Tag Archives: technical recruiters

Why IT Jobs Are Recession Proof

November 14, 2016

People commonly ask whether IT jobs are recession proof. The simple answer that IT staffing companies would give is yes. IT recruiting firms can point to the recent recessions as direct proof that IT professionals are very safe in their jobs, no matter how rocky the economy gets.

For solid proof that IT staffing agencies can help you find a job that will weather a recession, consider 2009. That year, when unemployment rates in the US were over 10%, for the tech field it was more like 5.4%. This number is strikingly low—it’s nearly as low as the unemployment rate is now after the recession (4.9% as of October 2016).

Why are IT jobs recession proof? IT recruiting agencies find that these kinds of jobs are necessary for two big reasons. Firstly, technology has become absolutely imperative to the basic functions of most businesses. From the hardware a business uses, to the email system and customer management tools a business uses, to the web presence it maintains to attract and maintain customers, there is simply no way most (if not all) businesses could run without technology. This means that technical recruiters are constantly asked to find the IT professionals to maintain, improve, install, and help users understand, that technology.

The other reason that IT jobs are recession proof is that the technology is a way to improve business processes and cut costs in hard times. IT recruiters find that in a recession, companies will often be all the more inclined to need tech professionals to help them streamline and save money.

If all of this doesn’t convince you to reach out to IT recruiting companies, the field is even stronger outside of a recession. IT staffing firms are seeing an especially low 2.5% unemployment rate in tech this year. IT jobs aren’t only recession proof, they’re a great way to go when the economy isn’t in crisis!

it-jobs-recession-proof — IT unemployment is low, even in bad economic times. Photo credit: geralt via Pixabay.

How IT Recruiters Work

November 10, 2016

If you’ve never used IT recruiting companies before, here’s a little information about how IT recruiters work and why you may want to use them to find your future IT jobs.

What Technical Recruiters Do:

IT recruiting companies build relationships with companies that need to hire IT professionals. When these companies need to add somebody new to their team, they call IT staffing companies they trust and describe the job, the company culture and any other pertinent details. These IT staffing agencies then search within their database of candidates for people who would be a great fit for the role. Great IT recruiting firms want to find somebody who not only fits the role technically, but will also be happy in it and mesh well with their coworkers. In the end, they want the candidate to be happy in the role, and the company to be happy with the candidate. This is the only way to achieve a really successful hire.

What Questions Will IT Recruiters Ask:

When you talk to IT recruiters they’ll start off by asking you to send them an updated version of your resume. They’ll then have you walk them through your past experience. If you haven’t really worked with IT recruiting agencies before, they’ll probably ask you to go more in-depth about what you’d like in your next role. Don’t hold back on this part. Be as honest as you can with IT staffing firms about what you like in a job and what makes it easier for you to succeed.

What is the Process?

Often, IT recruiters will start by making sure they get a good sense of what you want in a role and what your experience and skillset is. Then, they’ll submit you to jobs that they think are a good fit. It’s worth noting here that you have an advantage when technical recruiters submit you. Your resume comes with the backing of their expertise. Employers trust them to find the right people, so when your resume is presented, you automatically get that recommendation. If an employer agrees that you’d be a good fit for a job, you’ll either be set up with a phone interview, an in-person interview, or some combination. Often your IT recruiters will work with you to set this up. They may even walk you into the interview and provide copies of your resume. The last step depends on how well the interviews go. If the employer wants to make an offer, your IT recruiters will provide another advantage here by negotiating compensation for you. If the interviews don’t go well, your technical recruiters may be able to get you feedback you can use in the future.

call-it-recruiters — Are you ready to call IT recruiters? Photo credit: Mimzy via Pixabay.

Do You Need to Move to Get a New IT Job?

November 9, 2016

IT recruiting firms find that IT professionals often wonder if they need to move to get new or better IT jobs. The answer to this question may leave you happily surprised.

As is probably obvious, technology has become widely accepted as one of the most powerful tools for businesses and organizations. This means that most, if not all businesses and organizations around the US use IT staffing companies to find tech professionals. There are plenty of companies or organizations that you may not associate with technology, but these companies do use it quite a bit. They use various technologies to interact with and attract consumers, streamline their business operations, connect their employees, and so much more. Some industries that you might not expect to use IT recruiting agencies to employ a lot of IT professionals include retail, healthcare, and education.

Taking all of this into account, you probably don’t have to move to find a new IT job with your technical recruiters. Particularly if you’re near a big city, you’ll be near businesses or organizations that need Programmers, Systems Engineers, Business Analysts, and a wide variety of other IT professionals. If you’re not close to a bigger metro area, your IT recruiting companies may suggest that you simply need to consider a slightly longer commute. All of this doesn’t even include remote options, which are certainly growing.

So before you resign yourself to moving, call your IT staffing firms. You never know what jobs may be in your own backyard– literally.

moving-it-jobs — Will you need to move to get a new IT job? Probably not! Photo credit: MikeBird via Pixabay.

3 Tips for Hiring Top Tech Talent

November 4, 2016

1. Rethink your tech stack. IT recruiters find that great tech talent can often be sold on a position by the technologies they’ll get to use in IT jobs. The best candidates usually tell IT recruiting companies that they want their next role to be more than just a paycheck and perks. They want their next roles to help them advance in their career. If you’re using an old tech stack, your technical recruiters may have a tough time attracting amazing talent for you.

2. Brag about your company culture and perks online. Even though your IT staffing firms will help sell your company as a great place to work, candidates still usually do some research online. Places that have no trouble attracting top tech talent make sure that candidates see great things about them when they do this research. What does your Glassdoor page look like? Have you built it out and added pictures? Do you have reviews there? Consider asking happy employees to leave reviews, because they are your best advocates.

3. Have candidates meet their potential coworkers. IT recruiting firms find that the employers who introduce candidates to the team they’d work on have an advantage. As mentioned above, your current workforce can be some of your best advocates to new talent. Meeting potential coworkers helps a candidate visualize working at your company. IT recruiting agencies also find that if your team is relatively happy, they can share the value of working at your company in terms the candidate really appreciates. Even if a candidate doesn’t like a member (or members) of the team and decides not to work there, this is still a good practice. IT staffing agencies find that when a candidate doesn’t like the team enough to work somewhere, it would have been a bad hire anyways (which can be awfully costly).

attract-top-tech-talent — Is your tech stack going to attract great talent? Photo credit: markusspiske via Pixabay.

How to Land Jobs With Your Ideal Work-Life Balance

November 1, 2016

Work-life balance is becoming increasingly important to IT professionals, especially for some tech positions that may require odd shifts, being on call, or long hours. To make sure you land in IT jobs that have a good work-life balance for you, take the right steps to communicate with your IT recruiting agencies and potential employers. Here are three tips for landing a job with your ideal work-life balance.

1. Talk to your technical recruiters about exactly what you need in your next role. Do you need time to care for children? Have a sick relative you’re taking care of? Or do you just find that being on-call on the weekends makes you miserable? Be upfront with your IT recruiters about things like this. While you need to be reasonable in your expectations, your IT staffing companies can’t submit you to positions that have the kind of work-life balance you desire if you don’t ask for it.

2. Keep talking to your IT recruiting firms about these things before you go to an interview. Confirm before you go the interview that the job requires the kind of work-day, work-week, etc that you’re seeking. Ask if these potential employers are likely to require you to be reachable after-hours, on weekends, etc. Your IT staffing firms may not know the answer to every question you ask, but they should have a general idea.

3. Ask your remaining questions in the interview—but this time, with a more professional tone. You can still ask questions about work-life balance with your interviewer, but the tone needs to be very different. With your IT staffing agencies, you want to be completely honest and open. Good IT recruiting firms are partners who want to help you find a job you’re happy in. Your interviewer isn’t solely focused on what you want. They need to hire for their team’s needs, projects, etc. With your interviewer, you want to make sure they feel like you’re ready to work hard and meet expectations. Your focus is on making sure you convey that you’re a great fit for the job (if it truly is a good fit for you, of course). Ask questions you have about work-life balance, but be careful to avoid looking like you’re making demands or are lazy.

it-job-search-tips — Be open with your IT recruiters about what you really need in your next role. Photo credit: paulbr75 via Pixabay.

AVID is Hiring – Ready to Launch Your Career in Sales?

October 28, 2016

For the past 13 years, AVID has been growing at an explosive pace. From our first office in Boston, we’ve expanded into 12 offices spanning from coast to coast. AVID now has IT recruiters working in Boston, California, New York, Rhode Island, Texas, and Iowa. Even with all this explosive growth, though, one thing hasn’t changed: AVID has kept our team-oriented, work hard, play hard culture.

Work as a team: Everyone at AVID is team-oriented. We reach our goals together, even if we’re having a friendly competition. We provide extensive training and pair new hires with mentors. Managers are deeply interested in feedback from employees and their doors are always open. To read more about this, check out our Glassdoor reviews here.

Work hard: Our technical recruiters work hard to meet their goals, and they get to see their efforts reflected in their paychecks. AVID provides one of the most competitive commissions plans in the IT recruiting firms industry. Additionally, our recruiters enjoy solid base pay, vacation time, sick time, and a benefits package.

Play hard: AVID recruiters don’t just work hard, though. They play hard, too. When we hit our goals, AVID celebrates together. Every office has a TV that we use to recognize people’s accomplishments, run contests, and share company announcements. We have team outings to casinos, bowling lanes, beach houses, and more. We also do happy hours, birthday celebrations, and bagel breakfasts.

If you’re ready to catch on with one of the fastest-growing IT recruiting agencies in the country, check out the list of requirements below. Email careers@avidtr.com with a resume attached if you’re interested.

Requirements
– You are interested in sales.
– You are competitive and positive
– You prefer to be surrounded by a team.
– You have a work hard and play hard mentality.
– You are persistent, assertive and goal-oriented
– You are a problem solver.
– You are looking for a company where you can make an immediate impact.

One Easy Job Interview Mistake to Make– and Avoid!

October 26, 2016

IT recruiting agencies find that candidates make some mistakes in interviews that are pretty egregious. Maybe they are particularly late, rude, or can’t answer technical questions. However, IT recruiters also see candidates make subtler mistakes in interviews. Here’s one mistake you may not even know you’re making as you interview for IT jobs: not giving your interviewer a genuine weakness (if they ask for one).

What does this mean exactly? IT staffing companies find that often, candidates are tempted to give a weakness that isn’t actually a weakness. IT recruiting firms see candidates give weaknesses like “perfectionism”, that aren’t really weaknesses. The problem with giving answers like this when an interviewer asks for a weakness is that it comes across as disingenuous. Interviewers actually do want to hear a weakness from you. They need to see that you’re being open and honest with them in the interview. They also need to see that you’re a good fit for the job—so when you can’t list a weakness, it’s hard for them to ascertain if you’d do well in the role.

So how would IT recruiting companies suggest you tell an interviewer about a weakness in a genuine, effective way? Start by thinking about a weakness that wouldn’t affect your ability to do the job you’re interviewing for. For instance, for a job that doesn’t require you to manage anybody else, you could say you have a hard time sharing or delegating tasks. For a programming job that doesn’t require any client interaction, you might mention that your customer service skills are lacking.

The next step is to briefly talk about steps you’ve taken to improve on this weakness. You don’t want to go into excessive detail, but this part is important. Technical recruiters find that what really impresses interviewers is evidence that you’re able to improve upon your performance as an employee. This helps them to picture you as a self-motivated employee on their team, always striving to do better.

IT staffing firms suggest you wrap up your exchange about weaknesses by painting an optimistic picture of the future. Just a sentence here would suffice. You want to show your interviewer that you can see yourself continuing to improve on this weakness, perhaps using this improvement to enhance your performance at work.

it-job-interview-mistakes — Are you giving a fake weakness? It’s not going to land you the IT job. Photo credit: PeteLinforth via Pixabay.

3 Things Recruiters Will Need for Your Best Job Search

October 24, 2016

When you work with IT recruiting firms to find new IT jobs, they’ll be doing most of the work. They’ll find opportunities that you’d be a great fit for, set up interviews, etc. However, even with the best IT staffing companies, there are still some tasks you should be prepared to do:

1. Update and polish your resume. IT recruiting companies will help you edit your resume a bit, but this will mostly fall to you. There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, nobody understands your experience and skills the way you do. Your IT recruiters can help shape a resume to fit a job opening better, but they don’t know about every project you’ve worked on or certification you’ve earned.

2. Research salary expectations for yourself before you call IT staffing agencies. It’s hard for Technical recruiters to get you a salary or rate you’re happy with if you don’t have at least a little input. And you can’t have valid input without doing some research to see what people with comparable skills and experience make in your area. Think of it this way: You’ll never be happy with the salary your IT recruiting companies get if you think it doesn’t pay you what you’re worth in your area. And you can’t know what you’re worth in your area if you don’t look into it.

3. Be ready to possibly take brief tests, submit some sample code, etc. Not all IT jobs require this, but some do. Obviously IT staffing firms can’t do either of these for you. And truthfully, you wouldn’t want anybody else to do them. These kinds of tests protect you from landing in a job you can’t succeed in. If you can’t pass a required test, you wouldn’t want that job, anyways!

it-job-search-tasks — Did you research salary expectations? Your IT recruiters can’t get you what want you want if you don’t know what you want. Photo credit: kaboompics via Pixabay.

4 Steps To Take When an Employee Resigns

October 19, 2016

It’s usually difficult for any employer when an employee resigns. However, it’s particularly difficult when you lose an IT professional. In today’s market, it can be difficult to find the right person for your open IT jobs. IT recruiting agencies suggest taking these 4 steps to make this loss for your team a lot easier—even if you have big looming deadlines.

1. Make a plan for knowledge transfer. IT staffing agencies suggest you start by taking time to figure out what information you will need to transfer to this employee’s replacement. Figure out how you’ll get this information. Will you have a meeting with the exiting employee? Will they train their replacement? Make a plan so you can get the new employee up to speed, no matter where the exiting employee was on a project.

2. Figure out what you need in a replacement. IT recruiting firms suggest you continue by pulling up the resume you hired this employee with (if you have it). Think about the strengths and weaknesses they brought to the position. Create a list of what you think you’ll need. The last thing to consider is if you need a full time employee to replace this person or if you need a contractor. IT recruiters can help you find either. There are certainly advantages to both.

3. Call your trusted technical recruiters. Meet with your IT recruiters and share the information you’ve gathered in steps 1 and 2. Be honest about what you need and give timelines for when you’d like to have the replacement employee. Share your knowledge transfer plan. The more you share with IT recruiting companies, the more they can help you find the best fit for your open job.

4. Consider taking feedback from the rest of your team as you complete the hiring process. IT staffing companies suggest you ask for feedback and guidance from you team, as they may have a uniquely useful perspective on what you’ll need in a new hire. It’s also important for the new hire to fit into your team. Corporate culture is highly underrated. Picking somebody who’s technically fit for the role and who gets along well with the team, end users, clients, etc will be far more successful.

when-it-professionals-quit — Don’t panic when an IT employee quits. Just focus on how to transfer important knowledge to their replacement. Photo credit: stevepb via Pixabay.

Job Search Tip: Employers are Probably Googling You You

October 17, 2016

Some IT professionals are surprised when they find out that IT recruiters and potential employers Google them. Some even ask if it’s illegal. The truth is, if technical recruiters and employers aren’t running background checks on you, they’re very likely Googling you and checking out what you’ve posted publicly on social media. One of the best job search tips that IT recruiters can give you is that Googling candidates is not only legal, it’s normal.

Candidates should know that IT staffing companies and employers are very likely to see what they’ve posted on social media publicly or to find a blog if it’s obviously connected to them. Recent studies show that somewhere around 75 – 80% of employers will wind up doing at least some cursory Googling on a candidate before hiring them. In the tech field it’s especially common for candidates to be handling sensitive data or a company’s digital infrastructure. Sometimes this means that IT recruiting firms are required by law to run background checks on a candidate. Sometimes it just means the employer needs IT staffing agencies to do a more basic check (like Googling) on a candidate. Being able to trust a new hire, especially if they’re going to have access to a company’s sensitive data or digital infrastructure is paramount.

So what should you do to be ready for employers to Google you or do a background check? For a background check, it’s pretty easy to prepare. Your IT recruiting companies will often run these. They’ll ask you for a little information, your permission, and then they’ll proceed. If you have anything in your past that may hurt your chance at landing the IT jobs you’re being considered for, it’s important to speak to your IT staffing firms right away. Explain what you think they could find and why it shouldn’t impede you from being a great fit for the job. Sometimes IT recruiters can help advocate for you by explaining negative things that come up in a background check. They have the ear of the hiring manager, so they will often listen to the recruiter instead of just taking the candidate out of the running.

To get ready for IT recruiting agencies and potential employers to Google you, there are a few more steps. Start by cleaning up your social media. Delete any political, intolerant, and controversial posts. You should also delete any posts that show you doing things that are embarrassing. (It’s also best to just delete any posts that show you drinking.) Your goal is to edit down your social media to show a version of you that wouldn’t offend or throw off any potential employers. In a recent study by Careerbuilder, as many as 48% of employers have found things on social media that made them reconsider hiring a candidate. Potential employers have so little data about you when they make a hiring decision. For this reason, you don’t want any of it to possibly be negatively perceived. Once your online presence is cleaned up, test the waters and Google yourself. If everything that comes up would be ok for an employer to see, you’re ready for your best job search.