What you need to know about recruitment of IT & Telecoms roles

You know that this is an extremely competitive job market right now. You know that your CV must effectively represent you to recruiters and hiring companies. It is a selling document that should be created and updated constantly to sell you to hirers.

Here is what you may not know about the normal recruitment process itself:

• Recruiters and hiring managers are constantly shortlisting candidates for roles based on many kinds of criteria and the CV is the key tool they use to do this. Your CV may only have 30 seconds to 1 minute to impress its audience! A recruitment agency may look at up to 100 CVs for a single role but only shortlist 5-6 for presentation to the client. Several agencies will work on this role for the client so the client hiring manager may well be presented with 30-40 CVs. He/she in conjunction with the HR department will cut these down to a shortlist of 5-6 or fewer for first interview. Your CV is the selling mechanism to get you to this interview. The rest is then up to you.
• Your CV will be routinely compared against the CVs of many other candidates some of whom may have better relevant experience or qualifications than you. However it often happens that a well structured/presented CV has the possibility to outscore the CVs of candidates who may have better experience and qualifications.
• The recruiters/HR function/hiring managers have to whittle down the applicant stack so your CV may be binned if there is too little detail/too much detail/ too many grammatical mistakes/annoying formats or graphics/absence of key words or phrases/questionable or eccentric looking hobbies etc. Recruiters or hiring managers may be too busy to tolerate or follow up and correct relatively minor defects such as these with candidates who could have been perfect for the role (but their CV wasn’t).
• Different CV layouts and different levels of detail work best for different roles.
• Different CV layouts and different level of detail works best for contract (contractor) and permanent roles.
• Different layouts will often work best in different locales i.e. CVs for some UK or Irish roles should sometimes be laid out in a different way.
• Recruiters or employers will often shortlist/dismiss your CV based on searches for key words/phrases so key skills and experience you have should not be missing from your CV.
• Recruiters or employers search for CVs in CV databases associated with the important online jobsites or search their own CV databases based on searches for key words/phrases. These searches are often carried out using automated agents. If you don’t know or include the important keywords and phrases for your role and your industry in your CV then your CV may be routinely overlooked.

It is always important to bear in mind that a well-presented CV with a good CV layout and appropriate content tells a recruiter something about the candidate, above and beyond the skills and experience listed in the CV, and that the reverse also applies!

Useful Links for Jobseekers

Online jobsites for ICT roles in Ireland and the UK that are popular with recruitment agency professionals and inhouse company recruiters.