Tag Archives: IT staffing

Can IT Recruiters Work From Home?

The IT staffing world has evolved over the years, as has the ability of IT recruiters to do much of their work from the comfort of their own home.  An internet connection, computer and phone are ultimately the only required tools of the job in today’s information technology world.  With many IT recruiting firms using a web-based ATS and CRM, IT recruiters CA can access their IT staffing company database from virtually anywhere.

Since popular search sites such as Monster, CareerBuilder, Linkedin and Dice can be accessed from any computer, in any location, ultimately IT recruiters Boston can do their job from anywhere.

Having said that, for those who have worked remotely on a consistent basis, there is a dark, lonely aspect to performing the IT recruiting job from home.  While waking up and commuting to your living room to work might sound appealing, of the course of time it can suffocating.  Regardless of whether you work for any one of the IT recruiting companies, or are employed in a different industry, most people need interaction.  They need to be around other technical recruiters – to feed off the energy, absorb information and collaborate on the spot.  In short, most people need human interaction.

It’s All About Activity in the IT Staffing Industry

In the IT recruiting industry, success typically comes down to hard work.  The more time IT recruiters spend searching for resumes, equates to the more candidates they ultimately speak with, which leads to more submittals to their IT jobs, then ultimately the more client interviews and confirmed hires for their IT staffing company.  Therefore, while it’s a pretty black and white numbers game, ultimately success comes down to hard work.

Take two poplulations of IT recruiters Boston.  One group makes half the calls and subsequently sends out half the emails as the second technical recruiters Boston.  While the first group of technical recruiters CA may find some success, ultimately the first group will exceed productivity.  Over the course of time, the IT recruiters CA with higher activity will produce more than those IT recruiting firms who make less calls.

While there are a number of variables associated with successful recruiters working for various IT recruiting companies.   Communication, articulation, organization, follow up and drive/determination are among a few attributes that encompass successful IT recruiters MA.  However, the most important trait is hard work – which ultimately translates to high activity.

Therefore, if you want to be successful in the IT staffing industry, pick up the phone, make the calls and spend as much time as possible searching IT job boards and resume databases for the best candidates possible.

IT Staffing is a Marathon, Not a Sprint

For IT recruiters Boston, it’s a marathon not a sprint.  Many technical recruiters enter the IT staffing industry full of energy and vigor, but fade fast.  Many technical recruiters Boston simply get burned out.  The IT recruiting industry is a marathon – you must be in it for the long haul to truly succeed and reap its many rewards.

Successful IT recruiters place hundreds of candidates over their first 4-5 years.  As time passes, many of these placements will climb the corporate ladder and ultimately become hiring IT managers (that will ultimately need to utilize IT recruiting companies to fill their technical needs).  Therefore, as time passes, successful IT recruiters CA keep in close touch with their placements (IT recruiting tip:  utilize Linkedin.  It makes keeping tabs on your placements easy); ultimately becoming the IT staffing resource for these contacts.

The technical staffing industry has it’s many ups and downs.  Technical recruiters CA have to expect the roller coaster ride of emotion that comes with the job and perservere through the tough times.  The IT recruiting firms that are in it for the long haul understand that the industry is not a sprint, it’s a marathon.

The Power of Feedback in IT Recruiting

IT recruiting makes use of performance metrics to track success. Because metrics serve as a measure to determine success level, they are valuable to IT recruiters in Providence, RI, Boston, MA, Marlboro, MA, New York, NY, Melville, Long Island, Phoenix, AZ, San Diego & Los Angeles, CA. Another advantage of metrics to technical recruiters and their managers is that they give managers a framework within which to provide advice to new IT recruiters starting out in their careers. The knowledge IT recruiting experts can pass on to younger technical recruiters is priceless. IT staffing firms should never forget the power of communication. Feedback allows technical recruiters to benefit from their mentors’ perspectives on IT recruiting, the lessons they’ve learned about the IT industry over the years, and their advice on performance level, and how to optomize it. Feedback is a powerful tool that no technical recruiting firm can afford to short their IT recruiters on.

IT recruiting firms that create a constant flow of communication between coworkers will create a dynamic, engaged company environment where employees are given all the information they need to succeed. Management styles that collaborate with employees, creating dialogues with an IT contractor or technical recruiter on his or her specific area of expertise – their own role – are proven to be the most effective maximizers of efficiency and motivation. IT recruiters who take orders from a top-down style management lose their sense of autonomy, and subsequently disengage. The reason an authoritative management style has been losing popularity in the broader market is because it’s simply ineffective. A constant interplay of feedback between managers and IT recruiters means that managers stay informed about a technical recruiter’s ideas for improving a role or general company work environment, and IT recruiters stay connected to a manager’s performance assessments. A fluid, metric-oriented, and feedback-focused IT work environment is one that technical recruiters and IT contractors will find positive.

Sportsmanship in an IT Recruiting Team

The IT recruiting field places an emphasis on teamwork, and the technical recruiter who proves to be a good team player will stand out positively from those who contribute less to their coworker’s success. Technical recruiters working within the same office for the same company have a common goal – to place as many qualified technical candidates as possible in IT roles that suit their professional backgrounds. The IT recruiter who sees him or herself as a valuable member of a larger team effort will grasp the big picture goal of a technical recruiting organization. Recruiting is all about making personal connections, fostering business relationships, and keeping in touch with important players in the technical industry. The ability to carry over that focus on people from a job description to interaction with coworkers will make a technical recruiter successful, and most likely, more confident in his or her success than IT recruiters who are more self-reliant than team-oriented.

The definition of teamwork, however, isn’t limited to a specific office location within a company. A technical recruiter working out of company headquarters has as many professional teammates as the company has office locations. AVID Technical Resources may be headquartered out of Boston, MA, but the technical recruiters in the Boston office maintain close ties to those in the Marlborough, MA office, as well as the Providence, RI office. One way for IT recruiters to keep in close contact with teammates in offices that are geographically distant is phone conferencing. AVID’s IT recruiters in the San Diego and Los Angeles offices communicate regularly with technical recruiters in the Boston office. Staying in touch is an essential part of being a team player – regardless of how much space separates team members.

Putting IT Initiatives Into Practice

A technical recruiter who stays on top of industry trends will have a competitive edge in the IT recruiting world. How do IT recruiters identify which IT initiatives they should prioritize in a rapidly changing industry, and stay up to date on developments? By nature, a technological breakthrough or trend can eclipse previously dominant technology, making it irrelevant. For this reason, IT recruiters need to be able to educate themselves on new technology, and be among the first technical recruiting firms to offer relevant, replacement technology or risk losing a competitive position in the IT industry. However, the ability to predict which technologies will take off, and which will fade as passing fads can be challenging. New technologies are often predictive of a future consumer need or market, and for that reason may not apply to the current IT industry. Technical recruiters who are best poised to recognize which rising technologies and IT initiatives will wind up being most relevant to the industry as a whole are those who maintain perspective through information. A technical recruiter who stays informed automatically has a competitive advantage over those who don’t, and no IT recruiter can afford to slip into a competitive disadvantage.

Information on and insight into the IT industry can come from a variety sources. Keeping current on best practices in IT recruiting, technical talent management, and IT staffing solutions may take time out of a technical recruiter’s busy day, but it will ultimately make the recruiting process go more smoothly. A good technical recruiter understands that one of the best investments of time or other resources they can make is in themselves. IT recruiters whose confidence in their skills is based on continual self-education and a sharp awareness of current trends and their potential implications for the technical industy are the ones most likely to suceed. Technical recruiters who take time for themselves professionally, and invest time in keeping their candidates informed, will find that the time they put in up front will pay out in a smoother recruiting process with higher placement rates for their technical candidates.

IT Candidates: An IT Recruiter’s Asset

IT recruiters know that people are assets. Like any good asset manager, a technical headhunter at an IT staffing firm knows how to approach a technical candidate strategically, with the goal of accurately assessing a technical candidate’s technical strengths as well as soft skills. Just as important to an IT recruiter’s people-reading skill set is the ability to recognize an IT candidate’s technical and interpersonal limits. A technical recruiter who has a good grasp of a technical candidate’s strengths and weaknesses will be able to capitalize on their abilities better than an IT recruiter who has a blind spot for a technical candidate’s weak points. What a thorough technical staffer will always keep in mind is that everybody has weaknesses, so finding ways to showcase a technical candidate’s strengths involves avoiding focusing on areas where an IT candidate can’t perform as strongly. Knowing the value of an asset is key to a technical recruiter’s craft.

A technical recruiter who realizes that human capital requires an investment will result in the best potential for placement will be willing to invest time and coaching with a technical candidate. A technical candidate who has been prepared by an IT recruiter to be as informed as possible about a company’s culture and standards will have the best chance of acing an interview. Other techniques IT recruiters can use to boost their odds when seeking a placement for a qualified technical candidate include interview prepping, reviewing a technical candidate’s assessment of personal strengths and weaknesses, and reviewing interview-ready wardrobe choices. An IT recruiter who knows that a talented technical candidate is their most important career asset will invest accordingly. Investment leads to success, and that’s what all IT recruiters want.

The Harder You Work, The Luckier You Get

The IT staffing industry is not unlike many other sales positions.  The more activity you put out, the better your odds of success.  For IT recruiters, this translates into calls.  Ultimately, the more calls you make in a day, the better your chance of finding those perfect information technology professionals for your high-tech jobs.

Technical recruiters who work hard throughout the day might make as many as a 75-100 calls and emails.  While this can be exhausting, this will likely mean dozens of responses from prospective IT job candidates.   For those IT recruiters Boston who do additional work from the comfort of their own home at night, the next day can literally feel like Christmas as they log on to their computer to await the responses from interested candidates.

The best IT recruiting firms understand the importance of high activity.  No matter how strong of a salesperson you are, if you make half the calls as your competition working for other IT staffing agencies, they will win out every time.  You may make that first placement, but over the course of time, other IT recruiters CA will win.

Technical recruiters Boston who do not make a high number of calls not only stunt their growth, the growth of their IT staffing agency, but also just make for a very slow day.  Your peer who put out 100+ calls the prior day is walking into a barrage of responses the next day while you may not have any due to your weak activity.  This translates into a slow, boring day….without much of a chance of making commissions.

If you find yourself working in the IT staffing industry, then follow my lead.  Make as many calls as possible and you’ll find success.  Ultimately, the harder you work, the luckier you get.

Early Bird Gets the Worm

For technical recruiters working in the IT staffing industry, the early bird gets the worm.  Because technical job boards are such a major resources for IT recruiters, and sites such as Monster.com dominate the market for prospective IT job seekers, the earlier IT recruiting companies open the door to allow their IT recruiters Boston to log into these sites the better.  Ultimately, thousands of candidates post their resumes every day.  Therefore, typically the first IT headhunters to reach out to each will have the right to submit their resume to the appropriate IT jobs.  Additionally, ties do not go to the runner, the first IT recruiter to email a candidate will usually be the IT headhunter that the candidate will work with.

Therefore, IT staffing agencies should open their doors by 8am at the latest.  Otherwise, provide keys or a swipe pass to their IT recruiters CA so the early birds can get the worm.

Sending Paper Resumes To IT Recruiters

As an IT recruiter working for one of the fastest growing IT staffing companies Boston, we periodically receive paper resumes blindly sent from candidates in the information technology industry.  Here are 3 reasons why prospective candidates should not send paper resumes to technical recruiters:

1)  They get thrown away:  IT recruiters Boston typically look at paper resumes as a sign that the candidates are not technically saavy enough to utilize email.  Therefore, paper resumes are more of a red flag than a summary of one’s life technical work.

2)  It “ages” you:  Mailing your resume a decade+ ago was your only option of getting your informatioin to IT recruiting companies.  Therefore, this is typically associated with a technique someone from an older generation would do.  While you cannot IT job descriminate, this certainly does not help your chances of landing one of the technical jobs that the IT recruiting company has posted on their website.

3)  They will not be added to the database:  Because it’s paper, technical recruiters will have to scan the resume in order add it to their IT job database.  When you’re looking at hundreds of technical resumes every day, and cal easily parse them with a click or two of a button, then human nature is going to win over and you’re not going to take the extra steps involved in scanning a resume into your IT staffing database (especially knowing #1 and #2 above).

Therefore, if you’re a prospective IT job candidate, save your forty-five cents and email your resume to as many IT recruiters CA and IT staffing firms as you can.  Most will be added to their respective resume databases.