Tag Archives: IT recruiting companies

Review: “Ace the IT Interview”

Any technical recruiter who has guided a technical candidate through the interviewing process for an open IT job knows the importance of interviewing skills. This book serves as a practical guide to landing IT jobs, which is a skill an IT staffer wants to be well-versed in for the purposes of best advising technical candidates. The book provides a bird’s eye view of the IT interviewing process, and how technical employers view candidates and their answers to standard interview questions.

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.

Technical Recruiters, Are You Getting Enough Sleep?

Pritchard’s “101 Strategies for Recruiting Success: Where, When, and How to Find the Right People Every Time” discusses the technical hiring process, and how best to manage the process of finding and keeping great technical candidates. Any technical headhunter knows that the longer a top technical candidate stays in a contract, the better it is for the IT staffing firm that handled the placement, so the skills to keeping skilled people happy in their position is key. Pritchard identifies two facets to this skillset: a common sense approach and a corporate one. Recruiting assignments can present challenges, and as a former recruiting professionals with over 20 years of experience, this book offers solutions for broaching them.

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.

Review:”Technical Recruiting Success for IT Firms”

AVID Technical Resources reviews “Technical Recruiting Success for IT Firms” by Dawson.  In the book, Dawson speaks from his high level of success in technical recruiting, and his perspective as a technical staffing consultant. His recruiting techniques involve IT staffing secrets he has identified and developed over time. His check lists offer ways to run through a list of tips, and apply them to each IT candidate, leading to higher placement rates and higher chances of turning technical candidates into working technical contractors.

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!

Review: “Trend Watch List Extended – Your World In Their Hands – Converging Trends Driving Your Talent Strategy”

Talent professionals employed in the technical recruiting industry will find Vanderbilt’s book on important employment trends helpful for placing technical candidates in IT jobs that offer a great skill & culture match to the employer. “Trend Watch List Extended – Your World In Their Hands – Converging Trends Driving Your Talent Strategy” discusses how technical headhunters at AVID Technical Resources and other technical staffing firms can best capitalize on the IT recruities strategies that maximize the broader trends being reflected in the job market as a whole.

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.

Review: “Secrets from a Body Broker: A Hiring Handbook for Managers, Recruiters, and Job Seekers”

Technical recruiters will find Rey’s book, Secrets from a Body Broker: A Hiring Handbook for Managers, Recruiters, and Job Seekers, packed with valuable tips for personnel management. She starts by revealing two secrets – Secret #1 is “Discrimination is the cornerstone of each and every hiring decision. This is because hiring decisions are personal decisions made by people, and people will discriminate, even at the most subconscious of levels”. Secret #2, she tells us, is “A large percentage of managers who are in charge of hiring have little or no formal training in interviewing and hiring process”. The takeaway for technical recruiters is that hiring decisions may not be based purely on technical credentials.

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.

Review:”Technical Screening – SQL Server Developer”

Obi Ogbanufe’s Technical Screening – SQL Server Developer helps technical recruiters develop a more efficient technical screening process for vetting candidates. The book discusses how to compare a technical candidate’s skills and background to the technical role requirements, and use cues in a candidates’ technical resume to best determine a match. One challenge Ogbanufe identifies for the technical recruiter is the issue of appearing confrontational when asking screening questions that ultimately determine whether or not the recruiter will get an interview with the employer. The nature of these types of questions is that they weed out the weaker links from the stronger ones, so offending a candidate accidentally by touching on a candidate’s technical limitations during the screening process is an easy mistake to make. The trick to preventing stepped-on feelings in technical candidates during the screening process is a technical recruiters’ savvy and diplomacy when delivering the questions. This book enumerates strategies and tactics to make conversations with the best technical candidates, as well as the not-so-best go smoothly. Technical Staffing Agencies can take cues from these concepts to make interviewing technical candidates a breeze.

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!

Review: “Hiring The Best Knowledge Workers, Techies & Nerds: The Secrets & Science Of Hiring Technical People”

Technical recruiters are in the business of  hiring for technical jobs. Their area of expertise is finding the best technical candidate for an open job position, and building relationships with the best techies on the market leads to success in the technical staffing industry. IT firms specialize in the “secrets & science” of hiring top technical candidates, and Weinberg’s book focuses on just that topic. According to him, technical people are great problem solvers. Determining which technical candidates are the best is an art that involves skills in job-description writing, candidate-sourcing, mixed-media ad creation, and more.

He covers how to review resumes efficiently and in a profitable way. He also delves into interview techniques that allow technical recruiters to interview a diverse technical candidate pool in a courteous and respectful way. The type of questions technical staffing firm reps ask technical candidates is a big factor in achieving 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.  So 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.

Review: “The Google Resume: How to Prepare for a Career and Land a Job at Apple, Microsoft, Google, or any Top Tech Company”

Technical recruiters know that a technical candidates’ resume speaks volumes.  Thus the ability to separate power resumes from weaker ones is key. IT recruiters who are familiar with The Google Resume will be doing themselves  favor when is comes to identifying strong technical resumes (and the candidates behind the resume). Gayle McDowell instructs technical candidates on the type of job experience, educational background and extra-curriculars that makes a candidate top tech material. Recruiters at IT staffing agencies can use the same information to identify the type of winning technical resumes that grab the attention of the best technical corporate employers, like Apple or Google.

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 competitive, and more successful at what they do: finding the right IT consultants.

Review: “Breakthrough Technical Recruiting”

Ford’s Breakthrough Technical Recruiting offers IT Recruiters & Technical Hiring Managers advice for navigating the IT headhunting process. Ford speaks with authority from his own years of supervisors’ experience as a former recruiter, armed with technical recruiting strategies that led to high placement rates. Finding and identifying highly qualified technical candidates is a challenge Ford is familiar with and can provide perspective on across a variety of industries. His IT staffing secrets are priceless for the IT headhunter looking to step things up a notch, or for IT recruiting companies in the Boston area and beyond. His lucrative tips will serve IT staffing firms well.

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.

Review: “A Beginner’s Guide to Technical Recruiting” by Prabakaran Murugaiah

What does a technical recruiter starting out for the first time in an IT Staffing Firm need to know? According to  Prabakaran Murugaiah, author of “A Beginner’s Guide to Technical Recruiting”, a lot. Murugaiah warns technical recruiters in-training that the big picture in the IT Staffing industry and in technical headhunting is changing at a rapid pace in 2011 (when he wrote A Beginner’s Guide), and beyond. The takeaway for technical recruiters starting a career in IT Staffing is that more experienced technical recruiters mentoring rookies may not have all the answers. It’s up to the protege technical recruiter to educate him or herself on the industry changes that are happening in short order.

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!