that are simply too technical to effectively represent a candidate. IT staffing firms also come across resumes that don’t give enough technical details to sell their candidacy. How do you walk the line between these two extremes?

Start by thinking about the IT jobs you’d like to be considered for. Would they involve a lot of conversations with end users or clients? Would you need to be able to speak to both tech savvy people and people who aren’t tech savvy? If this is the case, IT recruiting companies will want to see a resume that isn’t so technical it’s unreadable for anybody without computer science degree.

On the contrary, if you’re aiming for positions that are highly technical and don’t require much interaction with end users, don’t skimp on details. For positions like this, it’s easier for IT staffing companies to advocate for your candidacy when you give more information about your technical proficiencies and professional achievements (especially ones that are relevant to the IT jobs you want to be considered for). Successful IT professionals tailor their IT resumes to the jobs they want, right down to the level of technical detail they provide.

IT jobs IT resumes — Will your target IT jobs involve communication with end-users? Edit your IT resume accordingly! Photo credit: deathtothestockphoto.com

Are You Using This Bad IT Resume Advice?

November 18, 2015

IT recruiters and IT staffing firms want IT professionals to give the best version of their resumes possible. This might seem pretty straightforward and easy to do, but technical recruiters and IT recruiting firms come across some resumes that have clearly been built with terrible advice. Some resumes are so long they could be novels. Some resumes are so poorly organized or full of heavily technical terms that they’re nearly unreadable—to IT recruiting agencies, hiring managers, or anybody else! Here’s one easy mistake you can avoid (or fix) to maximize the power of your IT resume: don’t add a description of each company you’ve worked at.

Unfortunately, many IT staffing agencies come across resumes with this mistake. While it’s not the worst resume mistake you could be making, it’s still not helping you impress hiring managers or IT recruiting companies. When you list a company and its general location (like the city and state), then it’s easy enough for IT staffing companies or interviewers to look it up if they are curious. You don’t need to give a summary of what the company does. Instead, use this space to list more of your professional achievements. This is info that you really want your IT recruiting firms and potential employers to see— and this is info that’s not available online. So use the space on your resume wisely! Delete those company descriptions and replace them with more info to strengthen your candidacy for IT jobs.

IT resume Typing — Take out those company descriptions. They’re not impressing your IT recruiters or potential employers. Photo credit: DeathtotheStockPhoto.com.

Things Your IT Recruiters Don’t Want on Your Resume

November 16, 2015

IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies will often get resumes with extra information. Maybe the IT professional has given more detail about a job than the IT recruiting firms and IT staffing companies need. Sometimes IT staffing firms get resumes that give way more professional experience than is necessary (or helpful!). These kinds of mistakes don’t usually turn off IT recruiters because they’re actually sort of common. What does tend to be a far more egregious mistake on resumes is including too many personal details.

What does this mean? Often, perhaps because of cultural differences, IT professionals will include things that don’t pertain to their IT jobs or careers at all. For instance, info like your birthday, parents’ names, or your IQ should all be taken off your resume ASAP. Leaving this info on your resume suggests a few things. Firstly, it suggests to IT recruiting companies that you just don’t know much about professional norms. In IT, having the ability to fit well into a company’s corporate culture is pretty important. If your resume doesn’t conform to corporate professional norms, IT recruiting firms may think you might not be able to. Secondly, leaving this information on your resume takes up valuable space you should be filling with your professional achievements, skills, and experience. Don’t waste an IT recruiter’s time with information that they don’t want anyways. Keep your resume focused on your career—past, present and future!

IT resumes — IT recruiters don’t want to see personal info, like your birthday, on your IT resume. Photo credit: Flickr image from Helga Weber’s Photostream.

Another IT Resume Mistake to Avoid

November 13, 2015

When you’re searching for IT jobs and polishing your resume for IT recruiters and IT staffing companies, there are a lot of ways you can do display you experience and skills. Many IT professionals will send technical recruiters and IT recruiting firms resumes with sections just to detail their technical proficiencies. Some IT staffing firms and IT staffing agencies will get resumes with a summary section at the top of the resume.

These are all great things, but sometimes they can create a problem when an IT professional doesn’t start listing their experience until after the first page. IT recruiting companies want you to be thorough in creating your resume, but your resume will definitely turn off hiring managers and interviewers if you take a page or more to start listing experience. Hiring managers and IT recruiting agencies only have so much time—if you don’t catch their attention with some strong, relevant experience quickly, you’ll probably lose it.

How Far Back Should Your IT Resume Go?

November 11, 2015

Many IT professionals who aren’t entry level have a hard time deciding how long of a resume to submit to their IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies. While most technical recruiters and IT staffing companies don’t suggest that IT professionals with experience need to submit 1 page resumes, there is a good rule of thumb to follow.

If you’re entry level and creating a resume for your IT recruiting companies and IT staffing firms, you should try to keep your resume to 1 page. You can do this by omitting any jobs that aren’t IT jobs or aren’t relevant to your IT career. If you do have significant experience as an IT professional, then your IT recruiting firms will want to see about 10-15 years of your most recent experience. How much exactly? That depends on how long you’ve been working. For example, If you’ve been working for 15 years, you may want to include only about 10 years of experience.

In IT, youth is an asset (fortunately or unfortunately) and technologies change quickly. You might actually do yourself a disservice to leave more than this amount of experience on your resume. Your best IT resume will make it seem like you understand or specialize in current technologies and that you have experience (but aren’t at the end of your career or command an astronomical salary).