IT and Recruiters

Through the process of transitioning from a job in IT Recruiting to my current career as a SQL Programmer, I have gained an interesting perspective on the relationship between IT work and Recruiting work. Sometimes it is a harmonious relationship, and sometimes it is much more detached and meaningless. I had the fortune of working with some of the best recruiters in the business, and also getting to see some of the practices that other firms used. I then of course also got to actually go through an interview for the job I have now. Here are a few tips I have for interacting and getting the most out of your interaction and relationship with your recruiter(s).

1) Spend time on your resume!
This is by far the best thing you can do to be noticed by recruiters. Recruiters have access to tens of thousands of resumes, and can easily run across hundreds in and around the area you are working with they keywords they are looking for. This may sound like beating a dead horse, but clean up your resume before you send it out. Not just for spelling and punctuation errors, but for overall formatting. At my company we would frequently work with candidates to repair their resumes into a tried and true format.

Usually it looked like Name/Contact -> Technical Skills -> Work Experience -> Education/Certification.

USE BULLETS! Nothing is more frustrating than having to read through half of war an peace to try to find out what you have actually been up to at your last job.

LIST DATES OF EMPLOYMENT! Recruiters like to see what you have been up to recently, and specifically in the last 3-6 months. A resume without dates again causes the problem of forcing the recruiter to try to guess at what you have been doing, and that's not what you want.

2) Recruiters are NOT technical!
This ties in very closely with the last point, but recruiters don't really know anything about IT. They know a lot of acronyms, they know a lot of technologies just shy of skin deep, but if you wanted them to define what Inheritence means other than "something to do with Object Oriented programming (whatever that is)", you are SOL.

That said, help us help you. This might sound like an over-simplification, but get those acronyms they know into your resume. Some details about what the nature of the project was (i.e. website, financial reporting tool, etc.), but make sure to tie in any technologies you used, and REPEAT IT! Trust me, I know this can feel stupid when you are typing "wrote T-SQL Code in SQL Server 2008..." for the third time under one job, but it IS true, and it WILL get your resume to pop to the top of the list when a recruiter queries "SQL AND Develop*" into Dice.

3) Humor us
Again, tied into the last point, help the recruiters out once they do notice you and get you on the phone or in person. Be willing to exercise some patience, explain something to them in layman's terms, or not take it personally when you try to explain how a password hash algorithm works and you get a smile and nod back. Recruiters are really just looking for an answer to their questions that aren't simply "yes, I worked with that." A good concise answer to a question posed might not make any sense to them, but they will know that you know what you are talking about.

That said, don't ramble. It only takes about 20-30 seconds for them to believe that you know your stuff. After that, interest will quickly fall off, and can get to the point where you will be written off as a ramble who wont shut up. Clean, Concise, and Friendly.

4) Be prepared to be blown up
If you followed the above steps, you will probably be getting a LOT of phone calls and emails. Good IT people with solid resumes (especially at a more senior level) can easily get multiple contacts PER DAY, especially after you recently post your resume. A new resume on a job board will be swarmed to quickly. I know of many candidates who would set up a googleVoice account temporarily while on the job hunt, and a separate email address. Once they find a job, they can put an auto reply to the account saying something to the effect of "Thank you for your interest, but I am currently happily employed. If I am ever on the job search again, I will contact you.". Simple, separate you from all the insanity of being called all the time, and leaves a good taste in the recruiters mouth.

5) Be respectful
Above all, whatever your opinion of recruiters is (whether you find them annoying, useful, interesting,) be respectful. Recruiters have piles of resumes to get to, and it doesn't take much for them to write you off and move on, but it's not hard to stay on their good side. Show up to interviews well dressed and on time. Be prompt with email responses. Be friendly, professional, courteous, and helpful. This probably sounds like what you would expect FROM your recruiter, and indeed you should. But if you do all the things on this list, and especially are respectful to the recruiters, your name will be praised, and called for all the best positions when they open up.