Tag Archives: IT staffing companies

How to Keep your Tech Job Search Discreet

May 4, 2018

With such a hot IT job market right now, it’s a great time to be looking for a new one. With so many open IT jobs, the hardest part may not be finding one. The hardest part will be be conducting your job search without tipping off your boss. Here are some tips from IT staffing companies for discreetly going about your next search.

Location, Location, Location. Utilize local coffee shops for calls with recruiters and phone screens when you have to take a call during work hours. You can also take a call in your car during a break or while driving to or from work. The key is to pick a quiet location where you have good service on your phone. You don’t want to spend a call with a hiring manager fervently whispering or worrying a coworker will overhear you. The most ideal circumstance, if you can achieve it, is to set up any calls before work or after and take them at your house, on a landline, in a room by yourself.

Keep your resume posted as confidential and don’t make your LinkedIn updates public. Your job search will be conducted almost entirely online, but you don’t have to make it obvious. IT recruiters suggest posting your resume as confidential on job boards and choosing the right settings on your LinkedIn. (Obviously, you don’t want to make your tagline ‘Seeking new opportunities,’ either.) Even if you think your boss would never look online or go on LinkedIn, you don’t know who else may see evidence of your job search. People may gossip about your search or even tell your boss directly.

Don’t discuss your job search with coworkers. While it can be tempting, this is a mistake that might really sink you. As tempting as it is to talk about your search, it can be even more tempting for your coworker to talk about it with somebody else. Even the coworker who’s your best friend might accidentally let news of your job search slip. IT staffing agencies suggest you only talk about your search with people outside of work, like family and non-coworker friends. It’s your safest bet.

Change for interviews outside of the office. If you need to change into a suit for an interview (and IT staffing firms always suggest wearing a suit), don’t change in your office or come into work wearing a suit. Stop off at a coffee shop, a local mall, etc. Wearing a suit when you normally don’t will certainly spark curiosity. Worse, you may have to answer questions about it and be forced to lie. It’s worth it to just change elsewhere to avoid any of this!

Take enough PTO when you schedule an interview. Technical recruiters suggest taking ample time for an interview. You may have to do things like coding tests or whiteboarding sessions. You might also get the chance to meet more team members, hiring managers, etc. So take enough time off work to do whatever you need for your interview. You don’t want to miss out on the job because you had to rush back to the office!

Want to see our open IT jobs? Follow us on LinkedIn. We post new jobs daily!

it job search discreet — Don’t discuss your search with your coworkers, no matter how much you want to! Photo credit: philm1310 via Pixabay.

How Employers Can Compete in 2018’s Tech Job Seekers’ Market

March 16, 2018

If your company is looking to hire new tech talent in 2018, you’ll need to get even more competitive. Per the New York Times, the labor market has gotten tighter with our overall unemployment rate at a 17-year low of 4.1%. Tech has an even lower unemployment rate at 2.9%. Add to these numbers the usual dearth of tech talent in the US, and you’ve got a recipe for a very competitive hiring process. Don’t despair, though. If you want to hire great talent for your IT job openings, you can do it with a little elbow grease and these tips from IT staffing companies:

Sell the company more, especially during phone interviews and in-person interviews. IT staffing firms may not have suggested this. Ideally, an interview is more of a 2-way street. It’s about finding the right fit—for both employer and employee. In a labor market so tight, even candidates with prison records are suddenly being considered more frequently, the game has changed a bit. You’ll want to dedicate more time to telling the candidate about your perks, your company culture if it’s fun and collaborative, and any hot technologies you can offer employees a chance to get experience with. It can also be a good idea to consider giving a tour of the company, introducing candidates to the team, and highlighting your Glassdoor reviews if you have a lot of good ones and a high overall score. Taking steps like this helps the candidate to picture themselves working for you—and enjoying it!
Make your hiring process faster. IT recruiters find that one of the best ways to excite a candidate is to make them feel valued. Make a candidate feel like they’re your top choice, and your chances of having them join your team soar exponentially. There are a lot of ways to do this, but one especially effective method is to make your hiring process faster. The quicker you can get back to a candidate, the more confident they’ll feel in your interest and/or offers. No candidate wants to feel like a company spent days upon days, or worse, weeks, debating whether they were a good fit…it leads them to feel insecure! Even companies like Google and Amazon have been rumored to quicken their hiring processes lately to deal with a tighter tech labor market! This process has the added side benefits of helping you get better talent overall. IT recruiting companies have long bemoaned slow hiring processes. Even in the best of markets for employers, they’ll still lose you tech candidates, who are often juggling multiple interview processes and are frequently passive candidates. If you can quicken your hiring process, it will help you not only in this intensely competitive job seeker’s market. It will also help you later on if you can keep it up.
Provide flexible work schedules when possible. There are a few things that attract a candidate: the hottest technologies, high salaries, fun perks, and a good commute. Perks and salary are hard to change, since employers often have limited resources. The same is true of commute, of course (your office is located where it’s located, there’s not much that can be done about that, usually.) The technologies you give your employees access to is dependent on your own company goals. It’s not always feasible to change over to a new hot technology when you’re already busy working with another on important projects. This leaves flexible work schedules as your secret weapon in the war for winning top talent. Everyone loves a flexible work schedule. Recent grads, to working parents, to older workers who are possibly busy taking care of elderly parents all appreciate a little work-life balance. The best part about flexible work schedules is that it doesn’t often cost more than trust to implement. You simply have to trust your employees to do what they need to, when they say they will do it. There’s no need to move buildings, find extra money in the budget, or move all your existing code onto a hot new technology you’re not even sure you’ll use next year. Create the kind of environment that supports flexible work schedules– one where nobody ever feels nervous or uncomfortable asking to take a day to work remotely, move their hours, etc. Then sell it to your potential employees. Talk it up in interviews, on your website, on your social media, and make sure your IT recruiting agencies talk it up to candidates! Candidates will be flocking to you in no time!

Want to see our open IT jobs? Follow us on LinkedIn. We post new jobs daily!

How to Decline a Job Offer

March 9, 2018

When you’re in the tech field, job searching can be easier because you’re more in demand. You’ll often have IT staffing companies reaching out to you, even when you’re perfectly happy in your current job. If you are searching, you may be juggling multiple interview processes at a time and even multiple job offers. This means that at some point you’ll be put in the position of declining a job offer. This can be a delicate task with lasting effects. Here are some tips from IT recruiters on how to gracefully decline a job offer and avoid burning any bridges in the tech sphere.

You must respond. Do not under any circumstances just ignore the offer. Reach out to the employer or technical recruiters and reject the offer if you don’t want it. You’ll definitely torpedo your reputation with employers and IT recruiting companies if you don’t give any response to a job offer. Putting out job offers is a labor-intensive process for employers that takes a lot of time. To not even give a rejection is unthinkably rude and makes you look incredibly unprofessional.
Keep it quick. Don’t drag your feet on rejecting a job offer when you know it’s not right for you. The sooner you can tell the employer no, the better the whole interaction will go. It’s especially important not to do something like accepting a job offer, then waiting for something better. Or dragging your feet to respond to a job offer while waiting for something better. It can be tempting, or even feel completely logical to do this. You’ve got to look out for yourself, right? But pulling a move like this will likely hurt you in the future. If you deceive an employer or reject it in a way that obstructs their hiring process, you’ll definitely frustrate them. You’ll probably blackball yourself as an applicant at that company in the future. You’ll also likely hurt your reputation with the people who work there. Considering how small the tech sphere can be sometimes, that’s a big risk to take!
Keep it respectful, gracious, and pleasant. It’s entirely possible to reject a job offer without offending or frustrating a company. If you adopt the right tone and thank the company warmly for their time and consideration, IT recruiting agencies find that you can still walk away with goodwill. Find specific things you genuinely liked about the job, company and/or team and mention them. Specifics will go a long way in proving that the company made a positive impression on you. If you’d like to be able to apply to this employer in the future, say so. It’s entirely possible that a job offer right now at company X isn’t a good fit, but 5 years from now, it will be! Companies understand this and will appreciate it if you’re clear about it. There are cases where this won’t work, of course, but that’s a red flag in itself. If a company responds to a gracious rejection of a job offer with hostility and animosity, then they may not be pleasant to work for anyways!
Give a reason if you have one that is temporary and palatable to an employer. In some cases, it can help to give employers a straightforward, honest reason why you’re rejecting their job offer. It can be completely acceptable to say you’ve received an alternate job offer with a higher salary, better commute, or more flexible schedule. It’s also fine to tell an employer if your personal circumstances have changed and you’re not ready to make start a new job. Maybe you have a sick relative, you need to move, etc. As mentioned before, your aim should be to keep the whole conversation positive. There are definitely reasons that you should NOT give to an employer for rejecting their job offer. The most obvious is if you’re taking a counter-offer from your current employer. While this is usually a bad move to make for yourself (check out this blog post here), it also looks terrible to employers. It can make them feel like you’ve used their (extensive) time and effort just to get yourself a raise from your boss. At the very least, it looks like you have bad judgement, which makes you seem pretty unhirable.

tech job offers — Rejecting a job offer isn’t as easy as saying ‘no.’ Photo credit: TayebMEZAHDIA via Pixabay.

Want to see our open IT jobs? Follow us on LinkedIn. We post new jobs daily!

Tips for Tech Professionals on Writing Killer Interview Thank You Notes

March 5, 2018

Late winter and early spring are a great time to search for IT jobs. Budgets have recently been approved to hire more people, and the tech economy is booming. Addtionally, new development life cycles are often scheduled to start about now, and it’s the time of year when companies are often revisiting their products, services, and technologies, working on adding new features to applications and general improvements to keep competitive. If you’re ready to job search, or perhaps you’ve already started, here’s one skill you can sharpen to really enhance your tech job search: writing thank you notes. Here are some tips from IT recruiters on how to write the kind of thank you note that impresses tech hiring managers.

Take notes in your interview. This tactic isn’t just about looking and being more engaged in the interview (though that certainly wins you points). It’s also about writing a better thank you note later. Mark down important points you discuss in the interview. What are imperative job functions do they bring up? Are there any problems they’re facing as a company that you could help with? Do they pose any questions that you might be more able to answer after a bit more thought? These are the kinds of things to add into your thank you note later. Time and again, IT staffing companies find that a generic thank you note (one that feels like it’s all from a template) will never impress hiring managers like a thank you note that makes reference to specifics from the interview. In fact, some IT recruiters believe that a generic thank you note will hurt your candidacy more than help it!
Be prompt. A thorough, detailed thank you note that’s beautifully-written will never make much of a splash if it’s too late. Especially in the fast-paced tech industry, IT recruiting firms find that time is of the essence. When you finish your interview, head home as soon as you can to write your thank you note. Sending it the day of the interview (if possible) or within 24 hours is ideal. Sending the note 48 hours later can be acceptable if you get really tied up. If you send the note late, you might even find that the hiring manager has already assumed you’re not sending it and thus dinged your candidacy—or even rejected you for it.
Send individual thank you notes. If you interview with multiple people, try to get their individual contact info from your technical recruiters. Writing each of them a note will show a level of care that goes above and beyond what most candidates demonstrate. If you can add a detail into each note that really personalizes it, that’s even better. Especially today, where best practices for innovation involve so much teamwork, and Scrum and Agile have replaced the need for heads-down Waterfall-type tech professionals, showing off extra effort in your interpersonal skills can be key. Individual, personalized thank you notes could make you seem like the kind of team player that hiring managers will love working with.
Use your thank you note to address your weaknesses or concerns with your candidacy. This may not always be necessary, but if you felt there were concerns or weaknesses brought up in your interview, a thank you note can be a great place to address that. The key is to keep things positive and, if possible, focus on how you’re already working to remedy these potential issues. IT staffing agencies find that if you can handle this right, your thank you note can certainly strengthen your candidacy, as it’s your last impression on a hiring manager before they make their decision!

Interview thank you notes — Great thank you notes don’t feel like templates. Photo credit: 6689062 via Pixabay.

Want to see our open IT jobs? Follow us on LinkedIn. We post new jobs daily!

What’s the Difference between Your Resume, LinkedIn Profile, and Job Application?

February 16, 2018

Hunting for new IT jobs means you’ll find yourself submitting some of the same information over and over again. Between interactions with hiring managers, IT recruiters, and interviewers, you may be answering the same question repeatedly. Some of this repetition is necessary, though. This is particularly true within your job search materials. Below are the similarities and differences between these three items. Knowing them can help you create better job search materials—and will probably help you land the tech jobs you want. Here are some tips from IT staffing agencies for your resume, your LinkedIn profile and your job application.

Your LinkedIn Profile – This is the most recent addition to the job search process, but it doesn’t mean it’s optional. Especially in the tech field, not having a LinkedIn profile will be deeply detrimental to your job search. Technical recruiters find that some hiring managers will even automatically reject a candidate for having no LinkedIn profile. As you write your LinkedIn profile, keep a few things in mind. Firstly, condense your profile. Your LinkedIn profile is meant to be an abbreviated version of your resume. Since most tech resumes can be a few pages (or more) it’s all the more important for IT professionals to abide by this rule. Secondly, your LinkedIn profile should include 2 or 3 bullets (more if you have fewer jobs to list) that discuss what you did at each job. Some recruiters find that candidates will simply give a job title or a description of what the company does. This is not enough. Leave the description of the company off your profile (hiring managers can look up what the company does). Give enough information for a hiring manager or recruiter to understand your technical experience on a basic level.

Your Resume – Your resume is arguably the most important part of your IT job search, so don’t be haphazard about it. The best case scenario is that you constantly update your resume, even when you’re not job searching. If you pick up a new technology or language, add it. If you achieve something important at your current job, add it to your resume. Then, when you’re ready to search for a new job, all you’ll need to do is polish it up.

When you are ready to polish up your resume, there are 2 important things to pay attention to. First, the length. Resumes are different from LinkedIn profiles because they’re usually much longer. Tech professionals are not held to the 1 page (or 2 pages for more experienced professionals) resume rule that most fields are. Brevity takes a back seat to making sure you give adequate descriptions of how you used the technologies you specialize in. It’s not enough to list the technologies in your ‘Technical Proficiencies’ section at the top of your resume. You need to include demonstrations of the work you used these technologies for within the bullet points. While you only give 2 or 3 bullets in your LinkedIn profile under each job, you want to give at least double that on your resume. (And don’t waste these bullets with descriptions of what the company does because again, hiring managers can look this up themselves).

The second thing to pay attention to when building your resume is to make sure it is similar to your LinkedIn profile when it comes to dates and employers. There should be no discrepancies on the basic history of your career. If there are, hiring managers will likely reject you immediately. Being trustworthy is imperative, no matter how many advanced programming languages you’re an expert at.

Your Job Application – This is the part of the job search process that candidates find the most repetitive. You can often skip it when you’re applying with IT staffing companies for contracting positions. When you’re applying for direct hire and permanent jobs, though, you’ll often have to complete a job application in addition to submitting a resume. This is usually necessary for HR departments and their own hiring processes. The good news is, more and more frequently, you’re allowed to parse your resume into job applications. The most important thing to note with job applications is that your dates and employment history must line up with your LinkedIn profile and resume. As noted above, a discrepancy will make you look untrustworthy to employers and potentially result in rejection. Be patient, fill out the job application accurately, and check it over before you submit it. Landing a job you love in the end will be worth it.

Job applications may seem repetitive and unnecessary but don’t rush through them! Photo credit: Free-Photos via Pixabay.

Why Tech Employers Should Still Consider Candidates with Big Gaps on their Resumes

January 18, 2018

When you’re hiring for tech positions, it can be tempting to toss out any resumes with a gap of 6 months or more. IT recruiters see this all the time, especially because the tech job market is so hot these days. (To put that in perspective, the unemployment rate for IT professionals in the first quarter of 2017 was 2.5% according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The overall unemployment rate in the first quarter of 2017 was almost double that! It was 4.5%.) IT staffing companies find that employers often think if somebody is unemployed for long, there’s something wrong with them. The truth is, there are some legitimate reasons candidates might have big gaps on their resumes. Here’s why you may want to consider a candidate, even if they have a long gap on their resume.

1. Their reasons for a gap are solid. It’s becoming more and more common for people to leave the workforce temporarily to care for a relative. This will only continue as the Baby Boomer generation continues to age. Taking time off to care for a new baby or sick relative doesn’t tell a hiring manager anything about a candidate’s skills, performance, or dedication to work. The truth is, many people may face caregiving dilemmas over their lifetimes. Sharp, efficient, talented IT professionals and unskilled ones alike take time off for caregiving. So the next time you see a resume with a large gap taken for caregiving, remember that you could just as easily be in the same boat one day! It’s also important to remember that there’s a very real dearth of IT professionals in the US right now. You don’t want to limit your talent pool any further than it’s already been limited.

2. Their technical skills may not be impacted by a gap. With all the options for independent study, online classes, certifications, and more, it’s possible that a candidate has taken time off from a formal job but they haven’t taken time off from keeping up their technical expertise. If you see a resume with a sizable gap and it concerns you, check out their technical proficiencies section. Some people might even have a better arsenal of technical skills after taking time off from the workforce. They may have used the time off to learn more than they would if they were working.

3. Their base of technical skills might be enough, even if they don’t have the hottest new technologies under their belts. Especially recently, IT staffing firms notice that companies will hire candidates with strong, basic foundations of technical skills. Then they’ll just teach them the technologies they lack. This works because there are many languages a candidate can learn that will prep them to quickly and easily acquire more languages. Even if a candidate was out of work for a period of time and isn’t up to date with Python, for example, they might still have Ruby on Rails. Knowing Ruby on Rails will make it easy for the candidate to pick up Python and perform a role that requires it.

4. Their technical skills might not be up to date due to time taken off work, but they could have more vital skills. As mentioned before, candidates can be (and are!) often caught up with technical knowledge on the job. IT recruiting companies find that for some roles that require soft skills, companies will hire people with those skills. They’ll then catch them up on the technical skills they need. For some roles, like Helpdesk or Sales Engineer, having soft skills is imperative. It’s arguably more important that having the right technical skills or experience. For instance, a Sales Engineer who is charming and engaging with clients but needs to learn SAP on the job is a better hire than a candidate who knows SAP but is rude and off-putting to clients.

Tech resumes — Is a big gap always a problem on a resume? Photo credit: rawpixel via Pixabay.

Why Were You Rejected from that Tech Job?

January 9, 2018

So you polished up your resume, you built a stellar list of references, and you got yourself submitted to some IT jobs that look perfect for you. But lo and behold, your IT staffing firms called you to let you know you didn’t land the job (or maybe even the interview). What happened? What should you do? Here’s a little insider info from IT recruiting firms.

Why didn’t you get the job? There are a lot of factors why people are rejected from the hiring process. You may never know which reasons apply to you, but it can be a comfort to know them, because many of them are completely out of your control and have nothing to do with your marketability as an IT professional. Here are the main reasons IT recruiters see people rejected from a job.

The project or the role changed. This happens all the time, especially with more technical roles. The kinds of projects that IT professionals work on are subject to change for all the usual reasons a company’s project changes, but also because technologies themselves change so quickly. Perhaps a company plans to use Angular for a project, but decides they’d like to move on to a hotter new technology and use Angular 2. That means the roles they’re hiring for drastically change, just like that! Roles will also change if they’ve been open for a long time. If a company is having a hard time finding the perfect software developer, the life cycle development of a project still won’t stop. A team could need a software developer with different skills as the project progresses.
You weren’t a culture fit. This may seem like a small thing compared to technical acumen, but IT staffing agencies find that it’s not. In fact, one of our own technical recruiters estimates that culture fit issues account for 50-60% of the candidate rejections he sees! The days of heads-down coders are over and Scrum and Agile are all the rage. Companies usually want a team that gels well, because they’ll be working together closely. For roles that are client-facing or customer service oriented, this becomes all the more imperative. If, for instance, you’re applying for a Helpdesk role or Sales Engineer role, having a warm, engaging personality is one of the explicitly stated job requirements.
Maybe other candidates really were just better. It’s natural to feel like you’re the best candidate for the job. The truth is, though, you’ll almost always be competing against other candidates. You never know if your completion has more experience, a better arsenal of technologies at their disposal, or is just more pleasant to work with. You may always feel like you’re the best fit for the job, but statistically speaking, you can’t always be the best fit for the job. Sometimes another candidate is a better match.

What can you do if you don’t get the role?

You can start by politely asking your IT recruiters for feedback. If they have it, they’ll often be happy to share. It could be that you can get actionable feedback, like a suggestion to get more experience with a particular technology, or that you came across as rude in your interview. On the other hand, sometimes there is no feedback.
It’s important not to try to argue your candidacy with the recruiter, and especially not the hiring manager. This strategy never lands somebody the job. In fact, often it burns a bridge and blacklists you at that company in the future. Hiring managers don’t appreciate being told that they don’t know how to make good decisions for their teams. They also don’t want to hire people who look arrogant. You will likely accomplish one or both of those if you push back when a hiring manager rejects you.
Try to remember that if you don’t land a job, it’s like dodging a bullet. Whether you’re rejected by IT staffing companies at the application stage or later after an interview, what you’re essentially hearing is that the employer doesn’t have confidence you’d be successful in the role. Even if you could do the role just fine, who wants to work in a job where their boss isn’t sure they can hack it? A rejection is just saving your from pain down the road and opening you up for a job that you can succeed and be happy in.

A Checklist for Your Tech Job Search

January 5, 2018

While the tech job market always seems to be hot, January is an especially good time to be searching. Many companies begin their fiscal year in January and have the budget to hire new IT professionals. IT recruiters also find that companies often start development life cycles in January. With new applications to develop, companies will have their technical recruiters looking for new software programmers, web developers, UX/UI developers, etc to hire. It’s also worth noting that it’s very advantageous to get hired at the beginning of a development life cycle. Having experience with a project from beginning to end (or beginning to maintenance) looks excellent on a resume. IT staffing firms love to see that kind of experience on your resume. So if you’re ready to look for new IT jobs, January is the time to do it! Here’s a checklist to prep yourself.

Your Resume: Get it updated and clean out old/irrelevant experience (probably anything older than the last 10 years or anything that’s in a totally different, irrelevant field). Remember to use your bullets to show off your contributions and achievements at the companies you’ve worked with. Help hiring managers and IT recruiting agencies see the value you bring as an employee. Post your updated resume on the job boards, especially if it’s been a while since you last searched.
Your LinkedIn Profile: This is almost as important as your resume. Since the vast majority of people in tech use LinkedIn, it can sometimes be considered a red flag if you don’t have a profile there. Make sure you update your LinkedIn profile more concisely than your resume. You can use your resume to elaborate on your technical skills and experience.
Your References: Check in with them and let them know you’re job searching. Give them an idea of the kinds of roles you’re looking for. Thank them for their help with your job search. (And don’t forget to thank them again when you land your new job!)
Your Portfolio: If you’re a Graphic Designer, Web Developer, UX/UI Developer, or have a skill-set in a similar vein, you may want to get your portfolio ready. Make sure you have your latest and best samples of your work added in. Be aware of copyright issues and don’t openly break them if your company won’t allow you to share examples of your work for them. No employer wants to hire somebody who seems untrustworthy.
Call IT Recruiters: If you’ve already developed a relationship with recruiters, give them a call and send along your latest resume. If you haven’t worked with IT staffing companies before, now’s a great time to do it! Find an IT recruiting firm that has a great reputation and reach out with your job search materials. A good technical recruiter will help you find a job that you love and can succeed in.

Tech job search checklist — Get ready to land a great new IT job. Photo credit: TeroVeslainen via Pixabay.

The Key to More IT Jobs in 2018

December 21, 2017

Do you plan to look for new IT jobs in 2018? If so, you should consider adding blockchain to your arsenal of technical skills. IT staffing firms are already seeing the need for blockchain ramp up, but it’s only going to grow in the coming year. Here’s a little more info about what blockchain is and where it can help you land a new job.

What is blockchain? Blockchain is allows users to execute secure and reliably tracked transactions online. It was originally created for digital currency and Bitcoin in particular. Blockchain lets digital info be distributed, but not copied. It can help users create a ledger system that is permanent, public, invulnerable to tampering, and accurate. With these capabilities, it’s easy to see why blockchain isn’t just applicable to the finance sector. Companies and organizations across a wide variety of industries are asking IT staffing companies to help them find blockchain developers.

What kinds of jobs can blockchain get me? Since blockchain helps create reliable and public ledgers, the possibilities are nearly endless. Finance jobs are an obvious case here. Finance has accepted blockchain as the way of the future so wholeheartedly that major giants like JP Morgan and the big four accounting firms are all testing or using blockchain. Outside of Finance, blockchain is applicable in more creative fields, like the music industry. Blockchain is already being used to track payments and creative fees owed to artists. Government is another industry that’s happy to embrace blockchain. The UN, The World Bank, and Russia’s government have all used or are about to use blockchain. Nonprofits have also jumped on the bandwagon here. Most notably, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is finding uses for blockchain in its operations.

Want to see our open IT jobs? Follow us on LinkedIn. We post new jobs daily!

IT job search 2018 — Ready for a new IT job? Photo credit: markusspiske via Pixabay.

Programmers: Are You Holding Your Own Career Back With This Mistake?

December 11, 2017

JavaScript frameworks like React and Angular are trendy skills for Programmers to have right now. This is true for a few reasons. Firstly, both are the latest shiny new technologies. Secondly, one of the main reasons React is popular is because it’s great for mobile application development. One of the biggest reasons Angular is popular is because it’s simple and easy to use since it’s built with HTML. No matter how many reasons you can list for Angular or React’s popularity, though, it’s not going to help you to focus solely on them. It won’t even help you to focus on the next hot JavaScript framework. If you just try to chase the latest JavaScript framework, you’re probably doing yourself a disservice. Here’s why it’s imperative to focus on the fundamentals of JavaScript if you want to further your career or widen your tech job search.

Avoid falling victim to obsolescence

While it’s always helpful to have the newest, hottest technologies on your resume, IT recruiters would suggest that you also don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket. JavaScript frameworks will come and go, but the fundamentals of JavaScript will always be useful to you. Don’t focus on flashy new frameworks like React to the exclusion of JavaScript basics. You’ll be glad when React becomes dated and you’ve got the base knowledge to master the new, trendy famework!

Ensure your success once you land the job

You might find yourself up the creek without a paddle if you don’t have a good enough base of JavaScript fundamentals. Knowing the latest and greatest framework might get you in the door, but IT staffing companies see people land in hot water when they’re missing a solid base of JavaScript knowledge. Perhaps you need to do something more complicated than what React will help you achieve. Perhaps the company has not changed all their code over to the new framework because of security concerns, lack of funds, or lack of staff. You may still need a solid understanding of JavaScript to complete your work, even if Angular was talked up as more important in the interview. It’s also worth noting that because of the speed of technology, projects and job descriptions can change all the time. A Node project today could become a Node and JavaScript project tomorrow to meet new business requirements. The job your technical recruiters helped you land today may not be the one you need to do next week. If your employer needs more from you, it’s important not to get caught without a strong base of JavaScript!

Programming careers — Are you just chasing the next hot framework? Photo credit: Markusspiske via Pixabay.