Advice from IT Recruiters

How to Be Ready for Personality Tests in the Tech Hiring Process

August 17, 2017

Most IT professionals are familiar and ready for every element of the job search. Phone screens, technical interviews, coding tests, whiteboarding sessions, and interview thank you notes are all par for the course and most candidates are ready to handle them. But one element of the tech job search that does surprise a lot of candidates is a personality test. IT recruiting firms find that time and again, candidates are unprepared for personality tests or feel uncomfortable taking them. Some even try avoiding them (which really isn’t possible. You may as well just opt out of the running for the job if you refuse to take the test.). Here’s a little more info about personality tests so you’re not caught unawares the next time you have to take one.

Why do employers give these tests, especially in tech? It might seem counter-intuitive that employers base hiring for IT jobs off of personality tests. These jobs are all about very specific (often hard-to-find skills), aren’t they? In the past decade or so, employers in the tech space have become more concerned with culture. This has happened for a few reasons, but the increased use of Scrum and Agile as development methodologies probably plays a big part. The days of Waterfall and heads-down coders are largely gone. This means that personality has become exponentially important to hiring managers. Thus, a small but strong minority is very invested in using personality tests as part of their hiring process.

Can I cheat on personality tests? No. It’s not even worth trying. IT staffing firms find that the ‘right’ answer on these tests often isn’t very clear anyways. The questions are usually pretty abstract ones or hypothetical ones that don’t even seem applicable to the job.

What if I want to try to ‘cheat’ anyway? It’s important to note that you wouldn’t want to cheat on these tests, even if you could. Like cheating on a coding test, this will just land you a job that you won’t be likely to succeed in. If an employer is offering a personality test, it’s likely that hiring somebody who fits into their corporate culture is paramount. If you ‘cheat’ your way into a job where you’re not a culture fit, it will become apparent pretty quickly. Your status at the company will suffer, or worse, you’ll be fired. IT recruiting agencies suggest you be honest on personality tests. If you fail it, this can still be a good thing. Your test result will ensure that you avoid taking a job you’d be miserable in, anyway!

tech hiring tips and personality tests — Don’t lie on a personality test. It won’t help you land an IT job you love. Photo credit: Monoar via Pixabay.

Q and A about Jumpiness in Tech Resumes

August 14, 2017

When you’re working in the tech field, there’s a lot of temptation to jump around from job to job. Between IT recruiters who reach out to passive candidates, new roles that offer hands-on experience with hot new technologies, and employers who offer roles with big pay raises, it can be hard to stay loyal and stick with your IT jobs for the expected 1, 2, or more years. As a general rule, It’s important to avoid all of this temptation, though and try to maintain some decently long stints at each employer you work at. Here are some common questions and answers that IT staffing firms often get asked about about jumpiness in a tech career.

Is there ever a time when jumpiness is ok for IT professionals? Especially in tech there are times when some jumpiness is completely acceptable. Contracting is the most obvious example. IT recruiting agencies find that hiring managers don’t mind a couple of years of contracting in a resume. This can be pretty normal for the field and can certainly help as you begin your career or seek out experience with new technologies. Additionally, it’s also fine to have shorter stints at jobs for the usual reasons: a company is acquired or you must move to a different part of the country.

Why is jumpiness a problem on a tech resume, then? Employers in the tech field have a few reasons why they prefer to hire candidates with long, solid stays at most (if not all) their jobs. Firstly, many tech roles are well-paid. This means that a company needs to make a good investment and hire a candidate who’s reliable, prepared, and ready to make some big contributions. Losing candidates every six months, even sometimes every year, can be a bad investment for an employer. It’s hard to contribute a lot to the company when you’re not around long enough! It’s also hard to rely on a candidate when employers are constantly concerned they’ll be leaving for new opportunity with a higher salary, fresher technologies, etc.

Another reason employers don’t want to hire people with excessively jumpy resumes is related to training. Many tech roles require in-depth training for candidates to really contribute to the workload. There’s a ramp-up period that can’t be avoided. Due to this ramp-up period, employers don’t want to hire IT professionals who won’t stick around for a long time. They don’t want to be training a new person, and thus losing time and productivity, every six months, year, etc.

The last reason tech employers want to see less jumpiness in a resume is that long stays at a company can indicate more experience with long-term projects. Long-term, organizational projects can take years. If you’ve never been any place longer than a few months, you haven’t been able to participate in one of these kinds of projects from start to finish (or even close to it).

How do you polish jumpiness in your own resume so it’s appealing to technical recruiters and hiring managers? If you have the kind of jumpiness that’s acceptable, make sure to indicate the reasons why you left jobs. Did you leave a job after 3 months because the company was acquired? Write that as your last bullet. Keep it brief and professional. A long bullet with a sob story won’t help market you to employers. In fact, it will likely hurt you.

If you have a rash of contracting jobs in your career, make the bullets in each of them great. Show off your contributions and professional achievements. You want employers to see that even though you weren’t at a company long, you added value while you were there.

IT resume tips — Jumpiness in a tech resume won’t always land you the job. Photo credit: Pexels via Pixabay.

Why Tech Resumes Should Be in Chronological, Not Functional Format

August 9, 2017

If you’re on the hunt for new IT jobs, you might be considering ways to format your resume. While they’re not the most common format, IT recruiting firms do see a lot of functional format resumes from candidates. Functional format resumes, as opposed to chronological resumes, are based around a candidate’s skills instead of when they held each job. Instead of listing each job in a timeline, functional format resumes list jobs and projects grouped under the kinds of skills used or titles held. While it can be tempting to write this kind of resume in an especially skills-oriented field like tech, this is pretty inadvisable. Here are three reasons why IT staffing companies suggest you only write chronological resumes if you’re an IT professional.

1. Chronological resumes help hiring managers and IT recruiters see your career progression and any employment gaps (or lack thereof) easily. In a field like tech, this is very important. The unemployment rate is so low that hiring managers tend to view long employment gaps as red flags. Career progression isn’t a field-specific criterion, but it is still pretty important for hiring managers in tech. For instance, if you’ve stayed in a Help Desk role for over 5 years, but want to be a Systems Engineer, technical recruiters will have a hard time submitting you to roles like that. When you use a functional format resume, it can be difficult to quickly discern your career progression or if you have any employment gaps. If it’s too time-consuming or difficult to see these things on your resume, a hiring manager may just toss it and move on to another candidate with a clearer resume.

2. Chronological resumes help recruiters and managers see how recently you’ve worked with certain technologies. This is important for a two reasons. Firstly, managers will want to know that your relevant skills for an open role are fresh. If you’ve got a functional format resume, this isn’t always clear. Secondly, it’s important for hiring managers to know that you’ve used a particular technology recently. Technologies themselves can change so quickly. If you used C++ in the 90’s, you might not be ready to use it today due to all the new frameworks you can program in. Again, a functional format can’t make it quite as clear when you used a certain technology. A chronological resume format makes it crystal clear.

3. A chronological resume better facilitates descriptions of each environment you’ve worked in at each job. Since environments can change so much in terms of technologies and scalability, this is very important for hiring managers and IT staffing firms to see. Chronological resumes allow you to separate out key information in an easily digestible form for a manager or recruiter. With one glance, they can see where you worked, the environment, and your responsibilities and achievements there. Functional format resumes can really muddy this, if not completely obscure it.

A Checklist for Writing Your Best IT Resume

August 2, 2017

Job hunting in the tech industry can differ from any industry. As an IT job seeker, your search is affected by things like technical jargon, the tools hiring managers use, and the speed at which technologies change and projects become irrelevant. If you’re serious about looking for new IT jobs, you want a resume tailored to this industry and the needs of the hiring managers in it. Here’s a quick checklist that IT recruiters suggest using as you complete your resume. This list will make sure your resume is especially appealing to hiring managers in the tech space and technical recruiters.

1. Does your resume match up with your LinkedIn profile? Especially within the tech space, IT staffing companies and hiring managers use LinkedIn as part of their hiring process. If your resume doesn’t basically match up with your LinkedIn profile, it’s time to fix that. You especially want to avoid making it seem like you’re hiding anything or lying about anything in your career history or skill-set. Appearing dishonest is the fastest way to be blacklisted with IT recruiting firms and employers.

2. Is your resume full of quantifiable, concrete, professional achievements? The bullets under each job should be taken up with statements like ‘Improved network downtime by 25%.’ Or ‘Increased web traffic by 50%.’ Hiring managers are more likely to pick people who they can picture working with their team and contributing to their company’s goals. This is especially true in tech, where the salaries are higher and a bad hire can cost a lot. Nobody wants to be the manager who hires a programmer who can’t code fast enough or the network architect who designed a faulty network. Make it easier for hiring managers to picture you succeeding in their open roles. List the concrete contributions you made at previous employers, using numbers and percentages whenever you can.

4. Is your resume easy to read? Did you focus on your last 10-15 years of experience? Did you use a simple font with basic, even spacing? Did you use a conventional resume format, or a ‘creative one’ that might require some extra time to figure out? Did you forgo giving every single technical detail of your work at every previous job? Keep in mind that IT recruiting agencies and hiring managers don’t have much time to pore over every line of your resume. In fact, if you apply with a resume that’s crammed to the gills with lots of technical details for 7 pages, or provide a resume that’s in a ‘creative format’, you might just be taking yourself out of the running for a job right off the bat. Make your resume easy to read and keep it brief and efficient. If your experience is a good fit, you can give more detail in a phone or in-person interview.

IT resumes — You’ll land more IT jobs if your resume ticks off every box. Photo credit: TeroVesalainen via Pixabay.

Why Did You Get Rejected from that IT Job?

July 26, 2017

We’ve all been there. You apply for IT jobs that look perfect for you. You work with a technical recruiter or on your own and you go through interviews. You start picturing yourself making those commutes, finding your place on the team, and setting up a new 401k. But then your IT recruiters call you back and say that the hiring manager went with another candidate. You’re in shock. How could they go with anybody but you? You’ve got all the technical skills and experience required. Maybe you’ve done a similar job in the past. Here’s why this might be happening—and how to make the most of it.

You might not be a culture fit. This seems way less important in IT jobs, where certain skills and experience are imperative for success. The truth is, culture fit is becoming more and more imperative in tech roles in the last decade or so. IT recruiting firms often find that communication skills, ability to work well with a team, or having the right temperament for customer service are crucial to the jobs they hire for. You don’t want to land a job where you’re missing something like this. Even if you’re perfectly suited for the technical workload, you’ll always have a hard time succeeding in a job that you wouldn’t have the right personality for.

You may not have all the technical skills or experience required. Yes, even if you have everything listed on the job description, you may still be missing a certain programming language, or even not have less exposure to a technology than needed, etc. Since projects change at the speed of technology, sometimes a job description will, too. IT staffing companies find that it’s not uncommon for a job description to change between the time it’s posted and time the candidate is hired. Sometimes there’s not time to change the job description as it’s posted online, too. So even if your resume matches a job posting to T, it doesn’t mean that you’re what the hiring team needs.

You might be great, but perhaps another candidate was better. This kind of scenario isn’t specific to the tech world at all. Sometimes IT recruiting firms will find that the candidates who apply to a job blow the hiring managers away, exceeding all expectations. You never know if one of these kinds of candidates did the interview before or after you. This is something only the hiring manager can see. So if you don’t land the job, even if you told your recruiters you felt like it was in the bag, consider this possibility. You might have been great; you were just competing against somebody even more suited to the role.

So what do you do now? If you didn’t land the job, even if you fully expected to, you can still gain something. Ask your IT recruiting agencies for feedback. Really listen and see if you can use it to improve your chances in the next job you apply for. If you can’t get any feedback, it’s still important to be gracious. You never want a hiring manager or IT staffing companies to consider you rude, difficult to work with, or arrogant. Sometimes, the tech industry can be a small world. Don’t mar your reputation in it!

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

rejected from IT jobs — Why didn’t you land the job? Maybe you just weren’t a culture fit. Photo credit: OpenClipart-Vectors via Pixabay.

2 Tips for Hiring Tech Talent

July 21, 2017

It can be tough to fill open tech positions at your company. The US still has a shortage of qualified professionals to fill the new IT jobs which open up or are created daily. IT recruiting firms find that the tech field is still very much a job seeker’s market. How can you make sure your company stays competitive in attracting and hiring the best talent? Here are 2 tips from IT staffing companies on best practices for hiring tech talent.

1. Focus on building a great corporate culture. Tech employers used to compete for great talent with their perks. In the beginning of the Dotcom boom, stocked kitchens, catered lunches, subsidized commuting costs, etc used to be a huge draw. Now it seems that many other industries have jumped on this bandwagon. Exciting perks are much more available at many employers, and thus aren’t really as a big of a draw to IT professionals.

The new commodity that’s harder to come by, and thus a bigger draw, is great culture. Glassdoor and its anonymous, unfiltered reviews has probably played a big hand in making job searchers more aware of this. IT recruiters find that candidates often ask about the management and corporate culture at a potential job right after they hear about the work. Having an open, innovative culture that allows employees some agency in shaping their life at work is a huge draw. If you want to attract technical talent, IT staffing firms suggest building a management team with great communication skills, an interest in helping their employees grow and build their skill base, and who prioritize their employees’ happiness.

Building great corporate culture might be one of the hardest ways to attract employees, but technical recruiters suggest it because it’s effective and it also helps retain employees down the road. Instead of investing in gimmicky perks, take time to make your company a workplace where people are generally happy. It will pay off now, and in the future.

2. Move faster in your hiring process. IT recruiting agencies caution employers against moving at too slowly for hiring all tech positions. As mentioned before, the tech field is a job seeker’s market. The unemployment rate for IT professionals is notoriously low—often as low as half the national average. If a candidate comes on the market, they could be gone in as little as 2 weeks. (Highly sought after IT professionals like DevOps and Big Data Engineers, as well as Full-Stack or CRM Developers might be off the market even faster than that!) IT staffing agencies find that many candidates aren’t even ever unemployed or looking. They’re passive candidates who are lured away from their current job with a pay raise, better commute, etc. So if you want to hire the best tech talent, you’ll have to move fast. Respond to applications and submittals by IT recruiting companies as soon as you can. Make offers in days, not weeks. IT recruiters see employers lose out on the candidates they really want all to frequently because they just took too long.

Hiring tech talent can be tough in such a job seeker’s market. Photo credit: Pexels via Pixabay.

Questions and Answers About Vacation and IT Jobs

July 12, 2017

Summer is the season when most people think about vacation. Even if you’re searching for new IT jobs, your focus might still be at least a little diverted by thoughts of a beach getaway, visiting family, or a trip to Europe. Here are some common questions you might have about vacation time if you’re working with IT recruiting firms to find your next role.

If I get a new role, can I still take a vacation this summer? The short answer is yes and no. If you’ve already planned a trip, booked flights, hotels, etc, then you probably can. If you’ve planned a few vacation days that revolve around an important event like a family reunion or wedding, you probably can. All you have to do is mention these trips when you receive a job offer (not before). Your hiring manager may suggest pushing your start date out til after your trip, or plan to have you out for those days. If you want to spontaneously take a few days off within the first 90 days of your employment, this is less likely to be ok. IT staffing firms find that between the onboarding process, training, and the need for creating a good impression with the new boss and team, this is almost never a good call. Spend your first 3 months being focused, impressing your boss and team, and being present in the office. You can take a spontaneous vacation after that, when you’ve earned trust and respect from your new employer!

I have a vacation planned. Do I talk about it with my interviewer? Wait until you get a job offer. In the tech field, it’s really important to establish for your interviewer that you’re passionate about some combination of the work, the role, the team and the company. When you bring up things like vacation, this can take away from that impression. Hiring managers get that you have a life outside of work, but the interview is such a short process that you should focus on talking about yourself as a professional, not your vacation plans.

Can I ask about the vacation part of a benefits package in an interview? The same principle applies here. Steer clear of talking to your interviewer about vacation time until you have an offer on the table. Focus on figuring out if the job is a good fit for you and for the company. If you really want to know, you can talk to your IT recruiters, check out the company’s info on Glassdoor, or do some Googling. You’ll probably find it somewhere online and you won’t have to risk making yourself seem like anything less than a very dedicated employee.

What about this ‘Unlimited PTO’ trend? Technical recruiters are finding this trend is becoming more and more popular in the tech field. It’s important to note that this benefit is meant to be used in some moderation, though. Companies usually offer unlimited PTO to employees with the caveat that they need to get through their work. Getting that software released on time, debugging that code, or finishing that big project should all happen before you go on an extended vacation. Your team needs to be able to count on you— not count on you to be out of the office again. IT recruiting firms also find that this benefit usually comes with a role that has a high workload. Unlimited PTO is a reward for the hard work that’s expected. So take a minute to really consider the role. Don’t just take a job for this benefit alone!

Vacations and IT jobs — Planned a beach getaway? You can still take it, even if you’re staring a new role soon! Photo credit: skitterphoto via Pixabay

Don’t Say This in Your Next Tech Job Interview

June 21, 2017

IT recruiters find there’s a lot of bad interview advice out there. Here’s one piece that seems particularly popular—and particularly unhelpful: tell the interviewer you are the most qualified candidate for the job.

Why is this terrible advice? It’s good to be confident and express interest in the job, isn’t it? The truth is, this statement doesn’t really accomplish either task well. Great candidates, especially in the tech space, are looking for a job that is a good fit on both ends. This means they’ve got all the technical and personality/work style requirements. It also means the work, the team, and the company fit their own requirements. An interview is all about sussing out whether both these things are true. Good candidates don’t know if they’re the ‘best candidate for the job’ for many reasons, including the fact that they don’t know if the job meets their own needs!

Another reason IT staffing companies suggest that you never say something like this in a job interview is that it can come across as arrogant and make you seem difficult to work with. As a tech professional, these are the last things you want to convey to an interviewer. These days, communicating and working well with teams is an imperative skill. As companies are pressured to constantly innovate and improve their products or services, brainstorming and teamwork are becoming necessities. (Plus, Scrum and Agile are really the trendiest development methods. The day of the heads-down coder who excels in a Waterfall method have passed.) Remember, nobody wants to work with somebody who is arrogant. Arrogant coworkers aren’t open to collaboration, are hard to train, and are just plain unpleasant to deal with on a regular basis. People wouldn’t hire them for open IT jobs if they can help it!

So what can you say instead of this phrase? IT recruiting agencies suggest focusing on concrete ways to illustrate your value to the interviewer. Did you reduce your previous employer’s server downtime significantly? Did you increase web traffic to your company’s website by 25%? Being able to share things like this will help potential employers see that you are the most qualified candidate for their open job.

When employers decide you’re the most qualified candidate for the job, it’s much more powerful than you, as the candidate, trying to lead them to this conclusion. People often value the conclusions they come to themselves. This is especially true in the hiring process. Technical recruiters find that employers need to feel like they have control of the hiring process, since it’s such a big risk to possibly hire somebody that can’t do the job.

So respect your interviewer and their hiring process. You can’t decide for them that you’re the most qualified candidate. You can only illustrate to them all the reasons why you’re a good catch as an employee. Your patience and subtle confidence may just win you the job!

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

IT Job Interview Tips — Don’t tell your interviewer you’re the best candidate for the job. It won’t help your candidacy! Photo credit: 3dman_eu

Tips for Second Job Interviews

June 14, 2017

When you’re working with IT staffing firms to find a new role, sometimes you’ll have to do a second in-person interview. Since second job interviews aren’t as common, candidates often feel unsure about how to approach them. Here are some tips from IT recruiting companies on handling second in-person job interviews.

How to dress: Dress in a suit or other business professional attire. Even though dress codes in many companies are becoming more relaxed, the suit is still king for interviews. Sometimes, candidates will go to a first in-person interview and find that everyone is wearing jeans. Don’t let this throw you off. Technical recruiters find that candidates make a better impression when they dress professionally at all stages of the interview. You want to show respect to the company and their hiring process. Following the dress code is part of that. If you get the job, you can dress down when you start the job.

How to prepare: Do two things in particular this time. Firstly, research the company a bit more deeply. Secondly, prepare new questions. Your second interview will likely differ from the first. First interviews are often more about establishing your technical skills and experience. You might do white-boarding or coding tests. The second in-person interview is much more about how well you fit into the team and/or company. Start your preparation by doing a deeper dive into researching the company, product, and corporate culture. Your IT recruiting firms might have some thoughts on web sites to visit, as you do this. They may also be able to tell you who your interviewers will be. If so, it’s a good idea to do a little research on your interviewers, too. The more you know about the company, its products or services, and your interviewers, the more you can show an interest in them. In the tech field, a deep passion for the work, the company, and the products or services will go far!

The second thing you should do in your preparations for your interview is to come up with new questions. You can use some of your research about the company to come up with these questions. You can also just come up with other questions about the role, management styles, etc. It will be important for you to have different questions than you asked in your first interview. For more ideas about interview questions to ask, check out this blog post.

How to answer questions: Focus on bringing something new to the table and really let your personality shine in this interview. Even if you’re asked the same questions again, there are many ways you can tweak your answers to be different. Be patient if you’re asked a question twice or asked something similar. You may be meeting with a mix of new and old people who will unwittingly repeat each other. You want to answer questions so people who have already interviewed you hear something new that strengthens your candidacy. You also want to try to be understanding of this if they repeat questions or discussions. If you are impatient about it, you won’t land the job. Nobody wants to work with somebody who is rude or difficult. IT staffing agencies advise you to remember that your personality and your ability to fit into the culture of the team and company are what hiring managers are focusing on in this second interview. Make sure you present your best self here.

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

IT job interviews — Your second job interview is all about culture fit. Photo credit: miranijenish via Pixabay.

3 Tips for Better Interviewing

June 8, 2017

There’s a lot of bad advice about how to interview candidates. This has gotten even worse in the tech sector since Google’s unorthodox interview questions were leaked. People have been rampantly speculating on (and misinterpreting) how the coveted employers in the IT field conduct interviews. If you’re hiring for your open IT jobs, check out these 3 tips from IT recruiting companies on how to interview without scaring away your candidates.

Don’t use gimmicky formats or tests. Don’t make your candidates do trendy personality tests. Don’t force them to answer every question in a very short time frame. Don’t put them through any cut-throat group interviews/competitions. The point of your interview is to get a sense of what kind of employee the candidate is. When you make them uncomfortable with unexpected activities, you’re not going to get this information. All you’re going to do is make the candidate uncomfortable….and maybe inspire them to tell their IT recruiters and everyone who visits Glassdoor all about the bizarre ordeal you put them through.

Don’t be a jerk. There are a lot of trendy techniques out there that center around purposely being rude to a candidate to see how they operate under stress. Some say you should order a candidate’s lunch incorrectly to see how they handle potential conflict. Some say to make an effort to be mean to the candidate to see how they handle working with difficult people. There are likely many other variations of this. The problem is that all of these scenarios will send good IT professionals running in the opposite direction. Especially since the tech field is a job seeker’s market, IT staffing agencies strongly caution against disrespecting the candidate. The US is still experiencing a real shortage of good, qualified IT professionals. Keep in mind that candidates are using an interview to decide what working at your company will be like. If you’re awful to them in an interview, they’ll decide to seek out other IT jobs where they will be treated well. It’s important to note that you can always ask a candidate and their references how they handle difficult people or stressful situations. Most people are very forthcoming about this because if they don’t handle it well, they won’t want a job where it’s prevalent!

Don’t ask trendy questions just to ask them. If you don’t know why you’re asking a candidate what animal they’d be at the zoo, don’t ask them. Some employers do have answers or thought processes they’re looking for when they ask these questions. Others just ask these questions because they think it will be be fun to ask or doing so might convey that the company culture is creative and fun. If you want to convey that you have a fun, creative culture, IT staffing agencies suggest that you just say so. Or point to your Glassdoor reviews. Or introduce the candidate to happy members of your team. There are many ways to do this. Keep in mind that interviews are already stressful for candidates. Don’t make them even more uncomfortable by forcing them to answer questions that confuse them or surprise them.

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

Interview tips for hiring managers — Don’t make your candidates feel uncomfortable in job interviews– even if it’s trendy. Photo credit: Jarmoluk via Pixabay