The Resume Sidekick That Can Take the Spotlight in Your Career

You want to land the best technology jobs, and though now is the best time to job search, you know you need to stand out against other candidates – but how?

Your own website could be a game-changing solution. According to Workfolio, 56% of all hiring managers are more impressed by a candidate’s personal website than any other personal branding tool. Yet only 7% of job seekers have one. This is your perfect opportunity.

Here, we look at why and how having a personal website and keeping it maintained and up to date can help you land your ideal job.

It’s a Real-Time Resume

You optimized your resume and ensured you eliminated all the mistakes. You also outlined your technical ability on your resume – but so have all the other candidates. With a link that directs employers straight to your professional and well-maintained website, they have evidence right before them that you are one giant leap ahead of other candidates.

It’s a Portfolio of Work

A website helps you showcase your work the way you want to. It is a portfolio of your work that gives employers a glimpse into what you have to offer as a tech candidate.

Showcase any projects that you’ve achieved and have permission to share on your website, with outcomes and results that portray you as a talented contributor to an organization’s success.

A section on testimonials will also back up your claims with powerful statements you’re unable to include on a resume.

If you’ve participated or managed any voluntary projects as an individual or as part of a team, show them off. This is particularly important if you’re new to the field with little or no employment history.

It Demonstrates Your Tech Ability

Using powerful graphics and a streamlined, user-friendly, yet innovative and stylish website will demonstrate who you are as a professional. Hiring managers will love your creativity of doing something different in their hiring process.

Your website is the one place where you have full control over what you are portraying as a candidate by showing off relevant skills and accomplishments in the fields of technology and engineering.

It Helps Connect You to a Professional Network

A personal website is an excellent way to connect with potential employers who may check out your work online.

When your skills and abilities are on the world wide web, you become increasingly visible – to clients, employers, and hiring managers. The more exposure you have, the more likely you’ll get headhunted.

A hiring manager or agency may reach out to you – even if the timing isn’t right for you, you may discover an opportunity you wouldn’t have as a passive candidate.

It Shows You Stay Updated with Your Industry and Technology

To land the best technology jobs, you must be keen to keep pace with change and innovation. Laws and regulations are also regularly updated, so employers seek candidates who have a genuine passion in both the creative and legal side of technology.

Your website is a great way to prove this. Having a well-maintained and knowledgeable blog page will drive traffic to your website (and further enhance your network and value), and show employers you take an active approach to learning the very latest trends and needs of technology.

It’s a Talking Point in Interviews

You’re more likely to land an interview when employers have already gained insight into your true ability and technical mindset through your website. You’ve already chipped down many bricks in the wall between you and your dream tech job (whereas other candidates will yet have much work to do). You can walk in with confidence, and have your website as a talking point that will often be raised with great interest by the interviewer.

Get Exposure to Some of the Best Technology Jobs Today

We’ve shown you how a website can really help your ability to find and land the best technology jobs. It certainly strengthens your application as a standout candidate! There is, however, a lot of things you can do to further fast-track your career.

How? Submit your resume to ITC today. We will ensure your resume is optimized to ensure our clients feel compelled to visit your website. We’ll also help prepare you for interview. Most importantly, we ensure we understand your career goals, and find the solutions and opportunities that you need to thrive. Get in touch and help us get you seen by the best in the biz.

The Trips and Hurdles That Block You from Talent

Hiring the right talent for technology jobs can be difficult, expensive, and time-consuming – especially if your strategy is littered with errors.

To prevent a significant decline in productivity, an increase in turnover, and a decrease in competitiveness, you must implement the right tactics to fill technology jobs in a skills shortage. CareerBuilder estimates that 74% of companies that made a poor hire lost an average $14,900 for every poor hire made.

You must boost your market competitiveness by having the best talent on board. Here are the mistakes to avoid in your search.

1.    Your Job Description Is Dull and Inaccurate

The tech industry is innovative and exciting. Don’t let your job description be a buzzkill for candidates. The most talented want to be a part of something big to spread their tech wings. Trash the cliches. Let your culture shine through, and ensure the job details are accurate.

2.    The Application Process Is Clunky

The people you want are fast workers with tech, right? Don’t put them off from applying with a clunky application process. Make sure it’s tech savvy, mobile friendly, and smooth.

3.    You Don’t Have a Clear Hiring Structure

You must have a pre-defined, documented hiring structure before starting the hiring process. It will benefit your finances, resources, and applicants, as well as leave quality candidates impressed.

4.    You’re Slow to Respond

It’s the equivalent of seeing that annoying timer on your screen. You don’t know what the next page will look like. You refresh… you might even just click off the page. It’s the same for skilled tech people. Be slow to respond, and they’ll head elsewhere.

5.    You Don’t Check for Culture

Technical jobs aren’t all about technical ability. Great teams consist of unified individuals. If you don’t test for cultural fit, you risk personality clashes that could cost in quality, productivity, reputation, and turnover.

6.    You’ve Drawn in Your Own Search Net

Posting a job ad on a big, monstrous job site won’t get you the refined skills you’re looking for – just a swamp of jobseekers applying for every job on the board, slowing down your process. Get out there. Search online. Get to jobs fairs. Partner with a specialist hiring firm. A lot of talented potential hires are passive candidates.

7.    You Can’t See Past a Resume

Tech people are good at tech, not resumes. Ensure your hiring manager isn’t eliminating potential standout talent just because their resume isn’t that of a professional resume writer.

8.    You Don’t Test Abilities

You just took their word for it? Big mistake. Get technical tests in early in the process. This eliminates anyone who can’t fulfil the groundwork, leaving you to examine for soft skills and fit.

9.    You Rely on First Impressions

Don’t get too excited over one candidate. Continue with rigorous vetting or you’ll risk your gut instinct making the wrong choice. Equally, don’t immediately disregard a candidate just because he or she wasn’t as privileged academically. You must dig deeper to uncover both qualities and downfalls.

10. Your Hiring Managers Are out of Their Depth

Make sure whoever is interviewing or assessing high-quality candidates knows what they’re talking about. They’ll know what to ask, understand the answers, and won’t leave excellent candidates feeling underchallenged.

11. You Don’t Look After Unsuccessful Candidates

Don’t disregard candidates who don’t make it through the process. Always keep them in the loop, thank them for their interest and time spent, and leave a positive impression. You never know when they might just flourish into the ideal candidate for your next open position.

Partner with a Staffing Agency for Contract-To-Hire Staffing

There are a lot of common mistakes out to trip up your search for talent. They’re easy to make, because avoiding them requires dedication, expertise, resources, and time. Irvine Tech provides the support and expertise you need to execute a successful search for tech talent. We will:

• Offer the talent you need on various contracts that suit your requirements
• Test candidates for technical knowledge, communication skills, and cultural fit
• Flex our experience and expertise to seek out the skilled individuals you need and advocate your business to them
• Provide thorough screening, as well as a technical team that guarantees candidate success
• Use aggressive referral and networking programs to broaden our continual search
• Provide payroll solutions and cover employee benefits
• Provide a flexible and affordable, cost-effective executive search

Allow our team to find the talent you need, when you need it, to propel your business to its strategic goals. Contact Irvine Tech today.

The Tech Staffing Solutions in an Evolving Skills Shortage

Technology jobs are a massive contributor to your company’s ability to succeed. But what are the trends that dictate which tech talent you should be hiring?

Technology is moving at an exciting pace. IBM has estimated that 90% of the world’s data was produced in the last two years alone. The pandemic has seen developments across every industry develop by five years in the space of one.

Here, we’ll identify the four biggest trends that are defining the technology jobs in most demand today.

1.    AI as a Service

Artificial intelligence has been a key contributor to the tech industry over the last few years. Most recently, its use has increased with more industries finding a need for the solutions it provides. The need to forecast business risk is now a rigid business protocol – and AI is a carrier to do so.

With other business areas using AI to assess maintenance, improve performance, and prevent problems, those in AI technology jobs will remain consistently high value to organizations.

2.    Augmented Reality

A study by Statista shows that the augmented reality market has risen from a value of $200 million in 2016, to a colossal $50 billion in 2021.

AR is being developed across all industries, from gaming to healthcare, entertainment, and education. An innovative and creative team will be required for organizations’ technology jobs to thrive and strengthen competitive stance.

3.    Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity continues to be a trending factor. With cyber intelligence ever-evolving, businesses of all sizes and industries must ramp up their protection efforts through skills and awareness. Problem solvers and critical thinkers are in high demand.

As reported by The New York Times, Cybersecurity Ventures believes there are 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs. Consequently, organizations may have a hard time securing the best cybersecurity for their technology jobs. The earlier you start and the more proactive you are, the more effective your hiring efforts are likely to be.

4.    Blockchain

Blockchain is drastically transforming business processes. 2020 saw many organizations shift their workforces to remote environments. Blockchain became increasingly crucial and significant – particularly for financial institutes. Gartner has forecast that blockchain will increase business value generated to $176 billion in 2025, and $3.1 trillion by 2030.

Tips to Fill Technology Jobs with Skills

As tech trends are shifting, so too are hiring trends. For your organization to hire the tech talent you need in the depths of a technology skills shortage, you must implement these trending hiring strategies:

Mobile Sourcing

If you’re not creating a mobile-friendly experience for tech job seekers, you’re eliminating a whole lot of opportunity. With most people accessing the internet through their mobile devices, it’s crucial you get your technology jobs vacancies in front of them with optimized viewing and compatibility.

AI

The hiring process can be time-consuming, seeing you lose out on the best candidates. Reduce the process by implementing AI through automation, scheduling, assessment, filing, and acknowledging candidates.

Social Hiring

Social media is a powerful tool that you must be using to entice the most skilled tech candidates in the market. You must use social media as part of your marketing strategy to make your vacancies visible, and get your employer brand in front of passive tech talent.

Diversity

Companies are experiencing huge advantages from a diverse workforce, including:

• Improved bottom line
• Improved collaboration of your workforce
• Reduced employee turnover
• Enriched work culture
• Desired employer brand

For better performance and higher productivity of your workforce, you should hire with diversity and embrace the benefits this brings your organization.

Staffing Agency

A specialist staffing agency is the most successful and productive channel to link your organization with the best candidates for your technology jobs. At ITC we provide:

• A nurtured talent pool
• Executive search
• Payroll solutions
• Aggressive referral schemes
• High-level hiring expertise
• Various contracts to suit your staffing needs

Here at ITC, we take time to understand your business needs, and the candidates you require to accelerate toward your business goals.

Keep Pace with Trends and the Right Skills in Your Technology Jobs

The sweeping trends today are defined for us, but it’s down to you as a company to define your workforce. Are your team’s skills matched to the trends that are dictating the future of technology in your business?

Whether you need expert navigation through permanent hires or temporary contracts to deliver timely projects, Irvine Tech Corp is here to enrich your hiring process, so that you can onboard the skills you need. Contact Irvine Tech Corporation today.

In-Demand Jobs in Technology in 2021

If you’re dissatisfied in your current role in technology jobs, you may be concerned that you’ll be stuck in a job you don’t enjoy for the next few months. With the United States economy still reeling from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, wouldn’t it be an unwise move to start job searching now?

The answer is that now is a great time to start your search for a new job in technology. While sectors like hospitality, ente

rtainment, and travel are struggling, other sectors are growing. The demand for technology jobs is expanding, and technology skills are in short supply.

Which Technology Jobs Are Most in Demand and Why?

The pandemic has accelerated digitalization and the shift to home working. It has also revolutionized the way people live their lives. For example, data shows that:

• eCommerce sales leapt 49% in this year’s holiday shopping season
• 2020 was the year the economy began to ‘work from home’, with 42% of people working remotely
• As the pandemic hit, telehealth visits were forecast to hit 1 billion by the end of 2020, up from around 50 million in 2019

To enable this seismic shift, companies must boost their tech capacity. In the third quarter of 2020, the unemployment rate in technology jobs stood at 3.5%, and, according to the Dice Tech Job Report, 68% of the largest technology employers had increased the number of job postings from the second quarter.

So, what jobs are likely to be most in demand as we move through 2021 and through the mass vaccination program that could help the world eco

nomy recover?

Cloud Engineers and Cybersecurity Specialists

Cloud technology has enabled the world to continue to work and live. Professionals in data, systems, network, and security are in demand as organizations increase their reliance on data for their business operations.

Moving forward, Cloud Engineers will help to create the infrastructure that enables companies to stay on top of compliance and regulations, and ensure hardware, software, and networks are fit for purpose. The most in-demand skills in these jobs include:

• Up-to-
  date knowledge of the latest cloud technologies
• Good communication skills
• Teamwork and collaboration
• Experience of scaling cloud-based applications

The amount of data that is collected and stored is increasing, and this brings extra need for a host of cybersecurity skills to ensure vulnerability is reduced and network security is maximized. Roles in these disciplines ask for skills such as:

• Good communication skills, with the ability to explain policies and procedures
• Experience in managing security vulnerabilities
• Up-to-date industry regulation knowledge

DevOps Engineers

Software and DevOps Engineers are essential as companies progress their own digital transformations. Python Developers, Full-Stack Engineers, and DevOps professionals are in demand. Companies are seeking strategically-minded developers who can help to accelerate development to and drive innovation in technology solutions.

Sought-after skills include:

• Strategic thinking
• Accuracy
• Knowledge of security issues and regulations
• Experience in accelerating development cycles
• Collaborative and business-minded

Data Engineers and Data Scientists

Organizations must use data effectively to be sustainable and competitive. The complexity of collected data requires a set of key skills to clean, store, and analyze. These skills include:

• Curiosity
• An analytical and detail-oriented mind
• Use of statistical theory in problem solving
• Experience in data modeling to answer the needs of the business

AI Engineering

Artificial Intelligence professionals are in demand as organizations seek to use their data to manage and grow their operations. As processes become increasingly automated, employers will seek skills that include:

• TensorFlow
• Python
• Java
• Natural Language Processing

COVID-19 Is Accelerating Demand for Talented Technology Employees

As we move through and out of COVID-19, it’s a great time to be searching for new technology jobs. Companies are redefining their business models, processes, and the roles they need to accelerate their own digital transformations. Consequently, many businesses are bringing in new staff to facilitate these changes.

Say goodbye to 2020 in the best possible way. Get a new job that makes you excited to go to work – in office or at home.

For help taking the next step in your career, submit your resume to our team today.

In a Market Short on Skills, You Cannot Afford to Stand Still

In today’s digital age, the people you hire into technology jobs has a huge bearing on your bottom line. While many may not be customer-facing, tech staff are the backbone of your organization. They are the ones who design, develop, and maintain crucial technology and systems – without which your organization could not operate.

The Critical Nature of Capability in Technology Jobs

The capability of your tech employees has a direct bearing on your ability to take advantage of emerging technologies, like digitization, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. The technology that will improve your organizational agility, speed of change, work processes, and productivity.

In its report ‘Are we long – or short – of talent?’, McKinsey & Company has found that 60% of executives believe that half their workforce will need to be replaced or retrained within five years. If your organization expects to gain competitive advantage via its technical capability, it won’t happen without the people who can deliver your strategy. As McKinsey says in its report:

“What might seem like an irritating talent gap today could prove a fatal competitive liability in the not-too-distant future.”

Marrying Organizational and Individual Capability

Your organization’s capability can be described as the ability to deliver across two distinct functions:

1. Technical – your functional competence
2. Social – your leadership competence

When your technical and social competencies are combined, you deliver the capability of the individuals within your organization. Without these competencies, your organization’s potential is damaged, and it will cease to benefit from competitive advantage. For example:

• If you have no project management skills, you will not be able to deliver projects successfully
• If the teams in your organization are not well-led, they will not deliver the promise of the sum of their individual members

How Can Your Organization to Improve its Potential?

As highlighted by McKinsey’s research, within five years your existing employees will no longer exhibit the competencies to maintain your competitive advantage. The question, then, is how can you improve your potential?

The answer, of course, is to embrace strategies today that deliver a continuous improvement in the technical and social competences of your individual employees. There are four ways to make this happen:

1.     Training and Development of Existing Employees

An important internal strategy, providing training and development opportunities for employees will help to deliver improvements in individual, team, and organizational capabilities. However, this is a time-consuming strategy that takes energy and commitment.

There are also no guarantees that your people will not take advantage of their personal development and seek new opportunities that may become available for their newly acquired skills.

2.     Hire the Skillset You Need

The second strategy is to hire the skills that you need. However, as you have probably experienced, the skills shortage makes this increasingly difficult. In its 2019 Emerging Risks Survey, Gartner describes the shortage of tech skills as the number one challenge facing IT leaders today.

To beat the competition to sign highly competent candidates, in a market that is suffering from a shortage of talent and a growth in demand for that talent, you must develop recruitment strategies that attract talent.

3.     ‘Borrow’ the Talent You Need

The quickest way to deliver the competencies your organization needs is to ‘borrow’ them. Especially for short- to medium-term needs, contract hiring options can deliver immediate returns on your investment.

4.     Rinse and Repeat

Remove poor performers, retain top performers, and hire for new talent. Rinse and repeat. This should be a continual process within organizations, though, of course, one which you should also try to avoid. If you are having to let too many people go because they are performing below expectations, then it is likely that your hiring process needs to be re-engineered.

The Difference That Talent Can Make

By hiring the right people, your organization will boost its competitiveness across many characteristics. These include:

·      Speed and Agility

You will improve your capability to recognize new market opportunities and deliver the products and services needed to take advantage of them.

·      Accountability

Talented employees are natural self-developers who thrive on taking responsibility and ownership. This accountability drives problem-solving capability, collaboration, and creativity.

·      Innovation

Individuals who are forward-looking focus on what could be rather than what has been. They continually seek to improve products and services, delighting internal and external stakeholders.

·      Leadership

When your organization employs for leadership qualities, they employ people who think strategically, share knowledge and experience, and who are capable of ideation.

·      Learning

Imparting their knowledge, experience, and expertise, high-quality employees help to improve the competencies of those around them. This leads to improvements in experimentation, the generation of new ideas, and cross-functional collaboration.

·      Diversity and Inclusion

Research shows that hiring for diversity and inclusion has many benefits, including improving the workplace culture , developing better relationships with customers, driving financial performance, and improving your reputation as an employer (and consequently your ability to attract the best talent).

So, Who Should You Hire into Technology Jobs?

Many organizations make the mistake of hiring candidates who look like those they already employ. They take the view that the success they have experienced to date will be replicated by people with the same qualities and characteristics as those they currently employ. This is not the case.

Only by hiring diverse candidates who bring something new to the table – different thoughts and ideas, experiences, and expertise, for example – can your organization grow. It is these people who will help you develop the new competitiveness that will drive your success and financial results, through a period during which hiring of talent will become more difficult and increasingly critical.

At Irvine Technology, we introduce our clients to a large pool of talented candidates, from diverse backgrounds and industries. Candidates with the technical and social competencies to enhance your organizational capability. Candidates who will help drive your results to new levels.

To learn more about our services – which include contract placement, direct hire, and executive search – contact us today.