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The IT job board, Careerbuilder, conducted a recent survey on tardiness to work illuminates some interesting trends, but it doesn’t tell the whole story for the nuances of what is acceptable in terms of tardiness for jobs in information technology. This year, the survey reports, over a third of hiring managers surveyed had to fire an employee for being late.  In the IT field, IT consultants tend to be doubly responsible in their jobs for tardiness—they report to their IT managers, but they also are technically reporting to IT recruiters Boston, too. If they are fired for lateness, IT contractors are not only losing their own IT jobs, but possibly losing future business for the IT staffing companies who placed them.  This, of course, could burn that bridge for the IT consultant, making IT recruiting agencies reluctant or simply refusing to work with him/her in the future.

Though technical recruiters and IT managers both would certainly prefer uniform promptness, the sheer variety of roles for IT professionals dictates a wide range of lenience for tardiness. The severity of the consequences for lateness definitely vary from role to role.  For instance, a programmer, who works more independently and in a “backroom” capacity, wouldn’t likely cause much of an issue if he was late for his company or his IT staffing agencies.     A help desk role, on the other hand, which is very visible more “front of the house” would certainly hurt his and his IT recruiting firms reputation if he was constantly late and holding up any trouble shooting operations. The permanency of an IT professional is also a factor.  IT contractors hired on a temporary basis (and requiring payment both for their own work and the IT headhunters’ fee) are far more vulnerable to scrutiny than permanent hires.  This scrutiny obviously includes tardiness.

One factor that seems pretty universally irrelevant throughout the IT staffing industry is the reason for tardiness.  Too much of it is always a problem, whether it is because one is busy putting a raincoat on their concrete duck or due to traffic.