Tag Archives: hiring manager

IT Staffing: Seeing Candidates Through Rose Tinted Glasses

Most technical recruiters admit to having a choice contractor and play favorites whether it be their first placement or IT contractors with similar interests.  While it is great to find the good and positive in others, are some IT recruiting firms seeing candidates through rose tinted glasses?  Before a technical recruiter recommends him for other assignments, he should focus on the candidate’s actual work performance and goals.  They may be putting the contractor before more qualified individuals for open IT jobs.

Friendship

It is acceptable to have a friendly relationship with candidates, but IT recruiters should keep their work relationships professional.  IT staffing firms should not let their candidates take advantage of them based on friendships.  Treat contractors with the same amount of respect as any hiring managers or other clients and expect the same from him.  If he asks for honest feedback, avoid sugarcoating information by providing him with the truth, especially if he is unfit match for an open position.

Feedback

When a hiring manager makes suggestions for improvement in a candidate’s performance, do not take it personally or make excuses for him.  Technical recruiting companies should coach their candidates on ways to make the most of assignments and expand experience.  The more they learn, the more experienced they will be for potential, future placements.

Open to New Candidates

If candidates are more qualified than a favorite IT contractor, do not punish prospective candidates and hiring companies for a favorite.  Be open to networking and expanding client bases by meeting with new contractors.

IT recruiting requires mutual respect throughout the relationship.  By favoring another contractor over others, the IT recruiting company is not being fair to some who may be more qualified.  Rather than letting personal preference become involved, focus on the outcome of the placement.

Proofread

As a job seeker actively looking for an IT job, you are constantly sending out resumes and emails to hiring managers or IT recruiters working for IT staffing agencies.  In order to make sure that your email or resume is not disregarded, make sure that you proofread for any typos and grammatical errors.  Hiring managers want to go through a resume quickly without having to interpret what you meant to write.

By proofreading everything you send to a hiring manager or IT recruiter, they will be able to get through your documents and better see what IT skills you have.  The IT staffing industry is fast-paced and IT recruiters want to find the right prospective candidate for the IT job quickly.  By facilitating the process, you are giving yourself a better chance at that IT job.

Most importantly, by not proofreading your resume, you hurt your chances of landing that perfect IT job.  Take it from this IT recruiter who has had more than one client disqualify one of our candidates due to errors in the resume, proofreading is critically important.  Always put your best foot forward during the IT job search.  Don’t let someone disqualify you because you didn’t take the extra couple of minutes to proofread.

Which will prevail in the end: Phone Interview vs. Video Chatting

Over the last few years there has been a lot of development in video chatting.  More companies are rolling out programs that will allow you to call friends through your computer and see each other’s faces.  This concept has also been applied to many conferences within businesses as well.

So why has it never filtered into the Human Resources departments or IT recruiting companies? For a hiring manager it could be a good way to gauge the personality and professionalism of a prospective candidate rather than just listen to them over the phone.  Listening to someone’s voice is a lot different from just seeing the person body movements and facial expressions.  Those are very important to understanding the prospective IT job candidate better.

From an IT recruiters’ perspective this can also go horribly wrong.  First, their internet connection could be weak and cause a lot of freezing during the interview.  A hiring manager would find this annoying especially if you will need to reconnect with them every so often.  In addition, the candidate would need to tidy up the location where they are planning on interviewing.  Most importantly, there can be many interruptions.  Unlike being on the phone, the hiring manager will be able to see or notice interruptions from your body language and facial expressions.

The main difference with a phone interview and video chatting is that you need to sign on in order to video chat.  A candidate could just not sign on due to forgetting about the interview.  With a phone interview you can call them and either speak to them or leave a message.  Either way, you can contact them regardless of whether you have a strong signal or not.

There are many things that are left to chance with video chatting that can cause the candidate to lose the IT job or the hiring manager to become fed up with the candidate.  This could cost IT staffing companies placements or candidates themselves could miss out on a golden opportunity.