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Tag Archives: IT staffing agencies

Don’t Say This in IT Job Interviews

For most interviewees for IT jobs, no matter how much you prepare with your IT staffing firms and technical recruiters, questions about your greatest weakness are still intimidating.  The most common answer that hiring managers and IT recruiting agencies tend to hear seems like a good idea: “my weakness is that I’m a perfectionist.” Don’t be tempted to actually give this answer, though!

Because it’s such a cliché answer, telling your interviewer that you’re a perfectionist will mean that you’ve totally wasted that moment in your interview.  Even if you are indeed a perfectionist, you won’t impress your interviewer or your IT recruiting firms by saying it’s your biggest weakness.  Since it’s heard so often, it’s hard for anybody to take that answer seriously.  In fact, you may be letting your IT staffing agencies down by giving such an unimpressive answer.  Your interviewer may ding you a few points for giving such a meaningless response to their question.

So what should you say?  Work on a real, honest answer with your IT recruiters. Name a skill that’s not essential to the jobs you’re interviewing for and give an action plan for how you’re addressing it.  Something like this will actually impress an interviewer, especially if your action plan is thorough.

Don’t Make This Mistake When Going to IT Job Interviews

You’ve probably spent quite a bit of time prepping for IT job interviews—both on your own and with your IT staffing companies and IT recruiters.  Maybe you’ve laid out your suit and mapped out how to get to the interview.  Here’s one last tip: don’t bring more than a single, small bag with you.  Why?

It’s not something your technical recruiters are likely to discuss with you (mostly because they’re probably assuming you already know about it). However, your IT staffing firms and IT recruiting agencies want you to make sure you edit what you take with you to a job interview because it reflects poorly on you and on them if you bring too much with you.

If you bring much more with you to a job interview than a small bag, you’re likely saying one of two things.  Firstly, you could be suggesting that the interview isn’t that important to you—it’s just one thing in a long list of errands.  You give off this impression in particular if you come in with things like shopping bags.  Secondly, you’ll make a bad impression for yourself and your IT staffing agencies if you bring a lot of stuff with you because it looks disorganized.  Fair or not, your interviewer may assume that you’re not organized if you need to bring a ton of stuff with you to an interview. They have very little to go on (besides what your IT recruiting firms tell them) and they may just go off of gut feelings from your brief meeting with them.  Having to shuffle around a couple bags or jackets won’t give them the impression that you’re cool, calm, collected, and in control.  So leave everything home but a small bag when you go to your next IT job interview.  It may be the difference between losing and winning your dream IT jobs.

 

Subtle IT Job Interview Do’s and Don’ts

If you’ve gone on interviews for IT jobs, you probably already have at least a general idea of what you should be doing.  Maybe you learned these job interview do’s from your IT staffing firms and technical recruiters, or maybe you learned them from some of your own online research.  No matter where you learned these do’s from, there are some nuances you may not know about.  Here are some subtleties of interview do’s that your IT staffing agencies and IT recruiters want you to know.

Firstly, you know the general rule is to dress well for job interviews.  However, it’s also important to dress well for the company’s culture.  Particularly in IT, dress codes can wildly differ.  Talk to your IT recruiting firms about exactly what you should wear to your interview.  You don’t want to just assume you should come in a suit.  It may cost you the job.

Secondly, you probably already know no to badmouth a boss or former company to your interviewer.  What you may not know is to extend the same rule to your colleagues and coworkers.  If you trash talk your current or previous coworkers, hiring managers may wonder if you’re actually a team player or able to work well with others.  Do yourself and your IT recruiting agencies a favor: don’t lie, but do avoid saying anything unfavorable about your former or current coworkers, employers, or bosses.  By keeping their reputations pristine, you do the same for your own.

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Questions NOT to Ask in Your IT Job Interviews

IT recruiters and IT staffing firms will usually help you prepare questions to bring to your IT job interviews.  Your technical recruiters can talk to you about what will interest and impress your interviewers. However, most IT recruiting companies will assume that you know what questions not to ask.  Check out this list to make sure you aren’t making a misstep and embarrassing yourself and your IT recruiting firms in the question part of your interviews.

Don’t ask any basic questions about the company.  If your IT staffing agencies don’t tell you directly, assume that you should research more about the company online yourself. It’s your job to know about the company—at least the basic info you could get from a quick Google search.  So don’t embarrass yourself and your IT staffing companies by making it obvious you haven’t done this research.

Don’t ask any questions that make you look like a clock watcher. Companies want somebody who is committed to and interested in their job.  If you appear to be interested in spending as little time as possible on the job at the interview, you’re definitely not going to impress your interviewer (or your IT recruiting agencies).

Lastly, don’t ask any questions about raises or promotions.  As mentioned above, hiring managers are looking for somebody who is interested in the job they’re trying to fill.  If you start asking questions that suggest you only see that job as a stepping stone, they’ll quickly want to end the interview.

 

Don’t Forget to Do This in IT Job Interviews!

If you’re interviewing for new IT jobs, you’ll benefit from watching your interviewer for signs of how well or poorly the interview is going.  You can prep ahead of time with your IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies.  But you’ll do yourself (and your technical recruiters and IT recruiting agencies) a disservice if you don’t watch for these possible signs your interviewer is disinterested.

Their body language and tone of voice show disinterest.  You don’t need your IT staffing firms to tell you that if your interviewer seems uninterested during your interview and their body language gives the impression they’re closed off and not engaging with you, the interview is going poorly.

They mention other qualified candidates.  If your interviewer makes a pointed mention of other candidates, they may be attempting to lower your expectations. It’s not a sure sign, but it’s something to take into account.

They don’t make any mention of the next steps you or your IT staffing companies should take.  Again, this isn’t a sure sign, but it’s something to take into account.  Your interviewers may just directly contact your IT recruiting firms with the next steps, but if they’re very interested in you, it’s possible they make some mention of the rest of their hiring process to let you know they’re interested in you.

Never Do These Things in an IT Job Interview

Your IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies have probably prepared you well for what you should do during job interviews.  Study up on these technologies, wear a suit (or something more casual), be prepared to answer these questions, and so on.  But there are some things your IT recruiting agencies and technical recruiters may assume you already know: what not to do.  Just in case, it’s worth checking out this list of don’ts that IT staffing firms hope you know:

Don’t forget to turn your cell phone off and put it away for the duration of the interview.  Interviewers and IT recruiting firms are definitely not impressed with anybody whose cell phone ring interrupts an interview.

Don’t ask about compensation or benefits in the interview.  Firstly, it’s best to use the time wisely and focus on painting yourself as the best candidate for the IT jobs you’re interviewing for.  Secondly, this is what your IT recruiting companies are for.  You can talk to them about benefits and compensation.

Don’t be too casual.  Don’t swear, tell off-color jokes or share personal information.  You don’t want to be cold and rude with an interviewer, but to give your best impression, make sure you act as though you’re in a business setting.  The interviewer isn’t your friend; they’re your potential boss.

 

Have an IT Job Interview? Prep At Least 2 of These Anecdotes

If your IT recruiters and IT staffing firms have helped you land some interviews for IT jobs, you’re probably already deep into the preparation process.  Here’s one thing your technical recruiters and IT recruiting companies may not have suggested for you to do though: Gather at least 2 anecdotes about how you solved or contributed to solving a problem.

To really prepare for the interview, your best bet is to practice telling these anecdotes to a friend, family member, or perhaps even a recruiter from your IT staffing agencies.  Focus on making the story short, and effective.  The story should relay how you added value to your team.  IT staffing companies can often land candidates IT jobs when it’s obvious that they can bring a lot to a new role.  If you can tell a couple stories that illustrate this well, you’ll really impress your IT recruiting firms and interviewers.

 

Polishing your IT Resume and LinkedIn Profile– Language, Part 2

Last time we talked about how cleaning up the language in your Resume and LinkedIn profile will help to attract IT staffing firms and IT recruiters. In particular, we looked at avoiding using clichés to describe yourself (because they usually mean nothing to IT staffing agencies and waste valuable space on your resume or profile).  This time, we’ll focus on another way you can waste space with language and bore technical recruiters and IT recruiting companies: telling stories.

The best resumes, the ones IT recruiting firms are excited to submit to their clients, are the ones that succinctly display excellent skills and experience.  Resumes or LinkedIn profiles that ramble on, include long first person sentences, and contain full, detailed paragraphs, are the last thing IT staffing companies want to submit to their clients.

If your resume or LinkedIn profile looks like this, how can you fix it?  Start by breaking up your paragraphs into bullets.  Each bullet should contain a single idea, like “I’m skilled at these programming languages: C# and Java.” Now remove the any first person references and any excessive words.  Boil each bullet down to the simplest phrase you can.  For instance, “Skilled programmer in Java and C#.”  Repeat this process throughout your whole resume or profile until you have the sleekest, shortest version you can present to IT recruiting agencies.  This will win you far more attention from technical recruiters—and IT jobs!

 

 

 

Polishing your IT Resume and LinkedIn Profile – Language, Part 1

If you’re currently updating your resume and/or LinkedIn profile, you’re probably trying to find ways to make it more attractive to IT recruiters and IT staffing firms.  While IT staffing agencies are usually drawn to the content of a resume or LinkedIn profile, it’s worth it to try to make sure it’s the most polished version that you can present.  There’s a lot you can do to make your LinkedIn profile more attractive to IT recruiting companies, but today we’ll focus on the words you use to describe yourself.

Probably the trickiest part of making a resume or LinkedIn profile that really garners interest from IT staffing companies is making it stand out.  It’s easy to write a resume that technical recruiters feel like they’ve seen a hundred times already. A powerful way to differentiate yourself to IT recruiting agencies is to make sure you skip using all the buzz words and phrases that everyone else uses – particularly in describing yourself.  You probably already have an idea of what some of these words and phrases are, but we’ll post a list below.  It may seem like a great idea to call yourself ‘passionate’ or a ‘team player’—you may actually even be these things!  The problem is that these words are so overused, they’re useless.  If you list yourself as ‘creative’ all you’re doing is wasting precious space on your resume or LinkedIn profile and boring IT recruiting firms.  Focus on listing your skills and accomplishments.  This is what they care about most.

Avoid these words on your resume or LinkedIn Profile:

Creative
Motivated
Passionate
Expert
Team-Player
Quick Learner
Collaborative
Hard-working
Driven

 

What to Cut from your IT Resume

If your resume hasn’t been attracting much attention from IT recruiting companies and IT recruiters, you may want to consider shortening it.  Sometimes, if your resume is too long, it obscures all the important experience and skills you have. Technical recruiters literally get lost in the maze of your resume– and usually IT recruiting firms will move on quickly if they can’t find what they want in a resume.  How can you make it easier for IT staffing agencies to see how great a candidate you are?  Here are two tips that are guaranteed to make your resume much easier for IT recruiting companies to navigate—and love.

Firstly, drop the objective and hobbies section.  Both of these sections focus on you and what you want.  While ideally a manager cares about this, they care much more about what the company needs.  IT staffing companies want to send hiring mangers resumes that focus more on what you can bring to a potential employer.  Take out everything else.  This means your objective and your hobbies.  You can make sure the position is what you want if or when you get to the interview stage.

Secondly, take out any extra awards or extracurricular activities from your school days that aren’t obviously relevant to the jobs you’re applying for.  If you’re listing activities or awards from school at all and you graduated more than a few years ago, consider removing these things altogether.  It’s more likely a hiring manager will be irritated you wasted her time making her read about your merit scholarship than it is that she’ll be impressed.  This is especially true if you graduated a few years ago.  Save the space on your resume for achievements at your past or present jobs.