Tag Archives: technical recruiters

Asking for a Raise: What IT Contractors Need to Know

If you worked with IT staffing companies to find your current role, you might be curious about how raises work.  Especially if you’re a contractor, things will be slightly different.  Here’s more info from IT recruiting companies about how and when to ask for raise.

When to ask: It’s important to know that generally, asking for a raise before you’ve been at IT jobs for at least a year will reflect poorly on you.  Professional norms usually dictate that you wait this long for a few reasons.

  • Firstly, it’s your responsibility as a professional to take a job that pays a rate you can live with.  The time to negotiate pay is when you’re working with your IT staffing firms to find a job and accept an offer.  You should always be upfront with your technical recruiters about how much you expect to be compensated when they’re presenting job offers to you.  It’s their job (and in their best interest) to get you a rate that you can happily live with for at least a year (or the duration of a project).  As a professional, you’re expected to do the math and make sure a proposed rate will work for you for the year.  Employers will usually be surprised and upset if you come back and ask for a raise after a short time, like 3 months, 6 months, etc.
  • Another reason you usually need to wait at least a year to ask for a raise is because often budgets have already been set for the year.  So if you’re asking for more money, it’s often just not possible.  Your employer has probably budgeted a certain amount to pay you—no more, no less.  This might change during the next fiscal year, but it’s often already set in stone for the current one.  If you’re a contractor working on a particular project, the budget for this project is likely set in stone.  So again, asking for more money will be a pretty futile exercise.  Every penny has already been accounted for. Asking for a raise before the completion of the project or at least a year of work will suggest that you don’t know much about professional norms and don’t care (or think at all) about the company’s big picture.

How to ask: Put a lot of thought and preparation into this on your own before going to your IT recruiters and employer.

  • You don’t want to just say you’ve worked for your employer for a year.  Simply meeting expectations means that you’ve earned the paycheck you were originally offered, nothing more.  Build a good case for why you deserve this raise.  You want to be able to demonstrate to your employer that you don’t just meet their expectations—you exceed them.  IT staffing companies find that the most convincing cases for a raise often offer hard numbers and facts. Can you say you’ve cut your company’s server downtime by half?  Can you point to a time when you stayed late to debug code for your team so they could meet a deadline?  These are the kinds of things that you want to highlight.
  • Come up with a rough idea of an amount before you ask.  This will make your discussion easier.  Make sure your amount isn’t absurdly high (like a 40% raise), or you could damage your relationship with your employer.  When people ask for raises that are too high, they risk looking unprofessional.  Asking for a raise that’s too high may also push your bosses to seriously reconsider how valuable the employee is.  If you’re not positive about how much to ask for, your IT recruiting firms can help you with this.  They understand professional norms as well as your employer’s own unique situation.  They may be aware of any financial difficulties your employer has, past raises they’ve awarded, etc.  Their insider perspective could be invaluable in making sure you ask for a raise your boss feels good about saying yes to.

 

Asking for a raise
Want more money? You may have to wait for a bit. Photo credit: TBIT via Pixabay.

 

Employee Appreciation Day in the Tech Field

Today is Employee Appreciation Day.  While this may seem like a silly internet holiday, the message is pretty important for most tech employers.  IT staffing agencies find that many candidates are often poached as passive candidates.  Since it’s such a strong job seeker’s market for IT professionals, making sure employees feel appreciated on a regular basis is imperative.  IT recruiters find that this isn’t just about great salaries and the stereotypical perks for IT jobs (free lunch, etc).  Here are some of two ways IT staffing firms suggest you make your employees feel appreciated – today and every day- to increase retention.

Offer flexible hours and telecommuting options.  Studies have often shown that the more control employees feel like they have over their days, the more they love their jobs.  Offering flexible schedules or the ability to work from home will go a long way with employees.  This is particularly true in tech.  IT recruiting firms find that since the work most IT professionals do can be done remotely and often requires concentration and solitude, remote working options are particularly attractive to tech employees.

Offer chances to work new and exciting technologies.  Technical recruiters find that employees in tech are often motivated to make a move if they can’t work with technologies that will further their career and/or interest them.  Making a concerted effort to give your employees the opportunity to work with the technologies that interest them will help them feel appreciated.  Ironically, employees are often more loyal to employers that help support their careers in the long term.

Use more popular development methodologies.  When tech employees work within a development methodology they don’t like, it can make their jobs miserable.  Using a popular development methodology like Scrum can be another way to help show your employees how much you appreciate them.

 

IT candidate retention
Showing your tech employees appreciation is about more than perks. Photo credit: herblady28 via Pixabay.

 

When Applicants Are Overqualified for Your Jobs

IT staffing companies often hear that managers are anxious about interviewing candidates that look overqualified.  Their usual instinct is to tell IT recruiting firms that they pass on these candidates.  This isn’t always the best course of action, though.  Here’s what to do if you get an overqualified applicant to your open IT jobs.

Consider interviewing them anyways.  Especially if you talk to them only for a phone screen, you don’t have much to lose (and potentially a great employee to gain).  IT recruiters find that some candidates apply to positions they’re overqualified for because of perfectly legitimate reasons.  Sometimes it’s because they’re seeking a position with better work-life balance.  Perhaps they’re now responsible for caring for an elderly parent, small child, etc.  Sometimes a candidate is more interested in a different technology that they have less experience in.  The bottom line is that sometimes a candidate who looks overqualified is actually a perfect fit.

It’s also worth noting that some employers are anxious about hiring candidates with too much experience.  They’re concerned they’ll be too set in their ways to adapt to new procedures and technologies.  When you’re using IT recruiting companies to help with the hiring process, you don’t need to worry about this.  IT recruiters are only sending over candidates who are interested in the work and the environment you can offer as an employer.  Good IT recruiters will make sure the candidate is interested in your tech stack and your company’s procedures.  They won’t send you somebody who can’t ‘play by your rules’ for many reasons.  IT recruiting agencies want to send you candidates who will succeed in your roles and be happy there.  The truth is that particularly in contract or project-based roles, extensive experience can be an asset.  Candidates like this may need less training and will be able to hit the ground running.  This can save time and money when your team is under tight deadlines.

Interview a candidate who looks overqualified by asking some extra questions.  If a candidate looks overqualified, you want to do a little more than just the usual whiteboarding session or have the usual technical discussion.  Asking what draws the candidate to the role, the company, or the project you’re hiring for, is a good start.  If the candidate’s answer doesn’t directly help you understand why they want a role they seem overqualified for, it’s time to ask more directly.  Ask the candidate if they’re comfortable with the pay scale for the role, the fact that it will be entry level, or anything else that directly addresses the fact that they’re overqualified.  The candidate should be ready to answer questions like this because their technical recruiters have likely gone over it with them.

 

overqualified job candidates
Don’t automatically pass on overqualified candidates. Photo credit: Ashlinbpg via Pixabay.

 

Getting Interview Feedback—and What to Do With It

If you’re working with IT recruiting companies to find your next role, you’re giving yourself many advantages.  They’ll help prep you, advocate for you, and negotiate salary for you.  Probably one of the advantages that’s least discussed is that IT recruiters can get you feedback when you don’t land IT jobs.  As a candidate without an IT recruiter representing them, you can try to ask for feedback.  However, it’s never guaranteed.  Most employers actually prefer not to give feedback to rejected candidates for legal reasons.  They don’t want to say something that could be misconstrued or that they may be sued for.  Plenty of companies actually just have a blanket policy to never to give feedback to rejected candidates as a protective measure.  There’s also just the issue of time.  Most employers simply don’t have the time to give feedback to all rejected candidates.  Add to these two common obstacles the fact that you don’t have much of a relationship with the employer anyways, and this makes your chances of receiving feedback pretty low.  When you do have IT staffing companies representing you, they may be able to convince an employer to share some helpful feedback.

Why is getting negative feedback an advantage?  If you can get constructive feedback, sometimes it can help you learn how to interview better.  Or perhaps it can even help you make larger changes in your career.  Some common examples of useful interview feedback are when employers tell technical recruiters a candidate didn’t land the job because they brought up politics in an interview, didn’t wear appropriate clothes, or were late.  These are certainly reasons IT staffing firms find that candidates are rejected from jobs.  They’re also very easy things to fix so candidates can make sure they do nail an interview in the future.  Sometimes a candidate didn’t brush up enough on a technology before the interview or was unprepared to take a coding test.  If their recruiter can share this, the candidate will know to study and prepare more next time.

So if you’re working with IT recruiting firms, don’t forget to ask for feedback when you’re rejected from an employer.  Keep an open mind and really consider how you might use any feedback you receive.  While nobody loves being told they did something wrong, that’s only a minor part of this process. You can choose to turn your feedback into an opportunity to become even more employable.  You also have the benefit of your recruiter’s opinion.  Good IT recruiters will be happy to take a few minutes to discuss this feedback with you and help you understand what you can do better in your next interview, how you can build a more marketable skillset, etc.  Taking this time to learn lessons from interview feedback now means a better career in the future.

 

interview feedback for tech interviews
Getting constructive feedback can make you a better interviewer. Photo credit: Tumisu via Pixabay.

 

2 Questions to Ask Candidates in Technical Interviews

Interviewing technical candidates can be challenging. You want to find a way to assess their skills without making your interview a non-stop whiteboarding session or test.  Here are two questions to ask candidates that IT recruiting companies suggest for technical interviews.  These questions help managers explore a candidate’s technical skills, personality, and experience.

What environment did you come from previously? Technical recruiters find this question can help managers get a candidate talking about a few important things.

  • Perhaps most importantly, a candidate can take this as an opportunity to talk about the technologies they’ve gotten to work with most recently.  They can use this question to help you understand the range of their technical skills (and if they’re what you need in your next hire).
  • Next, this question can lead to a discussion about the team they worked on.  Was it large? Small? Who did they report to?  Did they have anyone reporting to them? IT staffing firms find that this kind of information will help you understand how much of projects the candidate actually handled themselves, if they had to own these tasks or others checked their work and helped, if they can manage people effectively, etc.
  • Lastly, the question can give you a good gauge of the kind of corporate culture the candidate is coming from.  While technical acumen is important, the ability to fit into corporate culture is nearly as imperative. When candidates don’t mesh well with a corporate culture, IT recruiting agencies usually see that the candidate is unhappy and winds up leaving the role early or is let go.

What environment are you looking for in your next role? IT recruiting firms find that when you can get the candidate to articulate their next ideal environment, it will help you understand if they’re a good fit for your role in a more in-depth way.

  • This question will build upon the first one to help you understand not only a candidate’s strengths, but what will make the candidate happier.  And good IT staffing companies know that happier employees are always more successful in a role (and stay longer, or until the completion of a project).
  • A candidate’s answer to this question will also let you know if their needs match what you and your company can provide.  For instance, perhaps the candidate is not interested in IT jobs that report to a higher level like CIO– but your open job requires it.  You’ll be able to tell the role won’t be a good match.  Or perhaps the candidate tells you they want a more advanced tech stack in their next employer, and you can offer that.  Now you can confidently sell the job harder to the candidate.  Getting on the same page will help you make the right decision to hire, or not hire, a candidate.

 

Interview questions for technical candidates
Having a candidate articulate what they want in their next environment is immensely helpful. Photo credit: qimono via Pixabay.

 

Tips for Using Skype and Facetime in Job Interviews

Skype and Facetime interviews are becoming more and more common in the tech field.  Considering how often Skype and Facetime interviews are used instead of (or in conjunction with) phone screens, it’s amazing that the technology has only existed for about 15 years.  If you have a video chat interview coming up, here are some tips IT staffing firms would suggest.  Even if you’ve used Skype or Facetime to do job interviews before, you may still find some new info below to help you nail your future interviews.

  • Make sure your connection is good, right before your interview. Doing it the night before or even hours before won’t give you the same reassurance.  Skype a friend or your IT recruiters for a few minutes before your scheduled interview to confirm everything is working perfectly.  If you’re at home, consider asking everyone else to get off the Wi-Fi so there are no possible interruptions.  IT staffing agencies have certainly seen employers nix a candidate because of a bad skype connection.
  • Dress like you were going to a face-to-face interview. The tech field is noted for having plenty of workplaces that are very casual, but that doesn’t usually translate to the interview.  Wear a suit (or whatever your technical recruiters suggested), shower, comb your hair, etc before you interview.  It’s also very important to note here that you don’t want to assume that you can wear pajama pants or sweatpants because the camera won’t show them.  IT recruiting agencies have heard plenty of horror stories about this before.  Avoid becoming one of them yourself and dress completely appropriately.  From head to toe.
  • Take anything odd or distracting out of view of the camera. You may not think anything of it, but if you have some weird posters, desk toys, etc, it’s time  to just clear them off and put them away.  They could distract, or possibly offend the interviewer.  There’s no reason to risk ruining your interview when you can just put them back after.
  • Make sure your username is professional. If you need a new Skype account just for job interviews, you might want to consider it.  Having a silly or rude name for Skype is just as bad as having an unprofessional email address.  Make a simple, easy to remember username that is comprised of your name (and possibly your birthday, location, the year, etc if your name is very common).

 

Video chat interivews
The web cam may not see your whole outfit, but you should dress well head to toe. Photo credit: Vitamin via Pixabay.

 

Talk About This Topic and You’ll Bomb Your Job Interview

There are plenty of ways to bomb a job interview.  Not prepping enough, not brushing up enough on the relevant technologies, or arriving late.  However, one of the most common ways technical recruiters have seen people bomb interviews this year is by discussing politics. In such a politically charged year, IT recruiters have seen a lot of candidates bomb interviews because they thought it was ok to talk about politics with their interviewers.  Here’s why you need to avoid this at all costs—and how to gracefully sidestep it.

Why can’t you discuss politics in an interview for IT jobs?  There are a few reasons.  Firstly, you never know if you’ll be offending your interviewer.  Political views can be very touchy and personal.  The last thing you want to do is offend your interviewer.  The point of the interview is to make a connection with them and help them see you as somebody who’d be an asset to their team.

The second reason IT recruiting firms suggest you don’t talk about politics in your job interview is because it suggests you don’t understand professional norms.  Staying away from politics in the office is probably one of the most agreed-upon professional norms.  When you break that in your interview, you let your interviewer assume that you probably aren’t professional in other ways, too.

The last reason IT staffing firms tell candidates not to talk about politics in job interviews is because you’re putting interviewers in an awkward spot.  Learning about a candidate’s political views can be a slippery slope into areas an interviewer can’t legally ask you about.  Most interviewers are working hard to make sure they only ask you questions about topics they’re legally allowed to discuss and evaluate you with as a candidate for their job.  So when you bring up topics that might lead into these areas, you will make the interviewer very uncomfortable–  if not make them reject you outright.

So now that you know why you can’t discuss politics in an interview, here’s one way to avoid it: come up with some other legitimate small talk topics you can reach for instead.  Talk with your interviewer about the weather, sports, movies, etc.  When you have a go-to list of small talk topics, you’re less likely to bring up topics that will hurt you, like politics!

 

job interview tips
Don’t talk about this and ruin your chances of landing the job. Photo credit: RachealMarie via Pixabay.

 

Find IT Recruiters Who Will Get You Jobs You’re Happy With

Working with IT recruiters doesn’t guarantee you a job that will be a great fit.  Sometimes bad technical recruiters will place you in a job with a work environment you hate or with a workload you can’t handle.  Here’s how to make sure you work with IT staffing firms that will help you land a role you can succeed in and enjoy.

If an IT recruiter contacts you first, really look at their messages.  Do you they speak English well and write in a professional manner?  Are they offering a job that makes sense for your skill-set?  If the messages are confusing or suggest a role that is obviously not a fit for you, you can probably reply ‘no thanks.’

If the message does interest you and seems worth considering, look up the recruiters who contact you and the IT recruiting companies they come from. If they have bad reviews, or worse yet, no online presence, you may want to skip working with them.  Legitimate IT recruiting firms have their own website and decent reviews.  They probably also have a LinkedIn page and at least some social media presence.  In terms of reviews, you can take everything with a grain of salt.  If they have only a couple of bad reviews mixed in with a lot of good ones, they’re probably worth talking to. If IT staffing agencies have a ton of bad reviews, that’s a bad sign.  Don’t be a target for an IT recruiting scam or work with an IT staffing agency that doesn’t care what you need to succeed in a role.

If your technical recruiters seem legitimate, have an open, candid conversation with them about what you want.  They should care about more than just your technical skills and experience.  If you have scheduling needs, are looking to avoid a long commute, or need a particular kind of work environment to succeed, they should care about this.  Good IT recruiters want to place you in a job that is as compatible with your life and work style as possible.  This is because happy employees are productive, successful employees.  You can’t do your best work if the corporate culture of a company is suffocating to you or you’re exhausted from a marathon commute!

 

IT job search
Your IT recruiters should put you in a job that makes you happy. Photo credit: moonpie via Pixabay.

 

Land IT Jobs You Don’t Have the Experience For (Yet)

If you’re seeking a new role in an area of the tech field you don’t have much experience in, there are ways to make you a more appealing candidate to IT recruiters anyway.  Whether you’re looking to land your first Helpdesk role, or you want to move from Desktop support to a Network Engineer role, here are 3 ways to beef up your application materials and impress technical recruiters.

1. Seek out opportunities within your current employer to get hands-on learning experience relevant to the IT jobs you want to work in.  You might be able to do this in your current company in 2 ways.  Firstly, your bosses may allow you to get some hands-on experience in a formal way (like a side project for a different department).  This is probably the most preferable.  If you do well, you can demonstrate that you met the expectations of a manager in this area.   If your company can’t help you out with any formal learning opportunities, you might still be able to informally shadow the people who hold the roles you’d like to hold one day.  While this isn’t something you can put on a resume, it will help you to better direct your own study of relevant skills and technologies.

2. Seek out opportunities outside your current employer to get relevant hands-on learning.  You can volunteer, take freelance jobs, or perhaps create your own project on your own time.  IT recruiting firms have an easier time placing somebody who can point to demonstrable experience, even if the candidate made that experience happen.  Consider offering your services for free or reduced charge to local nonprofits, checking websites with volunteer opportunities, or reaching out to people within your network to seek out hands-on learning opportunities for the skills and technologies you’re interested.  If you’re learning how to code, create your own website, etc.  Having a portfolio of examples of your work will certainly make you more marketable to IT staffing companies.

3. Consider getting a certification if there are any relevant ones.  Employers generally put a lot of trust in certifications, so these can be a great way to help IT recruiting agencies visualize you in the roles you want.  IT recruiting companies always find that that candidates with certifications can get at least a bit of  an edge over those who don’t have them.  Certifications can also be a way to gain more hands-on experience with technologies or skills.  (Some certifications actually require hands-on experience.)

 

IT Job search
Want to move into a new kind of role? Get some hands-on experience in your off-time. Photo credit: StartupStockPhotos via Pixabay.

 

How to Avoid Fake Recruiter Scams

If you’re a job seeker, you’ve probably been contacted by or come across fake recruiter scams before.  Scammers will often find your information on job boards or LinkedIn.  When you’re looking for IT jobs, you don’t have to be vulnerable to these scammers, though.  Here are 3 tips for how to weed out fake IT staffing companies from the scammers.

1. Google them.  Real IT staffing agencies always have a website and usually a social media presence.  They often have online reviews, as well.  It’s also often a red flag if the IT recruiters who contact you are using an email address that seems more like a personal one than business.  (For instance, at AVID, our technical recruiters all have email addresses that end in avidtr.com, rather than gmail.com or Hotmail.com.)

2. Think twice if they ask you to pay for background checks, drug testing, or CORI’s.  Most reputable IT recruiting firms will never ask you to pay for these.  It’s a cost of doing business for the IT recruiting firm. Fake recruiters will often ask you to pay for these tests as a way to steal your money. There usually isn’t a real job or background check—just somebody making money off of your vulnerability as a job seeker.

3. Don’t trust a job offer that comes too easily.  Especially in tech, it’s important to hire people with the right skills and experience.  This means that you’ll rarely land a job without at least doing a phone interview and in-person interview.  If IT recruiting agencies contact you with a job offer and no need to do any interviewing to be hired, that’s a huge red flag.  An employer needs to do more than simply glance at your resume or LinkedIn profile to determine what your technical skills are like.  Real IT jobs require real technical interviews.  If IT staffing companies say you don’t need to do any, they’re probably scamming you.

 

Recruiter scams
Don’t miss the warning signs of a recruiter scam! Photo credit: Geralt via Pixabay.