Tag Archives: resumes

Handling Bad Days Gracefully in IT

Just as in any industry, a few bad days here and there are inevitable at IT jobs.  IT recruiters, IT contractors, and IT managers alike all have tough days at work now and then.  The thing that separates truly great IT consultants from average or poor ones is how they handle these bad days at work—particularly if they have reports. Tackling bad news or a lost client gracefully is the kind of thing that almost beats out sparkling resumes.  Here’s how to do that:

1. Keep it quiet.  Venting about a problem at work won’t do you, your reports, or your managers any favors.  Better to save the venting for home and focus on just getting the issue resolved.  Keeping a positive attitude in the face of hardship will absolutely get noticed by IT headhunters, coworkers, reports, and managers, so why not do it?

2. Take a quick mental- or physical- vacation to calm yourself if needed.  Keep a few funny videos, articles, or websites stored in your phone or on your computer (depending on office policy) for some comedic relief.  Use them when you’re having a rough time.  Or go for a walk outside if you can.  Whatever method you use, calming yourself will make it much easier to focus on fixing the problem, rather than fighting through your own emotional response to it.

3. Avoid others until you are no longer NSFW- particularly any of your bosses.  Better not to risk taking frustrations out on others, because this will be remembered, too.  (Take this advice into consideration if you ever notice others at work having a bad day, too!  If a coworker or boss has some kind of personal or work-related issue going on, try to tactfully steer clear until it’s resolved.)

 

How to Handle Conflicts in Your IT Team

It’s no secret that IT headhunters prize IT consultants with sparkling resumes and who never cause conflicts in their teams.  However, there’s just no way that most IT professionals will complete all IT jobs without a single conflict- whether with IT managers or coworkers.  Below are a few ways IT contractors can handle conflicts well at work.

1. Start by framing things from the other person’s perspective.  Consider their values and priorities.  Using somebody else’s priorities to sell them on your own opinion will always be slightly more successful.  (Don’t close yourself off to the possibility that you may want to change your opinion, too!  Sometimes reframing things can force you to notice something your opponent was correct about.)

2. Make yourself vulnerable and pose the other person as expert.  If somebody’s idea is creating an issue for you, your team, or your work, try posing this problem to them—but as a special issue you find them uniquely qualified to fix.  Giving them the ego boost, placing yourself as vulnerable, and posing the issue as a question nearly eliminates the air of conflict.

3. Don’t use the word ‘but’ in your negotiations.  Use the word ‘and.’ It seems like a small thing, but when you say ‘and’ it tells the other person you’re taking their view into consideration too.  Saying ‘but’ tells them you oppose their view and are negating it.  You won’t get anywhere if the other person feels like you are completely negating what they say.

 

How Older IT Consultants Should Job Search

Since the recession started back in the early 2000’s, IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies have seen an influx of older IT consultants looking for IT jobs.  Though the information technology market hasn’t suffered quite as badly during the recession, older IT contractors seeking jobs have certainly had a harder time getting hired (while the field was not at its peak).  There are a few reasons why the older IT professionals get their resumes tossed off the pile first, but with a little attention, they can get around this and get the attention of technical recruiters and IT managers alike.

Focus your search appropriately: There are some fields that will always value older workers.  These include health care, education, government, and nonprofits.

Limiting your resumes: You may look a bit older than 35, but your resume doesn’t have to betray that right away.  Hold back on the impulse to make your resume more than a page.  List the most relevant recent experience, so it’s still powerful, of course.  Just limit your experience listed to the relevant stuff-  you can talk about the other experience if needed in an interview.

Keep your skills current: Even if you aren’t young and fresh, your skills can be.  You may really impress IT recruiters and managers if you do this, because you’ll be exceeding their expectations.

 

Weird Questions in IT Job Interviews

Periodically all IT professionals and IT recruiters encounter odd questions in interviews for IT Jobs. Questions like “What kind of cereal would you be?” or “What is the color of money?” are common, if not the prevalent in interviews for IT consultants and IT managers.  What is their use, though?

IT contractors and IT staffing agencies should take these odd questions seriously because they demonstrate a few important things about a candidate that resumes do not.  For one thing, IT jobs, especially customer-service oriented ones like tech support, tend to require the ability to think on one’s feet and respond to unexpected and sometimes stressful situations.  Questions that are bizarre can be the opportunity to test that in a job interview.

Another imperative reason to take these questions seriously is that they can be a moment to demonstrate how you are a cultural fit for an organization.  More than anything, these questions are good moments to showcase your personality.  If you know you’re interviewing at a team-oriented company or perhaps a company that really values creativity, these questions are the moment to show you have these qualities (rather than simply tell somebody you have them).  So be prepared to really give these questions a go—they might be the ones that get you the job!

 

Soft Skills IT Professionals Should Acquire

Having strong resumes in the Information Technology field is obviously imperative to nabbing IT jobs.  However, having some key soft skills carries a surprising amount of weight in the interview process for IT managers and IT recruiters.   While the value of these soft skills is different depending on the IT recruiting companies and jobs, the list of skills below are all worth working on as an IT professional.

Service skills: Working on these skills pay off particularly well in support positions or positions with a lot of client/end user interaction.

1. Flexibility/adaptability
2. Problem-solving skills
3. Positive attitude
4. Customer service

Internal Employee skills: These skills will serve anybody well within the office.  Whether it comes to how managers or co-works view you, these skills will come in handy.

1. Confidence
2. Independence and work ethic
3. Ability to accept and use feedback
4. Creativity
5. Time management
6. Teamwork

 

Factors to Control in Your IT Job Interviews

Technical recruiters prepare the IT consultants (and their resumes) working with them as thoroughly as possible for interviews for IT jobs.  However, there are a few things that IT contractors need to control themselves to make sure their job interviews go as well as possible.

Time:  While IT headhunters will make sure interviews occur at times that work for IT managers, the best thing you can do is to try to get your interview scheduled as closely as possible to Tuesday at 10:30 am.  This day and time are the ones in which research shows people to be most awake, alert, focused on work, and to feel the least rushed.

Space:  Do you best to show the utmost respect for the interviewing company’s space.  Wait until you’re asked to be seated to sit.  Don’t roam seeking water fountains or a bathroom—ask a receptionist. Don’t leave marks on any tables or chairs, and throw away any garbage you might create while you’re there.  You want to give the impression that you are going to do nothing but improve things for the company.  Leaving behind any damage or disrespectful impressions will not help your case.

Eye contact: Make comfortable eye contact with everyone you meet, even the receptionists or any doormen or drivers the company employs that you come in contact with.  Don’t be fawning or make eye contact that is too intense or uncomfortable.  Simply make sure you convey interest in what people have to say, confidence in yourself, and ease in dealing with people in any station.

Physical Appearance: Be well groomed and try to dress in a way that fits in well with the company culture (albeit the formal side of it).  If your appearance feels somewhat familiar to your interviewers, this might work in your favor.  Portraying yourself as a cultural fit for the company visually is certainly not going to hurt your chances!

 

Professional Failure in IT

Failure actually holds a high place in information technology.  IT professionals are constantly testing programs, code, potential solutions, etc.  Every time a test fails, IT consultants learn something.  IT contractors and IT managers could also learn quite a bit from embracing failure as professionals, too.  Having pristine resumes certainly attracts IT recruiters and lands jobs quickly.  However, making mistakes at work and even getting fired a time or two will teach you quite a bit.

It’s worth finding the value in the lessons that can be learned from making professional mistakes.  Obviously there are costs to these mistakes and the aim is to avoid them on the whole.  When they happen, though, we can learn a lot about our strengths and weaknesses as professionals.  We can also learn about how to become more resilient in the face of hardship so that future hiccups aren’t as difficult to deal with.  There are plenty of interesting articles about the coping tools we can develop to deal with failure and rejection, and these are worth checking out.  It’s also imperative to just start accepting that failure is inevitable sometimes and the best thing we can do is learn to appreciate its effects on our lives.  Learning more about our jobs, professional field and skills, or just about ourselves, is certainly not a bad thing.  And in the long run, that’s exactly what you can frame past failures as: learning opportunities.

 

How to Be a Better IT Leader

The most prized IT professionals that IT recruiters want to work with are the ones with not only stellar resumes, but stellar leadership skills.  Because the information technology field is overrun with project-based work, IT managers often prefer to use teams to accomplish tasks.  IT contractors that can effectively lead their teams to success are thus highly prized.  What are some ways IT consultants can sharpen their leadership skills?

One surefire way to become a better leader is to make sure your focus is shifted from hierarchy and job descriptions to the goals of the team.  The most effective leaders are the ones who are not seeking a title and glory, but success for the entire team in their goals.  If you provide guidance for your team members in orienting them towards the team’s goals and helping them contribute towards these goals, even if it means straying from original job descriptions or doing tasks that might feel ‘beneath you,’ you will earn a great deal of respect as a leader.

Another way to improve your leadership abilities is to maintain a positive and warm demeanor.  Sometimes leaders are not just responsible for their written duties or making sure their team gets to the finish line, so to speak.  Sometimes, their responsibilities are slightly more intangible.  Research consistently shows that positivity and being relatable are some of the most important traits in a leader.  If you can keep the right attitude at work, you can inspire your teammates to do the same and to avoid the distractions and destruction of negative thoughts and attitudes.  Being relatable makes it easier for your teammates and followers to trust you.  Combined, these two traits, no matter how ‘fluffy’ they might seem, are invaluable for leaders of IT teams.

 

How to Interview Your Next Boss in IT

Bosses have a surprising amount of power in IT contractors’ lives.  Having a good one can make your time at work pleasant.  Having a bad one can make your time at work terrible and possibly ruin your time out of work, too (perhaps too many off duty calls or just sleepless nights worrying about his or her next blowup).  It’s crucial to make sure that as you interview for IT jobs, you are honest with your IT recruiters about what kind of IT managers you work best under.  It’s also crucial that you interview your potential boss thoroughly on your next job interview.

Interviewing your potential boss as they interview you requires some nuance.  IT recruiters prefer not to work with IT consultants who are too demanding or difficult, because they don’t tend to come off well in interviews—no matter how impressive their resumes are.  It’s imperative to ask questions that will subtly reveal what you need to know about a potential manager. Your intention should be to gain the information you need without demanding it.

So what is the information you need to decide if a manager will be a good leader for you?  This will vary from person to person, but a few major categories are pretty universal. Asking about somebody’s management style will give you some good ideas about how they lead.  So will asking about the best and worst employees they’ve worked with.  It’s helpful to know what they think of as a successful employee and one worth firing.  Depending on how the conversation goes, you may feel comfortable enough to throw out your own expectations of a manager.  Try posing these expectations as your best case scenario. If your potential boss seems amenable to all or most of them, you may have found your perfect future boss.

 

Red Flags to Watch for in IT Job Hunting

Good IT recruiters want to put their IT contractors in IT jobs where they fit both in terms of the skills on their resumes and the workplace culture.  While IT headhunters can do their best to try to make good matches for workplace culture, IT consultants can do the most to make sure they wind up in a job with a great boss and good coworkers.  There are two kinds of red flags to watch out for in interviews: Red flags that indicate your boss will be difficult to work for and red flags that indicate the company culture is too toxic for you.

Though a single red flag isn’t really enough to avoid a job on its own, a few or more of these signs will show you that you may not be compatible with this boss.  If your interviewer comes in very late, hasn’t read your resume at all previous to the interviewer, or checks email and/or takes calls during the interview, it’s worth considering how much guidance you need from a boss.  If you rely heavily on a boss who is organized and provides pretty frequent direction, this isn’t the boss for you.  Their inability to be prepared and focus on the interview at hand shows quite a bit about how they’ll act during the regular work day.  On the other hand, if you prefer to work as autonomously as possible, these signs aren’t necessarily a problem.

Another major red flag to notice is how your interviewer/potential boss  speaks of the person who holds or previously held the position.  If he or she is warm and commends the person, this is a great sign.  However, if your potential boss skirts the issue of the previous person who held the role, or trashes them outright, take time to consider how you deal with difficult personalities.  If they don’t bother you, it’s not an issue.  If you need to have a positive, friendly relationship with your boss to be productive, however, this may not the job for you.

The last red flag that IT staffing agencies would want their IT professionals to watch out for is how the workplace culture looks.  If you find reviews of the workplace culture on glassdoor or other similar websites that terrify you, try to confirm or disprove these for yourself when you go on the interview.  You might also consider checking around with professional contacts in your field.  Word can travel fast, particularly when a work environment is toxic.  Better to know before you take a job if you’d like the workplace culture there or not.