Tag Archives: IT staffing companies

Answering ‘How Would Coworkers Describe You?’ in IT Interviews

Sometimes in IT job interviews, you might be asked how your managers and coworkers would describe you.  IT recruiters and IT staffing companies come across plenty of candidates who feel uncomfortable answering this question—or just don’t know how to.  Here’s how you can prepare to answer this question—and maybe land yourself the next IT jobs you interview for!

Start by asking your technical recruiters and IT recruiting firms a few quick questions before the interview.  You’ll want your IT staffing agencies to tell you what qualities are important in this role or in the company’s corporate culture in general.  Make a list of these for yourself, then think about what qualities might apply to you.  If you see any on this list that you think apply directly to you, then highlight those.

Now think back to any performance reviews, letters of recommendation, and general feedback you’ve gotten in your current and previous jobs.  Has anybody mentioned these qualities?  Write a quick note about it for yourself.  If you can’t think of any examples of people directly mentioning it, your next best bet is to think of times when you did something for somebody that demonstrated one of these qualities.  Jot down a quick note for yourself about that moment.

The last step is to practice actually talking about these qualities as though you were speaking to an interviewer.  While your IT recruiting agencies don’t want you to sound robotic and over-rehearsed, it’s good to practice answering questions a bit before the interview so you feel comfortable doing it.  You also won’t really be able to refer to your notes on this, so it’s good to practice so that you can remember the salient points.

IT job interviews questions
Make a list of qualities your IT recruiters think are important to this IT job. Photo credit: Caleb Roenigk via flickr.

 

 

IT Job Interviews at Unconventional Locations

Sometimes your IT recruiters and IT staffing firms may set you up for IT job interviews at unconventional places, like a coffee shop.  Though it’s certainly not common for technical recruiters or IT staffing companies to do this, it’s good for IT professionals to be prepared for these kinds of interviews.  While the rules are fairly similar to interviews for IT jobs in conventional locations (like offices) here are some rules that may be less intuitive.

  1. Ask your IT recruiting agencies for advice on what to wear.  Don’t assume that the dress code will be more or less relaxed because you’ll be meeting outside an office setting. This is an easy way to start off with a good impression, so make sure you find out from your IT staffing agencies how you should dress.
  2. Ask your IT recruiting firms if they can give you a picture or description of what your interviewer looks like.  Since you’re meeting in a public place, this will help you figure out how to spot them quickly and without any awkwardness.
  3. Be on your best behavior.  Be exceptionally polite to the staff at the coffee shop, pick up after yourself, and don’t curse or tell off-color stories.  It can be easy to fall into more casual behavior outside an office setting.  Resist this urge – your IT recruiting companies are more likely to hear good feedback if you be your best, politest, most professional self throughout the whole interview.

 

IT job interviews coffee shop
Don’t order a drink that will give you a foam mustache during your IT job interview! Photo credit: Stephan Rosger via Flickr.

 

 

Quick Fixes for your IT Resume

If you’re looking to attract technical recruiters and IT staffing companies, you may want to polish your resume a bit.  While IT recruiters and IT staffing firms do care a lot about the content of a resume, that first quick glance at your resume is pretty influential, too.  It’s definitely worth employing these quick tips to polish your resume so that it looks more appealing to hiring managers and IT recruiting agencies.

  1. Make it easy to contact you. Don’t hide your information or omit it.  IT staffing agencies need to be able to reach you if they see IT jobs that are a good fit for you.  Put your contact info in one spot at the top of your resume.
  2. Make your resume easier to read. Cut down blocks of text and cut down your resume in general.  While you don’t need to stick to the 1 page rule most other industries require, do cut your resume down as much as you can. Organize your resume into important categories like Professional Experience, Technical Proficiencies, Education, etc.
  3. Make sure relevant skills and experience are near the top of the page. IT recruiting companies and hiring managers both look at many, many resumes.  Don’t let things that are less relevant clutter up the top of the IT resume.  Make it immediately obvious to IT recruiting firms and hiring managers that you’re a great candidate– especially for the kinds of IT jobs that you’d love to be considered for!
Working on IT resume
You’re not done with your IT resume just yet! Make sure it’s clean and easy to read before posting it! Photo credit: deathtostock.com. 

Do This if You Don’t Understand Questions in IT Job Interviews

If you’re working with technical recruiters and IT staffing companies to search for new IT jobs, sometimes you’ll have moments where you don’t understand your interviewer.   Some IT professionals might feel nervous and uncomfortable asking for clarification.  However, if your interviewer asks you a question you don’t understand, there’s a couple ways you can get clarification without your IT recruiters and IT staffing firms getting bad feedback about you.  In fact, your IT recruiting companies will want you to do one of these tactics  listed below so that you can answer all interview questions to the best of your abilities.

  1. Don’t be ashamed to ask the hiring manager to repeat the question for you. You can soften this a bit by apologizing if you prefer.  The only caveat here is that your IT recruiting firms will get bad feedback about you if you ask your interviewer to repeat more than a couple of questions.  A good IT professional listens and has good communication skills.  Don’t make it easy for interviewers to assume otherwise about you.
  2. If you’re asked a technical question, but you’re unsure of exactly what kind of response your interviewer is asking for, try asking a clarifying question. One way to do this is to suggest that you “think they’re looking for X information and you’re happy to expound on it if that’s true.  If they’re looking for Y information, you’ll  happily give that instead.”
  3. Consider inserting a little humor into the situation. Whether you ask for clarification or for the interviewer to repeat the question, this could be a good moment to show off your ability to build rapport.  Good communication skills can really make you shine in IT roles.  If you think your interviewer would like it, make a small, tasteful joke if you don’t understand a question.  They may like you all the more for it.
IT Job interview questions
If you don’t understand a question, your IT recruiters want you to clarify before answering it! Photo credit: Colin Kinner via Flickr.

Ask This Question in IT Job Interviews

Plenty of IT professionals have a hard time coming up with great questions to ask at the end of interviews.  There are a lot of standard questions out there that your IT recruiters and IT staffing companies can give you.  This won’t really wow your interviewer and guarantee some good feedback to your technical recruiters and IT recruiting firms, though.  The questions that make a strong impression show that you’re interested in finding new IT jobs that are a good fit for you.  Here’s one example of a question that will really wow hiring managers.

Start by identifying things you really want in your next IT job.  Maybe it’s a more collaborative environment, working with a particular technology, or something else.  Run it by your IT staffing firms.  Ask them if the jobs you’re interviewing are likely to have this quality.  If your IT staffing agencies are good, they’ll be submitting you for jobs that are a good fit anyways.  These jobs will likely have the qualities you want.

When you go to the interview, you can tell your interviewer that this quality is something you’d really like in your next job.  Then ask them whether this IT job will offer it.  If they don’t say much more than yes, you may want to ask your interviewer to expound on that a bit.    Your interviewer will really appreciate this question because it will help them to see that you’d be a good fit for the company and role.   When you show them your priorities and values are in line with the company’s, you can really strengthen your candidacy.  Your interviewers will also appreciate that you don’t just want any job—you’re working with your IT recruiting companies to find a job that you think you could succeed in and enjoy for a long time.  This is their ideal employee.

IT job search
Take time to think about what qualities you want in your next IT job. Photo credit: Marc Eliot via Flickr.

 

Don’t Do These Things After IT Job Interviews

When you’re interviewing for IT jobs, it’s normal to feel pretty nervous, no matter how well you prepared for them with your IT recruiters and IT staffing firms.  The best way to move forward is to stay in touch with your technical recruiters and avoid making these mistakes:

  1. Don’t post anything on your social media accounts that’s offensive or that could reflect poorly on you.  IT recruiting agencies have found that candidates do get cut out of the running for IT jobs because of poor judgment with their social media use.  Also, if you hadn’t already done it before starting your IT job search with IT staffing firms, clean up all of your social media accounts completely.
  2. Don’t make yourself unreachable to your IT recruiting firms.  They may need more info for hiring managers, need to set you up for new interviews, or have an offer for you. You don’t have to pick up calls from your IT staffing agencies on the first ring, but try to get back to them within a few hours at most.
  3. Don’t halt your search. Even if you’re on a second interview with an potential employer, let your IT recruiting companies keep submitting you for other positions that interest you.  You can’t guarantee you’ll get a job, no matter how good your chances seem.  Keep the odds in your favor and continue your IT job search full steam ahead until your IT recruiters call you with an offer!
Social Media IT Job Search
Be careful about updating your social media as you look for IT jobs. Photo credit: Highways Agency via Flickr.

 

 

How to Talk about Long Employment Gaps in IT Job Interviews

Sometimes when you’re interviewing for IT jobs, you may be asked about how long you’ve been unemployed or job searching.  If you have been searching or unemployed for a long time, you need to be delicate in how you respond.  This is especially true in IT, where IT recruiters and IT staffing firms usually find that people have particularly short periods of unemployment.  Here are a few tips that will help you represent yourself and your IT recruiting companies well.

Firstly, keep any negative emotions out of your answer.  If you’ve been working with technical recruiters and IT staffing companies for a while to find an IT job, you might feel disappointed or discouraged.  Make sure this doesn’t come through when you respond to the hiring manager or interviewers.  Keep a positive, upbeat tone and project confidence that you and your IT recruiting firms will find something that you’re a great fit for.  People want to hire IT professionals who are emotionally stable, happy people who are confident in themselves and their abilities.  Don’t do anything to ruin that image of yourself.

Secondly, keep the language positive and stress that you are in control of your job search.  One way to do this is to suggest that you’re being very judicious in your search and don’t want your IT staffing agencies to place you in a job that’s a bad fit.  Another is to let your interviewer know if you’ve purposely taken time off from your search.  People do take time off from work or a job search for some legitimate reasons.  Some of these are: caring for a family member, travelling, dealing with health issues, moving to a new part of the country, or just to take a break—though this is the least desirable response.

Lastly, practice talking about this before your interviews.  You might get feedback from your IT recruiting agencies or just practice with a family member or friend.  Whatever the case may be, it will help you feel prepared and calm if you’ve practiced talking about this before the IT job interview.

Travel IT job search
Sometimes IT professionals take longer periods of time off between IT jobs to travel. Photo credit: Kate Ter Haar via Flickr.

More Bad IT Resume Advice to Avoid

To continue the recent theme of bad resume advice, here’s one more mistake that IT recruiters and IT staffing firms don’t want to see on your resume.  Do not list your children on your IT resume.  You will absolutely turn off technical recruiters and IT staffing companies if you list info about your children or if you list raising your children as achievements or experience.

Does this really happen?  Unfortunately, yes.   IT recruiting agencies do sometimes receive resumes with these listings.  Sometimes this is only because of cultural differences.  Some countries outside the US do require listing family members, marital status, etc on resumes.  Especially if you’d like to convince IT staffing agencies that you’re ready to perform well and fit into a US workplace, you’ll want to remove this information from your resume.

If you are not from another country, you’re likely just following some bad advice if you include this info on your IT resume.  Some IT recruiting firms have come across people who are trying to explain a resume gap by listing time to raise children.  A brief mention of this is fine.  However, listing child-rearing and domestic duties as experience will turn off hiring managers and IT recruiting companies.  These activities are certainly honorable in their own right, but they aren’t relevant to a resume.  This is because these skills aren’t entirely applicable to the professional world, but more importantly, they can’t be measured or evaluated by a manager.  There is nobody to vouch for your quality of work in these areas.  The end result is that listing domestic and child-rearing duties makes you look out of touch with professional norms.  Don’t risk it—leave details about your family off your resume!

RaisingFamilyITResumes
Raising a family certainly takes skills, but you don’t want to add it to your IT resume! Photo credit: Philippe Put via Flickr.

 

How to Make Your IT Resume Just Technical Enough

As you polish your resume for your IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies, you might be wondering how technical to make it.  Technical recruiters and IT recruiting firms do sometimes come across resumes that are simply too technical to effectively represent a candidate.  IT staffing firms also come across resumes that don’t give enough technical details to sell their candidacy.  How do you walk the line between these two extremes?

Start by thinking about the IT jobs you’d like to be considered for.  Would they involve a lot of conversations with end users or clients?  Would you need to be able to speak to both tech savvy people and people who aren’t tech savvy?  If this is the case, IT recruiting companies will want to see a resume that isn’t so technical it’s unreadable for anybody without computer science degree.

On the contrary, if you’re aiming for positions that are highly technical and don’t require much interaction with end users, don’t skimp on details. For positions like this, it’s easier for IT staffing companies to advocate for your candidacy when you give more information about your technical proficiencies and professional achievements (especially ones that are relevant to the IT jobs you want to be considered for).  Successful IT professionals tailor their IT resumes to the jobs they want, right down to the level of technical detail they provide.

IT jobs IT resumes
Will your target IT jobs involve communication with end-users? Edit your IT resume accordingly! Photo credit: deathtothestockphoto.com

 

Are You Using This Bad IT Resume Advice?

IT recruiters and IT staffing firms want IT professionals to give the best version of their resumes possible.  This might seem pretty straightforward and easy to do, but technical recruiters and IT recruiting firms come across some resumes that have clearly been built with terrible advice.  Some resumes are so long they could be novels.  Some resumes are so poorly organized or full of heavily technical terms that they’re nearly unreadable—to IT recruiting agencies, hiring managers, or anybody else!   Here’s one easy mistake you can avoid (or fix) to maximize the power of your IT resume: don’t add a description of each company you’ve worked at.

Unfortunately, many IT staffing agencies come across resumes with this mistake.  While it’s not the worst resume mistake you could be making, it’s still not helping you impress hiring managers or IT recruiting companies.  When you list a company and its general location (like the city and state), then it’s easy enough for IT staffing companies or interviewers to look it up if they are curious.  You don’t need to give a summary of what the company does.  Instead, use this space to list more of your professional achievements.  This is info that you really want your IT recruiting firms and potential employers to see— and this is info that’s not available online.  So use the space on your resume wisely!  Delete those company descriptions and replace them with more info to strengthen your candidacy for IT jobs.

IT resume Typing
Take out those company descriptions. They’re not impressing your IT recruiters or potential employers. Photo credit: DeathtotheStockPhoto.com.