Don’t Ask This Question in IT Job Interviews
Most IT recruiters and IT staffing firms remind their candidates to ask questions in interviews for IT jobs. As technical recruiters and IT staffing agencies will explain, you’ll quickly lose out on a job if you have no questions to ask. There are quite a few questions that will leave a great impression on your interviewer and IT recruiting companies. There are also plenty of questions that will be almost as damaging as not asking any questions at all. One question your IT staffing companies and IT recruiting firms would never want you to ask in an interview is “What’s your turnover rate?”
Why is this question so problematic? While it’s perfectly legitimate to want to know if a company has a high turnover rate, it’s the kind of question you should be asking your IT recruiting agencies. They will be able to get this answer for you without putting your potential new employer on the defensive. Questions like this can come off as hostile and accusatory when you ask your interviewer directly. Come up with a different question to ask your interviewer, one that won’t make them feel uncomfortable!
Leave This Information Off Your IT Resume!
There are some countries where it’s normal to add personal information to IT resumes. IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies want to know things like your birthday, marital status, religion, whether you have kids, etc. Or sometimes IT professionals will list this kind of information not because it’s a cultural norm, but simply because IT recruiting companies have never told them not to.
It’s important for IT professionals seeking new jobs to know that in the US, technical recruiters and IT staffing firms are actually pretty uncomfortable getting personal information on a resume. A hiring manager may actually find somebody to be unprofessional for including it. It could cost you IT jobs to leave all this personal information on your resume. While most IT recruiting firms and IT staffing companies might see past this mistake and help you clean up your resume, it’s best to leave it off in the first place. You’ll save your IT recruiting agencies some time and solidify your impression on them as more professional.
A Surprising IT Job Interview Mistake
Most IT professionals dread being asked about their weaknesses in interviews for IT jobs. It’s often far more difficult to answer these questions, even if your IT recruiters and IT staffing companies have helped you prep for it. Many technical recruiters and IT recruiting agencies have seen people give a lot of bad answers to this question because there’s some bad advice about it. Specifically, if you want to really make your IT recruiting firms, IT staffing agencies and interviewers cringe, list a thinly veiled strength as a weakness (ie say your biggest weakness is that you’re a perfectionist, a workaholic, etc).
Why shouldn’t you answer weakness questions this way in interviews? Firstly, giving an answer like this makes you seem unprofessional and ill prepared. Many IT professionals have heard this bad advice before. However, the well-prepared, experienced ones know enough not to answer weakness questions with a strength. Secondly, giving a strength and trying to disguise it as a weakness doesn’t help your interviewer. They genuinely want to know about you as an employee. If you obstruct that process, you’re probably going to turn them off, if not completely ruin your chances of getting the job. Lastly, you’ll miss a chance to add effectively to your candidacy. Answer the weakness question with a real weakness that you can demonstrate you’re working on, one that wouldn’t impair your ability to do the job well. Through your perseverance and problem-solving strategies, you could really impress your interviewers, IT recruiting companies and IT staffing firms!
IT Professionals Are Still Making This Mistake on Their IT Resumes!
Despite the fact that many IT staffing companies and IT recruiting firms warn against it, IT professionals are still starting their resumes with objectives. Worse, many IT recruiting agencies and IT staffing firms come across resumes with vague objectives that list qualities like ‘team-player’ or ‘thinks outside of the box.’ These objectives don’t even tell technical recruiters, IT staffing companies, or hiring managers anything useful about the candidate. If you’re actually concerned about deleting your objective on your resume, IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies appreciate a brief, well-worded summary. Focus on listing your major technical skills, how much experience you have in the field, and any major achievements in your career. If you construct a brief, fact-oriented, concise summary, IT recruiting companies will b much more able to sell your candidacy to hiring managers.
Don’t Stall Your IT Job Search With This Mistake
Perfecting your IT resume to attract IT recruiting companies and IT staffing firms can be daunting. You want to achieve the best balance of including experience and skills that IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies want to see, all while keep the resume clean and as brief as possible. So if you’ve spent hours agonizing over polishing the perfect resume to attract IT staffing companies and IT recruiting agencies, don’t let it go to waste by making this little mistake: leaving off adequate contact info.
It’s easy to see why some people might think it’s best to avoid giving too much contact info on their resume. There are certainly reasons that people want to make it harder to contact them. However, if you don’t give adequate contact information, technical recruiters will assume you’re not serious about looking for IT jobs. It’s best to at least give your phone number and an email address. Ideally, a link to your LinkedIn profile is helpful, too. Once you are working with IT recruiting firms that you trust, you can take your resume down. This will help you avoid unnecessary exposure.
Clean Up Your IT Resume ASAP!
If you’re trying to attract IT recruiting firms and IT staffing agencies with your resume, you’re probably busy trying to stuff it with your experience, technical skills, and achievements. These are definitely important—if you can’t show the right array of skills, IT recruiters and IT staffing companies won’t even give you a cursory phone call. However, you could be shooting yourself in the foot if your resume layout is messy and inconsistent.
Why do IT recruiting companies and IT staffing firms care if your resume is formatted nicely? While managers want to see that you have the relevant skills and experience to do IT jobs they’re hiring for, it also needs to be obvious. If your resume is confusing or difficult to read, technical recruiters and IT recruiting agencies won’t want to give it to a busy hiring manager. Instead, they’ll pick a resume that’s much easier to read. This is because the manager will find it easier to picture hiring this person! So don’t let your resume’s format be what holds you back—clean it up today!
Are You Wasting Space on Your IT Resume?
Does your IT resume say that you’re a fast learner, a great team player, or that you have an exemplary work ethic? You may think you’re attracting IT recruiters and IT staffing firms, but you’re really just wasting space on your resume. Why?
Particularly when it comes to attracting IT recruiting agencies and IT staffing companies, you want to make sure everything you list on your resume is strong evidence of your value as an employee. When you list soft skills or call yourself something subjective like “creative” or a “perfectionist”, you’re not giving concrete evidence of your candidacy. You’re just listing how you perceive yourself, which is pretty irrelevant to hiring managers and technical recruiters trying to fill IT jobs. Focus on listing your technical skills and your accomplishments. These are what IT recruiting firms and IT staffing agencies love to see. You can elaborate on more subjective traits once you get your new IT recruiting companies on the phone!
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Don’t Make these Mistakes on Your LinkedIn Profile
LinkedIn is an inevitable part of searching for IT jobs these days. While you’ll still need copies of your resume to send to IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies, you’ll also need a great LinkedIn profile to attract those technical recruiters and IT staffing companies. Here are some LinkedIn profile mistakes that will drive IT recruiting agencies and IT staffing firms away.
1. Giving too much irrelevant info: As on your resume, don’t list your college courses, IT jobs from 20 years ago, or give staggering details in descriptions of your past jobs. A LinkedIn profile isn’t necessarily limited to one page, but it should still be as brief and concise as you can make it.
2. Unprofessional pictures: It may seem tempting to just add any picture into your LinkedIn profile. Your picture doesn’t have to be stiff and boring, but a bad picture (or one depicting you doing something, well, bad) will really damage your reputation with IT recruiting firms and hiring managers.
3. Unnecessary endorsements: People may endorse you for a lot of silly or irrelevant skills. Take these out of your profile. They take up too much of the brief time IT recruiting companies will look at your profile. Don’t waste their time or yours—make sure every part of your profile strengthens your candidacy.
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How to Answer This IT Job Interview Question
Your IT recruiters and IT staffing companies probably let you know what technologies to study up on before you interview for IT jobs. If they’re good technical recruiters and IT recruiting agencies, they probably even let you know what soft skills would be important to emphasize. However, there’s one question they’ll leave to you to answer: Why should we hire you?
How can you answer this question so the hiring manager wants to immediately contact your IT recruiting firms and IT staffing agencies to talk about hiring you? The key is not only to answer the question comprehensively, but also uniquely. Most candidates will be able to explain why they have the experience and skills to excel at the job. You and your IT recruiting companies will benefit if you can explain why you are not only qualified to do the job, but that you have some unique experiences, accomplishments, or skills that will be an asset in the role. While you don’t want to give any unprofessional answers, something a bit offbeat will be effective here. Maybe you have work experience in a unique organization, like Outward Bound. Perhaps you have achieved something interesting in your IT career. Whatever the case, if you can talk about it as an illustration of your candidacy for the job, it will make you stand out all the more in your interviewer’s mind!
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Unlimited Parental Leave and Other Work-Life Balance Benefits at IT Jobs
IT recruiters and IT staffing firms are starting to see a lot more discussion among employers and IT professionals about benefits like parental leave. More and more companies are telling technical recruiters and IT staffing agencies that their IT jobs now come with benefit meant to provide work-life balance. The newest company to jump on this bandwagon is Netflix, who is now offering unlimited parental leave.
This policy might seem too good to be true—and the reality is that it could be. As with unlimited vacation time policies, IT staffing companies and IT recruiting firms are likely to find that their candidates simply don’t use this benefit. In companies where the workload is intense, company culture can make it hard to actually take vacation time or parental leave, let alone unlimited time. This is for a lot of reasons: perhaps IT professionals are worried about letting down their managers or their teammates. Perhaps they are simply surrounded by a lot of workaholics and find it hard not to act similarly. Whatever the reasons, these work-life balances are a good first step, but IT recruiting agencies aren’t likely to see them used just yet. It will definitely require an adjustment!
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