IT professional

What are some techniques for Gaining an Interview?

With a great deal of highly qualified IT professionals (like myself) who are in the market looking for a solid position with a company during these dark times, it would be great to gain a competitive edge. So with that being stated does anyone have any “pointers” for getting in the door for that all important first interview?

I have hired a couple of paid services for help me obtain interviews. Now these services have indicated that they will “Guarantee” that I will get past HR, anyone who would be threatened by my credentials and straight to the hiring director. Well, it turns out these these are basically resume blast type opportunities. I have had three rejections via this type of service and each one has been rejected by the company’s HR department. So I’m not sure if I paid for a resume blast to every HR department and it is a numbers game to get to the hiring director OR did they actually go to the hiring director and were rejected… who knows.

I have gotten some better action from using services such as “LinkedIn”. I have been growing my network and I have received three great leads from there… the problem is this is not a very good hiring season (end of the year, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, etc) so even the positions that are stating “We must fill this position before the end of the year” are dragging their feet… I know I’m up for three of them.

So outside of my babbling… are there any other ideas we, the unemployed masses, can take to heart to get in the door so we can present ourselves better than a couple of pieces of paper (yes the all mightly resume)?

Any ideas are welcome.

Why are great candidates being weeded out?

Can someone explain to all of us as to why great candidates are being eliminated from potential available positions?

Is it because of the HR team involved truly do not have the correct information as well as not being trained on what to look for in potential candidates?

It is because of the Resume just does not have the correct level of “Key Words” on it?

Is a resume the BEST method of initiating the hiring IT staff members?

What is the correct format for a resume?

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This one is killing me. I have been technically unemployed from a full-time hired employee of a corporation since March of 2008. I have designed some of the most stable (ITIL based; SOX Compliant) infrastructure around. I designed and implemented complete corporate infrastructures (including full data centers), developed whole IT staffs from scratch, as well as lead several large ERP development team. In all my positions I have been very successful, but like others, a great majority of the companies I have chosen to work for have been startups or spin offs that did not last long in the market for any one of several reasons.

So I have been told my resume is very impressive… but yet I have only have three interviews with a hiring manager… why I ask? Let’s see what we can find out.

I have been approached by several of other IT management sorts who are in the same boat as I am. So this is not unique to me… so if anyone out there feels I was going that way… I wasn’t, but very observate.

For the most part I have seen that the majority of my resumes are being kicked out since I have been with seven companies since 1990. I have been classified as a “Job Hopper”. Well, in this day and age the average IT Manager who has been employed since 1990 will more than likely have from 3 to 10 jobs on their resume. During the mid-to-late 90s IPOs created a great deal of this, and yes I was caught up with a few of those. It happened, and it was not something I desired. But I had five companies fold under me; and one was downsizing when I was hired, so this is something that an employee cannot control. The good news is that folks in the same boat as I am in, will be seeing a light at the end of the tunnel since our numbers are growing at an alarming rate.

Now does the average HR review team question the positions I had? for the most part - No. I have been asked about four times in my current pursuit of gameful employment, and when I told them the truth, they understood, and actually admitted that the hiring director or someone else they have hired was in the same boat as I was before he/she was hired.

Resumes and Keywords - I know several guys who modify their resumes daily when submitting them to add every keyword on the job posting. Forget that they cannot do ANY of that work, they post it since they understand the golden rule - liars will get interviews (see my other post about why HR, and you will get a better history of why this is). Now for the most part they are weeded out by the technical teams during their interviews or they get enough google searches under their belt to BS the interview team to get to the next level but typically they will be fired once they have proven in the field they cannot do the job. Scary but true. To this, I say forget keywords employers… examine the candidates on their knowledge indepth. Educate the HR staff to weed out based on knowledge not the words on a piece of paper. Finally, don’t look for EVER keyword. As you know there is no IT candidate that is an expert in application development, skilled DBA as well as a WAN/LAN and infrastructure development and mangement guru. Be realistic.

Resume the best tool… no. the reason I say that is simple. Over the past 8 months, my resume has been revised 14 times but so-called professionals… to date, I have not received a single interview from them. I have been told to make it no more than 2 pages; eliminate any position after the first five. So what is the right thing to do? Honestly a resume cannot be the best tool simply because there is no standard to go by. I have fourteen different versions to prove that. I was even guaranteed interviews from the last group who revised my resume… and I’m still waiting. Is there a correct format? I cannot see one.

I’m facing the same issues as nearly 400,000 of my IT brothers and sisters in the job search market today. Now there are jobs, just not enough to cater to all of us. When we bounce back from this recession hopefully we will, but only time will tell.

I would love to hear your comments.

HR… Why I ask why?

In today’s market I have seen a very disturbing sight. With the influx of layoffs, and companies folding it seems that the bulk of IT hiring has been thrusted on shoulders of corporate Human Resource Teams… but is that the best solution?

Here are some scary facts you may desire to consider:

1) HR departments are starting to weed out any potential candidate that has posted more than one resume or application.
2) The average HR clerk or even manager have not a single clue as to what we in IT do for a company. They are given a job description at best, and they use that to weed out potential candidates.
3) The average HR staff member views IT as a resource not a component of the infrastructure for the root corporation… which we are.
4) HR staff member do not have the skill sets to interview a potential IT candidate.

So let’s look closer shall we… For the first point, this is completely a sign of laziness. Now granted the average posting for any company is receiving close to 2000 applications/resumes a day, so the volume of documents are HUGE. But, if anyone remembers back in the day, we were told to submit our resumes and applications multiple times to make sure you grab the hiring manager attention. So what if you submit an application to Company A and you hire a firm who will process a resume blast to hundreds of companies at a time, without informing you of which companies they submitted too… you could have just eliminated yourself from the process even if you are the best and brightest candidate on the market.

As for item 2, oh this has been a worry for IT Management for years. HR is a great tool for hiring production and administrative staff but what about technical based skill set required positions? You will draw a blank in about 95% of all corporations on that one. Basically HR will required a job description for the position and any of you out there know as well as I do we generally create a job description in “lay mans” terms so the average joe/josie can understand it. But this is the problem! We as management just eliminated a great deal of the best candidates… why? Simple… in our zeal to make the document easy to understand we eliminated the detail as to what we are looking for in a position. This is very hectic since IT management relays on HR for the initial screening of all candidates.

3) “IT fixes my computer… right?”. You are kidding yourself if you think HR staff sees what we do as anything other than that. Forget that IT is a very BROAD category… in IT you can have network infrastructure, you can have application development, application infrastructure, you can have server teams, and WAN teams as well as the all important helpdesk teams. So we fix computers, right? The correct answer is NO. For the majority of open positions in the market today infrastructure and application develop engineers lead the “need to fill” category, so you are relaying on a HR staff member who has no clue about IT to do your screening… you may desire to revisit number 2 and get the details out to your HR department before number 3 kills you.

4) Finally do you honestly expect an HR staff member to process the initial interview of your candidates? Are you kidding? Presently, according to a local executive placement service in the DFW area, there are about 40% of all initial interviews end up with not a single qualified candidate making it to the second round of interview. The main reason for this is the banter between candidate and interviewer. If the interviewer is unaware of the IT role in the company and have no clue what skill sets are required to accomplish any tasks on the job description how can they successfully interview a candidate. A simple question like ” do you understand the Cisco Operating System?” and the candidate answers “Yes, I understand all the latest IOS verisons as well as CATOS, and the SONIC Software addon”… I will guarantee you the HR staff member who is conducting the interview will not even be phased with the last part of that answer… they will see it as the candidate has a complete understanding.

So with these points you can see the frustration that is growing in the unemployed IT world. We are having a difficult time getting the best candidates through HR. How can we rectify this?

Talents That Are in Need

OK… this one is simple. In today’s market… what are the most desirable techniques, talent, required skills that you… as a hiring manager would love to have in a candidate?

Suggestions for Better Interview Processing

Ok this one is for the Hiring Managers. We would like your input on what you are seeing from folks you are interviewing for IT positions so we can find out what are some good techniques you like to see and some that either in need of some “polishing” or should be completely forgotten about by the candidate.

Any techniques listed here would be great. Again we are looking to see about improving the overall interview process for everyone.

What is the Largest Road Block in Your Interview Process?

In today’s market we are facing a serious issue. Jobs are tight… but are they? In Texas where I live there are a great many positions available… the problem is there are a great many of us out of work or about to be displaced due to downsizing, corporate bankruptcy or a complete closure of your position. In any situation, we will all be facing the hiring process… either on one side of the table.

For this blog, tell me what is your worst nightmare of the interview process.

The goal here is to see where we could either improve the situation for the interview process or is this something we tend to do each interview and we just don’t realize it. I would like to hear from both sides of the table (interviewee and the interviewer).

Let’s identify the Cons of the Interview process.

IT Professional - Unite

This blog is for IT professionals who are:

1) Trying to obtain a stable position with a corporation, education establishment, etc.
2) Currently Employed but in need of some fellow IT professional input for projects or activities you may need some additional insight.
3) IT Professionals who have some ideas to share about our market and where we are going.

… basically every IT professional out there.

I will start the ball rolling by posting some topics for everyone to interact. If you have any ideas for some blog topics, please let me know or post them here.

Everyone please note and understand that this blog is not for posting or soliciting job prospects or offers. This is for ideas of interviewing, getting pass hurdles that are preventing getting interviews… i.e. trying to get pass HR who (everyone will agree) has NO CLUE of what IT folks do on a daily basis… they are what I call “Keyword finders”… resume lemmings… but I digress.

Please refrain from posting job opportunties here. This blog is for assistance in technique only.

Hopefully we will have a good following for this blog.

Later,

Tom Wilson