Technical candidates reading this book who may be familiar with the with IT staffing industry purely from working with technical recruiters in the past, and maybe getting placed into contract or contract-to-perm IT job positions may be surprised to learn about how wide the range is for the variety of job types a technical recruiter will handle. Not only do technical staffing firms place temporary contract positions, they offer direct hire opportunities, executive search options and vendor on premise arrangements.

Provenzano inserts over 150 pages of genuinue executive-level resumes in the book for prime examples of what technical candidates want to use as a model when crafting a technical resume. IT staffing firms looking to keep a competitive edge will find the insights useful for technical candidates, and IT staffers focused on providing solid resume-editing advice. The book also offers before and after examples to display the kind of transformation a technical resume can undergo to bring simply stating technical skill-sets to selling technical employers on their specific value to their company and open position.

One formula Combs identifies that IT headhunters and other professionals working at technical staffing firms will find invaluable is her identification of predictable patterns in technical training availability within companies. For this reason, technical candidates in a position of employment seeking to make a move can take advantage of these training cycles in order to best position themselves to make an advantageous move into their next role. IT staffing firms who can encourage this type of strategy will be best placed to capitalize on it.

Schweyer’s expertise in recruitment technology can benefit technical hiring managers working for an IT staffing firm in the technical recruiting industry. Best practices, according to him, include understanding that in a knowledge-based economy, what a technical employer values most in an IT candidate is the individual’s information reserves. A quality so qualitative cannot fully be captured on a resume, which is where an IT staffer’s specialized knowledge value comes into play: assessing those skills, and separating the technical candidate as a fully-rounded worker from his or her accomplishments. As professionals working in a fast-growing industry, IT headhunters can’t afford not to be up-to-date on the latest technological recruiting practices.

Accordingly, Moreira discusses the power of first impressions, and how technical candidates can make the best possible fist impression. The ability to anticipate re-occuring interview questions is a key skill for a good interviewing impression, so a portion of this book is devoted to key technical interview questions. Any technical employer will be interviewing multiple candidates for any open IT position, so the next step for a candidate who has mastered the skills of fitting in, and presenting according to expectations, is to go beyond that level of interview performance and stand out from the competition in a positive way — a way that will make him or her memorable in an interviewer’s mind. IT staffers will find this book invaluable for giving technical candidates the best possible interview prep for closing an IT job that will last till contract end, or be extended.

According to Rothwell, one of the secrets to getting top talent in the first place is to agressively recruit from competitors. Once that process is underway or complete, the next essential step to ensure a placement in an IT job is careful candidate grooming. The technical candidate must be technically proficient at a minimum — the rest: killer interviewing skills, attention to dress code, culture fit, language use, and more are the responsibility of the technical recruiter’s coaching right up until the point a candidate enters an interview. Without thorough prepping, an IT staffing expert is setting up his or her candidate to either fail, or miss his or her potential by a slim margin. No technical staffer can afford either scenario, so a careful read of this book will equip the competitive IT staffer for top sales performance.

Topics covered include: techniques for attracting top technical talent, how to engage in proactive IT staffing, how to recruit with diversity in mind, how to match client company needs with technical candidate qualifications, and retention techniques. As noted in the book, retention involves the art of maintaining a strong relationship with a technical candidate throughout the full period of the contract. Allowing the relationship to slip once the contracts are in and the candidate has put in a first day or a first week could be the difference between keeping the candidate for the length of the contract and having them seek employment elsewhere. Learn about contentment in a technical candidate, and how to be instrumental in maintaining it in this insightful read.

One challenge a technical hiring manager may face is difficulties maintaining exclusivity. In the competitive IT recruiting industry, other IT staffing agencies may seek to interfere with a headhunter’s exclusive job coverage. Dawson reveals techniques for protecting those exclusive relationships, and turning them into solid placements for good IT professionals. He also covers the art of negotiating rates, a key factor for a technical candidate’s contentment and likelihood of staying in a role on a long-term contract. He closes with tips on managing references, and interview strategies. Pick up this book for a thorough look at a technical recruiters’ task list!

According to Vanderbilt, workforce strategies centered around changes in the job markets are some of the most key areas that technical staffers can focus in on to increase their performance levels. Vanderbilt terms the intense competition for job placement capital the “staffing war”. She reveals the tactics top IT staffing agencies will need to acquired to acquire and maintain a competitive edge. Recruiting companies that want to stay abreast of the latest technical recruiting trends will want to grab a copy of this book.

A technical recruiter specializing in headhunting may see a technical candidates’ resume as an ideal match for an open IT job he or she is trying to place, but the hiring manager may feel differently. Whether the IT position is a remote job, requires an in-person interview, or a series of phone interviews, fit matters. A technical hiring manager wants not just the skill-set, but also someone he or she can respect and work well with. Even for a remote IT job, communication between a hiring manager and technical candidate via email may still play a key part in the project completion process. A hiring manager’s priorities will be affected by bias — as Rey notes in secret number 1, and discrimination for some small imperfection in a technical recruiter’s mind, such as sub-par communication skills may be crucial for a hiring manager’s comfort levels when working with a technical candidate. For this reason, a marginally less-qualified technical candidate may be selected over a standout from a skill perspective, because there is more to the big picture in a role than simply qualifications.

It may seem frustrating to an IT staffer that predicting the success of candidates that seem qualified can seem as chancey as betting, but at the end of the day, that’s the game of the technical staffing industry, and IT recruiters just have to keep their batting averages as high as possible.

A technical manager’s salary expectations will be specific and within a range, non-negotiable, so IT staffing firms that collect that piece of information accurately up front from a technical candidate will be in the best position to consider viable job matches. On the same note, technical company benefits packages will factor heavily into a technical candidate’s decision-making process. Lastly, Soat advises, top-tier technical talent seeks reputation. Technical candidates want to work for a company that not only has an excellent reputation from a work atmosphere standpoint, but also from a products and services perspective. Technical recruiters and IT staffing firms that know how to assess companies according to this criteria will have a better chance of knowing which IT positions to match top technical candidates with for a lasting fit. IT recruiting in the technical staffing industry is a matter of understanding what technical candidates are looking for, and what the firms that hire them want. Put those two pieces together, and you’ve got a win for technical candidates and hiring managers alike!

The specialist in technical skills is part of the talent cycle, starting with the hiring process, through the training experience, and finally, to the execution of the technical role requirements. The current technical professional filling a given role should fill the position with the expectation that the position will eventually be transferred to someone else, and document and communicate elements of the role accordingly. That way, a technical candidate who takes over when the prior role-holder moves up the career ladder will have a better. Doing so involves developing practical repeatable processes. As any recruiter in a technical staffing agency knows, the existence of repeatable processes is a key factor in successful transfer of responsibility. Talent strategy plays a central role in an IT staffing firms’ approach to technical recruiting, so recruitment specialists will find this book’s advice to be valuable knowledge. Filling IT jobs can have its complexities, and this book helps simplify them. Boston recruiters working in technical staffing companies can take note — as can technical recruiters in any territory.

The book also tackles the issue of efficiency. The IT Staffing Firm that can land more technical candidates in less time without sacraficing quality in the skills of the candidates submitted will make better use of company time than less-efficient IT Staffing Agencies. Technical Staffing Firms know that time is money, so time well spent means happy technical recruiters and technical hiring managers. If technical headhunting is a game of minutes, Ogbanufe shows how to best track those minutes to add up to hours that count. Technical recruiting companies will find tips in this book on understanding the job description of the SQL Server Developer more fully in order to best understand the type of technical candidate best suited to filling the role, and a guide to the technical terms most common in job descriptions for these roles. Finally, the book delves into the art  and science of building relationships with these technical candidates, and keeping the communication lines open. That’s something that anyone in technical recruitment will find valuable!

He covers how to review resumes efficiently and in a profitible way. He also delves into interview techniques that allow technical recruiters to interview a diverse technical candidate pool in a courteous and resepectful way. The type of questions technical staffing firm reps ask technical candidates is a big factor in achieiving the interview balance; another key part of the equation is how the questions are phrased. Phone screening the technical candidate is a key skill the IT staffing recruiter needs to get a handle on, as is the reference check. He closes with tips on extending an offer. This book has everything recruiters at IT staffing agencies need to close the deal for their best technical candidates.

IT recruiting companies looking to hone their technical staffing skills will find this book useful. McDowell’s advice is more than opinion- as a former member of Google’s hiring committee, he’s not bluffing when he claims to know what top tech firms demand in a technical candidate.  The book’s behind-the-scenes look at tech companies gives technical recruiters a better idea of how to make a good fit between a technical candidate and employer based on knowledge of various tech firm’s corporate environment. Reading this book will make the technical recruiters at any IT staffing firm more competitve, and more successful at what they do — finding the right technical candidate.

Aside from the IT staffing and technical interviewing side of the business technical hiring managers deal with, techncial recruiters work in professional environments with a strong team element, and Spolsky offers valuable advice recruiting firms can use to build a stronger, more cohesive work environment. He speaks to problem-solving for recruiting teams that aren’t delivering up to potential, keeping technical recruiters up-to-date with the latest phone screen techniques, and tips on sorting technical resumes. One chapter IT recruiters won’t want to miss is “The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing”! If your passion is technical recruiting, you’re new to the industry, or work for an IT staffing firm, pick up a copy today and treat yourself to Spolsky’s technical expertise.

Ford delves into interviewing strategies for technical recruiters that will help cut through the fluff and determine which IT candidate interview answers reveal stellar potential or a second or third-place contender. As every technical recruiter knows, generating viable leads is a cornerstone aspect of the IT staffing industry. IT recruiting companies need well-developed telemarketing tactics, and this book provides insight into this side of the business. Recruiting firms will find this book a valuable source of IT staffing information that will serve IT headhunters well over time.

According to Bowman, part of success in the IT Staffing industry depends on the technical recruiter’s ability to add personal knowledge to the information the client company provides. This comes down to understanding fully what the client company is looking for, beyond the standard HR description of a technical role. There’s an art to extracting the full description of what a client is seeking, since technical skills may cover 80% of the total picture the client seeks, but the remaining 20% may involve other factors. Getting inside the head of the vendor is what will make an IT staffing firm more successful than competitors at making placements that last the length of the contract and are a good fit.

Technical qualifications are no longer everything. Technical skills are still, as ever, center stage, but technical employers place a high value on other skills as well. Those skills include communication ability, company environment fit, and personality type. A fast-paced technical environment will look for different personality types in their IT candidates than a smaller, less rushed company atmosphere will. A Beginner’s Guide keeps technical recruiters abreast of culture changes like these in the staffing industry, and offers advice for technical recruiters looking to best take maximize the power of this industry knowledge.  IT candidates qualified on all skill facets important to technical employers are easier for technical recruiters to spot after reading this book. Read it today for practical technical recruiting tips!

Obi Ogbanufe tackles this and other issues surrounding technical recruiting for Java Developers. He includes real examples of successful Java Developer screening questions, and discusses which IT candidates’ answers match what IT employers are looking for, and which answer types should serve as red flags to IT recruiters. IT Staffing Firms like AVID Technical Resources take the phone-screening process seriously, using it to filter out weaker IT candidates from the ones that technical recruiters see potential in. One key element in a successful Java Developer placement is a technical recruiter’s understanding of the technology itself. By familiarizing him or herself with the Java technology, a technical recruiter will be better equipped to identify incomplete or inaccurate answers to interview questions instantly. A technical recruiter with this ability will operate more efficiently and make better use of each work day than a recruiter who needs to seek advice on the accuracy level of each candidates’ replies. Efficiency and speed leads to more successful IT job placements, and thats a win-win for IT candidates and technical recruiters alike.