Monthly Archives: November 2012

Tailor Your Resume For Each IT Job!

Imagine IT recruiters, HR or IT managers sorting through dozens and dozens of resumes for each IT job.  If you put yourself in their shoes, you’d be more aware of the importance of a nice clean resume….and one that bleeds the position you’re hiring for.  Prospective candidates who send one standard template resume for all IT jobs and to all IT recruiting companies are not setting themselves up for success.  Remember, not all IT recruiters Boston or HR professionals are technical.  Therefore, make sure you tailor your resume towards that technical job you’re applying to.  For example, if you’re a developer with Microsoft .NET experience, and you’re applying to a .NET developer role, change your title from “Software Engineer” to “.NET Developer.”  Once again, your resume should bleed the IT job (without fabrication of course).

IT recruiting firms generally recommend using bullets with a short, precise description of your IT job duties.  These bullets should also mirror the technical position.  Add as many of the technologies that the IT recruiting company or client requires.  Also utilizes a “Skills & Technologies” section in your resume to make sure all of your technical experience is included (and thus ensures your resume pops up in any IT job search that IT recruiters San Diego or technical recruiters Los Angeles put into their search on Monster, Dice or Careerbuilder).

IT recruiters CA look through hundreds of resumes each day for their various technical jobs.  Remember, the ones that stand out are the resumes that are clean, clear and hit as many of their key words as possible that were entered into their search.

Holidays Aren’t Always Cheery For IT Recruiting Firms

While IT recruiters enjoy some time off around the holidays just as much as anyone else, IT staffing companies are a little less cheery than most other industries given the loss of revenue.  Technical recruiters who work for contract IT recruiting agencies, make their money based on how many hours their IT consultants work.   If their IT contractors don’t work, IT recruiters Boston and their respective IT recruiting companies MA don’t get paid.  Therefore, santa isn’t typically dropping off gifts to IT staffing agencies around the holidays.  Instead IT recruiting firms see a drop in revenue and their IT recruiters LA a reduced paycheck for these weeks.

On the flip side, while IT recruiting companies Boston dread looking at their revenue report around the holidays, they love IT consultants who work overtime hours.  Again, IT recruiting firms CA make money off every hour their IT consultants work.  Therefore, OT can be the best friend to IT recruiters San Diego.

Therefore, in an ideal world, IT consultants will make up any missed hours for time off around the holidays to ensure they still put in a forty hour week for both their paycheck and their IT recruiter who ultimately found them the IT job.

Monster: Still the Premiere Resume & IT Job Board

IT staffing companies across the country rely heavily upon technical job boards such as Monster, Dice, CareerBuilder and Linkedin.  IT recruiters Boston have their favorites, their go-to sites, to find information technology professionals.  After discussions with many IT recruiting agencies and their technical recruiters, there is one site that still remains the premier IT job board:  Monster.

Monster still dominates the resume database and IT job posting industry and is far and away the leading resource for IT recruiting companies.  While Dice has carved out a strong IT niche, CareerBuilder is a distant competitor.  Ultimately, from the perspective of technical recruiters, if the candidate has their technical resume posted on CareerBuilder, he or she also has it posted on Monster.  Therefore, for IT staffing firms, why pay the cost for both Monster and CareerBuilder?

One site that is gaining momentum and closing the competitive gap is Linkedin.  While Linkedin is not a traditional resume database, it ultimately is becomming a stronger and stronger search tool for IT recruiters Los Angeles.

Ultimately, from fiscally strong IT staffing agencies to single person IT recruiting firms, the best spend of our IT recruiting job board budget is Monster.  If you have the budget, invest in a Linkedin upgrade for your IT recruiters.

Resumes: Consistency is Key

One of the most important aspects to writing a strong resume is consistency.  IT recruiters working for various IT staffing companies will tell you that a clean, consistent and condenced resume can make the difference between getting that all-important first interview or not be selected at all.  We asked a number of technical recruiters for more specific feedback:

1)  Font:  This is the most obvious key to a sharp resume and the easiest to make consistent.  Highlight the entire IT job resume and choose a font.  Make sure it’s consistent throughout.  There is nothing more frustrating to IT recruiters San Diego than to see inconsistent font.  It’s a clear sign of laziness or lack of attention to detail.

2)  Spacing:  If you skip one space between Objective or Education or Work Experience, be consistent throughout. Single space the resume – there is no need to make a long resume even longer.  IT recruiting firms look for consistent spacing before sending the resume to their clients.

3)  Company info/title:  Whether you bold the company name or that of the various IT recruiting companies that you worked for, then underline your IT job titles (or vice versa), just be consistent.  Do not bold the IT recruiting firm under one past employer, then not the next.

4)  Dates:  If you use months and years (recommended by most IT staffing firms) to accurately show the dates of your employment, be consistent throughout your resume.  Don’t use the month and year under one past employment, then not the next.  Additionally, just using years is frowned upon by most IT recruiters CA as it appears as though the IT job candidate is trying to hide a gap in employment.

5)  Margins:  Lastly, check the margins in your resume and make sure they all line up.  There’s no need for significant spacing on top or the bottom of the resume.  Keep both to a half inch to an inch.

For more questions about resume writing, contact one of our IT recruiters Boston or one of the many IT staffing agencies Boston.

IT Recruiters Who Want to Sell

Some of the best salespeople in the IT staffing industry started as IT recruiters Boston.  Having the experience of working on various requirements, from applications development positions like .NET, Java and PHP to infrastructure support roles like Help Desk, Desktop Support and System Administration.   This experience will give the IT staffing salesperson an understanding of what these IT consultants are looking to make; thus they can calculate accurate proposed bill rates to the clients.

Additionally, IT recruiters CA work on a myriad of information technology positions, thus widening their technical knowledge.

However, one of the most important reasons why IT recruiting companies should put everyone into the technical recruiting seat before they transition them into sales, is simply because they’ll have a better understanding as to what information IT recruiters San Diego need to work on each position.  Technical recruiters must have a thorough job description,  a start date, bill rate to work from or potential permanent salary.  They also need to have a better understanding about the client’s culture, from dress code to business hours, as these are all of the questions their IT job candidates will likely ask them.  Typically IT staffing salespeople who spent time as IT recruiters LA will ask these questions – questions that they would want to know if they were one of the IT recruiters MA.

IT recruiting firms should consider having everyone recruit before they sell IT jobs CA.

Work Ethic in the IT Recruiting Industry

Most all IT recruiting companies CA can boast of a thorough screening process and candidate lock downs.  Most all IT recruiting firms CA brag their robust databases.  Clients can’t dicipher what is the truth and what are IT staffing salespeople just trying to land a deal.  In truth, there is very little difference in how IT recruiting agencies Boston find their talent.  Technical recruiters MA typically search on Monster, Dice, CareerBuilder, Linkedin and even Craig’s List.  Occassionally some use Ladders.  Therefore, what distinguishes one IT recruiting company from another?  It’s quite simple:  their people.

Successful IT recruiting companies Boston have hard working IT recruiters.  At the end of the day, what IT recruiters MA are going to work harder to find the best information technology professionals.  More specifically, working hard simply means what technical recruiters CA are going to contact more candidates, hit more IT job boards and ultimately work longer to find the perfect candidate for their client.

Hard work is all relative.  The best employees in the IT staffing industry typically work long hours in the office, then log on and do additional resume searches from the comfort of their own home.  The more you put into the IT recruiter role, the more you’ll get out of it.   While there are many variables to making an IT job placement, ultimately there is a tried and true formula for success:  The harder you work = The more candidates you reach out to = The more submittals to the client = The more candidate interviews = The more confirmed hires.

For IT recruiters San Diego, it all starts with hard work.

IT Recruiters Weather The Storm – Literally

While the northeast has been pounded with wind, rain and now even snow, many businesses and industries have come to a virtual stand-still over past two weeks.  Some IT recruiting companies have even been shut down.  Luckily for IT recruiters, it isn’t critical their IT staffing office be open.  Technical recruiters just need to find a place with power, internet and a phone (with the latter being the least important).  In today’s information technology age, with most VMS, ATS and job boards being web-based, IT recruiters CA can virtual do the exact same job from any computer.

When Hurrican Sandy pounded the northeast, many IT recruiters Boston and technical recruiters NY amandoned their powerless homes to friends or family upstate or inland who had power.  While the health and safety is of foremost concern after a natural disaster, returning to normalcy (and even work) is important once clean up begins.  For people who working in the technical recruiting industry, this will not take long.  It’s their clients, many of which who may have structural damage, that they need to worry about.

A Critical Position Inside IT Recruiting Companies

One might be surprised that one of the most important positions within IT recruiting firms and IT consulting companies is not IT staffing salespeople or even technical recruiters.  This position isn’t even a revenue generating role, it typically doesn’t have management or executive powers either.  The position is a Customer Support Representative or payroll admininistrator.  Simply put, it’s the person who speaks with the IT consultants on a weekly basis and enters their hours/compensation into payroll.

IT contractors are the lifeline of IT recruiting companies.  Therefore, any role that virtually has direct interaction with the IT consultants on a daily basis is of critical importance.   His or her customer service skills, attention to detail and organization must be exceptional, otherwise IT recruiting agencies run the risk of losing their technical consultants.

Therefore, if you’re an IT recruiter Boston or technical recruiter CA, go out of your way to thank your CSR as he or she may be the glue that keeps IT staffing agencies together.

Don’t Celebrate Victories Too Early in IT Recruiting

IT recruiters know all too well not to celebrate a new hire until the IT contractors walk through the client’s door and officially start their first day of work.  Technical recruitersknow not to celebrate because if you’ve work in the IT recruiting industry long enough, you have learned the hard way.  Ultimately, no matter how many questions IT recruiters Boston ask to qualify a candidate and confirm their commitment, there is never a guarantee when it comes to people.  The unfortunate reality is that IT recruiters CA are selling the most unreliable product on the market:  people.

While this might paint a bleak picture of our society, luckily for IT recruiting firms, for every one candidate who gives technical recruiters Bostontheir commitment, then backs out or does not show up to work on his/her first day, there are 10+ people who stand behind their word, work hard and reinforce the faith that there are good people out there.

Therefore, if you’re considering a career in IT staffing, be sure to prepare yourself for some ups and downs.  Most important, when an information technology candidate backs out and leaves you high and dry, roll with the punches and remember that a success story is only a call away so get back up on the horse and persevere.

IT Recruiting Firms Weathering the Economic Storm

For those IT recruiting companies that made it through the recent economic recession, the key to success can likely be attributed to their IT staffing salespeople as opposed to their IT recruiters.  While the IT recruiters CA likely played a key role in sustaining revenue, in a severe downturn like we experienced, the salespeople played a critical role.  Ultimately, a recession = fewer IT jobs.  With a vast number of IT staffing companies vying for fewer technical jobs, ultimately it came down to what IT staffing salesperson worked harder to get their hands on the IT job openings.  With a vast number of information technology professionals on the market, finding the candidates was not as difficult.

While IT recruiting firms could not sustain revenue without IT recruiters filling the IT job requirements, ultimately their success came down to their account managers.

Coming from a technical recruiting company who has weathered two recessions, the key to success in any downturn is IT staffing salespeople.  Even further, the key to each individual salesperson’s success is activity.  The more calls they make, the better their odds of finding that next job for their IT recruiters Boston to work on.