Tag Archives: resumes

Are Your Emails Hurting Your IT Career?

In information technology, email is often the most commonly used way to communicate between IT consultants and their coworkers, clients, bosses, etc.  If your emails aren’t done well, you could be communicating poorly with any of these people.  Worse, you might be ruining your reputation with various IT recruiters and IT staffing firms (and thus hurting your chances at getting new IT jobs in the future!).  Even with stellar resumes, no IT headhunters can work with IT professionals with poor communication skills.  How do you make sure your emails are making stellar impressions on your fellow IT contractors, etc and helping your reputation with technical recruiters (rather than hurting it)?  Consider these factors:

1. Clarity and brevity.  Are your emails short, to the point, and easy to understand?  You might be speaking the same language as your recipient.  However, if your thoughts aren’t organized, clear, and uncluttered, it might be the same as writing in a foreign language!  Especially if you are providing information to somebody who needs it quickly or asking for something, it’s very important that your emails are short and easy to digest for the important points.  Most people in IT just don’t have time to wade through long, unclear emails.

2. Speediness of your responses.  While it’s not advisable to try responding for speed alone, it is important to answer emails quickly.  If you’re waiting on something to be able to respond adequately, you can simply respond with an estimate of when you’ll be ready to give a final, complete response.  Your recipient will appreciate knowing that their request or question is on your radar, even if you can’t take care of it right away.

3. Politeness and respect.  Email takes away two of the best tools we usually have for communication: tone of voice and facial expression.  Since you’re only using your words to communicate, tread lightly.  Leave out sarcasm, most jokes, and anything that might look aggressive or rude.  It’s too hard to explain later what your true intention was—make it hard to assume you were being anything but polite and pleasant from the get-to.

Things You Should Never Say In IT Job Interviews

IT recruiting firms will always put plenty of time into prepping IT consultants and their resumes for interviews for IT jobs.  However, there are some things IT contractors need to do to prepare themselves on their own.  Below are some of the things that technical recruiters may not warn you about, but you should never say in a job interview—whether in the information technology field or any other field.

1. Coarse language.  It’s obvious but it’s worth noting.  Even if your interviewer lets a curse word drop, try to abstain yourself.  It’s better to avoid anything but perfectly neutral, professional language in an interview.

2. Don’t portray yourself as a victim.  Employers want to see potential employees who can solve problems themselves.  Victims succumb to their problems and are overwhelmed by them.  They tend to require a manager’s valuable time and energy to be ‘saved’ from issues. Don’t be a victim.  Be empowered and an ideal employee.

3. Avoid placeholder words and imprecise words.  Anything like ‘uh, um, whatnot, you know, etc.’ don’t do much to help you.  The best thing to do if you’re having trouble completing a sentence or thinking of what to say is to pause.  Your silence will connote a real attention to presentation and detail.  Haphazardly throwing out a word so you can move on in the sentence says something a little less flattering about you.

Don't say 'um' in IT job interviews!
Stop saying ‘um’ and other placeholder words in interviews. They’re hurting you more than you know.

Do You Have These Important Soft Skills for IT Professionals?

All IT jobs require particular technical skills, but they also require soft skills that are beyond the usual content of resumes.  IT recruiters can all attest to the power of likability in IT professionals.  IT managers will always pick the IT contractors who not only have the ability to do the job, but also have these important soft skills:

1. An optimistic, happy demeanor: The happier and more optimistic IT consultants are, the more pleasant it is to work with them.  It’s easy to demonstrate this in an interview.  Make sure you smile and keep conversation upbeat and positive.

2. Confidence: Nobody wants to hire somebody who seems unsure of themselves.  In IT, this lack of confidence can leave users feeling unsure about the quality of service they’re receiving.

3. Strong communication skills: In some sections of IT, this is absolutely imperative.  If a client is involved, it’s very important for the IT professional to always be able to communicate well and maintain positive working relationships.

The Best Advice for Your IT Career That You’ve Never Heard

Most IT professionals are aware of the standard career advice.  How to be professional, how to make sure their work is recognized, etc.  However, the best career advice IT consultants can get, the advice that will make sure IT recruiters are always chasing them and they have their pick of IT jobs, is the advice very few people know.  Below are a few pieces of advice that will get the attention of technical recruiters, fellow IT contractors, and keep their resumes growing.

1. Think outside of your job description.  The best job employees aren’t the ones that can handle their job descriptions.  Employers value the ones who can stretch to meet other unexpected needs for the company.

2. Performance is important, but attitude is just as important, if not more.  Entitlement, rudeness and pessimism can all hurt even the best performer.  If you’re not easy to work with, people won’t trouble themselves to work with you for long.

3. Think from your boss’s perspective.  Always try to keep his or her priorities and values in mind.  Consider his problems and do your best to aid him in dealing with them.  This kind of effort will make you a hot commodity with IT staffing firms.

Do you Overshare at Your IT Job?

As open-plan offices increase in popularity, IT contractors and IT managers are all finding themselves experiencing—or perhaps becoming—a office oversharer.  According to studies, more than 3 in 5 workers says they are dealing with people oversharing at work.  Information technology tends to be team-oriented, with IT consultants working closely together on projects.  This kind of work does require some sharing.  Building bonds with coworkers can boost productivity, accountability, and overall effort from IT professionals.  However, it’s best to draw a line, too.  Oversharing can hurt your reputation, and not just at your current company.  IT recruiters have a hard time placing people who have a reputation of overstepping personal boundaries at work, no matter how stellar their resumes are.

How do you identify somebody who’s oversharing, or whether you are the one oversharing?  There’s no hard and fast rules for this, but there are some ways oversharing tends to hurt a team or individual employees at work.  Firstly, if somebody is oversharing personal info so often it gets in the way of actual work, it’s time to ask for a little silence.  Less obviously, oversharing will make people feel uncomfortable.  People don’t generally want to know the intimate details of their coworkers’ lives.  If it’s venting or advice you’re seeking, hold off at work.  Personal conversations that go deeper than general pleasantries or weekend plans are better left for your friends.

Are you telling your coworkers too much about yourself?

 

Should You Accept that IT Job Offer?

For IT contractors, the leap to new IT jobs occurs a little more often.  How should IT consultants evaluate a new job offer before accepting?  Here are a few things IT professionals should ask themselves and their IT recruiters before filling out final paperwork.

  1. What are the IT managers styles?  What’s the corporate culture like? Can I succeed in these circumstances?
  2. Will I enjoy most of, if not all, the basic duties of this job?  Does it speak to my passions and the skills on my resumes?
  3. What is the commute like? Can I handle it on a twice, daily basis?

If the answers to any of these are ‘no,’ you may have a tough road ahead of you if you take the IT job.  All of these factors affect your daily life on a deep level.  If it’s hard to consider them objectively, talk things through with your recruiter.  They want you to love your new job, too!

Are You a Trustworthy IT Professional?

In a field like information technology, where teamwork is often so imperative, trust becomes necessary between IT professionals and their coworkers and IT managers.  IT recruiters can’t help IT consultants get IT jobs when they merely have perfect resumes.  They must be the kind of employees and coworkers that everyone can really trust will get the job done and help to keep the company’s culture positive.  So how can IT contractors make sure they’re trustworthy?  By honestly evaluating themselves in these categories, as suggested by Dr. Paul White:

  1. Competence: Can you perform your responsibilities without more than the occasional issue?  Do you fulfill your role on your team to meet expectations? This is the more obvious part of what makes a good employee.
  2. Character: Are you not only good at your job, but also a good person to work with?  If you’re reliable, honest, and pleasant to deal with, this makes you much more trustworthy.
  3. Consistency: Do you perform at a high level all the time?  It’s hard to trust an employee or coworker who doesn’t always meet expectations.  If your competence isn’t consistent, it may well not even exist.

 

Why Starbucks’ Tuition Program is Important to IT

Though they’re by no means the first company to do it, Starbucks has brought a lot of attention to the trend of companies paying for their employees’ college tuition.  Programs like this bring a lot of attention to some hot-button issues, like the cost of college and the worth of a college degree, as well as the standards employers are held to in the treatment of their employees.

However, the most fascinating part of these stories about Starbucks are how they relate to the IT industry. Since information technology companies already feel the pain to offer perks that will attract great IT professionals, the trend is in full force in the industry.  IT contractors in IT jobs in notable companies like Intel or Apple.  This perk is especially relevant for IT consultants, too.  Since many IT managers are looking for resumes with specialized skillsets, having a BA or BS isn’t always a prerequisite.  This means that a significant portion of IT professionals don’t have a college degree yet, simply because they haven’t need it thus far.  Tuition programs are also particularly relevant to many IT professionals because they’re recent immigrants.  Getting a degree in the US adds a great deal of value to their resumes.  For these reasons and more, tuition programs are really impactful in the IT world.

 

Are Your IT Employees Thinking of Leaving?

The bane of most IT managers is attrition.  Losing IT professionals hits a company hard, especially because the information technology industry in the US has far too few IT contractors and far too many IT jobs.  How can managers make sure they don’t lose valuable employees?  Pay attention to these important signs of unhappy IT contractors who may be circulating their resumes.

Firstly, an unhappy employee starts to take more time out of work without much, or with vague, explanations.  This time is usually for meeting with recruiters and doing interviews with other IT companies.  However, taking time off from work frequently isn’t enough of a sign on its own. There could be a health issue, etc.

A second sign is an employee taking a lot of personal calls at work and seeking a private area to speak.   Some personal calls are not abnormal, but a lot of personal calls might be a sign of recruiters or hiring managers reaching out.

Lastly, it’s worth noting when an employee becomes less enthusiastic, both socially and in regards to their work.  If they no longer leap for new assignments or join their colleagues for lunch, it’s a sign they’re probably checking out mentally.

 

 

Why a Bad Culture Fit Can Cost A Lot in IT

Good IT recruiters focus on making sure IT consultants are a great fit for IT jobs in terms of the skills on their resumes and in terms of personality.  This isn’t just for the comfort of the IT managers these IT staffing companies work for, it’s for the productivity of the company itself!  Recent studies show that the companies that really invest in their IT professionals and make them feel appreciated see that investment pay back in spades.

Why is this true?  To some extent, the answer is pretty intuitive.  IT contractors who feel appreciated by their companies also feel a sense of loyalty to them and have an interest in seeing them succeed.  This is partially selfish, as somebody who likes their job, managers, coworkers, etc will want to stay in the same spot.  Making sure the company does well makes this possible.  It’s also easier to be productive when you’re relaxed, calm, and happy.  Whatever the main reason, it’s clear that a good culture fit is really beneficial financially.