When I started in Recruiting in the 80’s the most dreaded interview questions for I.T. professionals were “Desired Salary” and “What’s your Greatest Weakness?” These generally put fear into our candidates and were the primary focus of much of our interview preparation. Essentially we prepared candidates on how to play defense and have answers for questions we knew they were going to ask. No one benefited because it became a game of who was the best interviewer more than the best candidate.

The early 90’s saw the rise of Behavioral Interviewing and with it a realization that employee success and failure was more accurately predicted by core skills and behavioral characteristics. While some firms overemphasized this approach with too many scenarios, the positive was companies increasingly dropped the “Greatest Weakness” question from the interview process. By 2000 we had virtually no clients that asked this question and almost none that discussed salary with candidates during the interview process. We eliminated it from our prep and focused on how to identify needs and showcase skills related to a client’s needs (Marketing Yourself).

Good Riddance!

This was an incredibly positive move because it allowed a more valuable exchange of information between the client and candidate. Companies could focus on specific expertise with technologies, functional roles and some behavioral while allowing the candidate to ask questions to identify company needs, challenges and the pain points. A far more effective beneficial approach for everyone and better method for determining value/ benefit of hiring a candidate.

So What Happened?

You can imagine how confused I am to hear some clients now asking this question but at last check Google indicated 67.400,000 responses to my query about “What’s Your Greatest Weakness.” It’s not just my clients who now find this relevant but why? At least 60M of the links will tell you to a) give the company a weakness that has nothing to do with the role or b) chose a weakness from your past. If these are responses you’re going to be given than truly what’s the point in asking?

Please Technical Recruiter, HR Manager and for God’s sake I.T. Hiring Manager – the question is intellectually lazy, void of creativity and absolutely useless! Show you care about the talent you hire and ask:

– Tell me about an area you’ve improved greatly in over the last 2 or 3 years?

– What skill or talent are you most seeking to develop in your next role?

– If I asked your last boss, what area would they say you most need to further develop?

Please?

If you suffered through Economics 101 Freshmen year than you like I are wondering what the hell was this Keynes guy thinking when he proposed Supply v Demand as the primary driver for the cost of goods and services. Unemployment overall is down again in 2015 and according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment in the I.T. sector now sits at 1.9%. The lowest since right before the financial crisis of 2008 and is essentially zero unemployment.

In previous marketplaces salary increases for I.T. professionals shot up for those making changes (10 to sometimes 15-20%) in high-demand areas and at least 5 or 6% raises for those that stayed with their employers. So what give right? Corporate profits are at record levels and salaries certainly aren’t going up at those rates. While you’re not alone. Everyone is wondering the same thing including I.T. Recruiters who are constantly pushing for the best comp packages for their candidate (our fee is a % of your salary!).

Good News on the Horizon – according to the May 8th’s Wall Street Journal employers are finally beginning to experience real difficulty in filling positions and for the first time in 6 years offering additional benefits, perks and in some higher demand fields (see I.T.) increasing salary ranges and offers.

Blog author – Dan Martineau

The most commonly asked question I get from IT professionals is “what are the hot skills in the marketplace?” I’ll continue to address this in future blogs but here’s an article from Dice identifying the Trending Technologies based on percentage increase they appeared in posts on their website over the last few years.

To be sure this is not a list of what are the positions in greatest demand. By volume that will almost always be either Java or C# Developers but, this gives insight into what skills are “hot” and will pay a premium because of the relatively low supply and rapidly increasing demand. More later!

So there you have the stereotypical idea among managers when their Jr. to Mid level employees leave that it’s only for money. Is it accurate? Anecdotally yes as almost all of them receive significantly more money when they go, but money usually isn’t the driving force behind their departure. They include:
• Greater opportunity for advancement
• Ability to increase pace of technical growth
• Better work environment (Management style, co-workers, mentoring, etc.)
• Length of commute
• Benefits (they know enough about 401K’s to value this today)

So did my candidate make a mistake by moving for money? No. He in fact took a lateral dollar move to get the opportunity for advancement and technical growth, and in his time there he has received training and become proficient in several new technologies. Unfortunately, because he took a lateral move and has only increased his market value (with no further increase in his pay) he is now considering taking his skills back to the open market and finally leveraging them for greater financial return.

What makes a good salesperson effective and why should you care? The first answer is because they do their homework on the client. The second is they ask the right questions. If it doesn’t go without saying that you should research a company prior to your interview, then I’ll say it again. Research the company and people you’ll be interviewing and always know the company’s name (don’t get me started on that one).

As for asking the right questions, what is a good question worth? Honestly, it’s worth its weight in gold. Good questions dig into what a company is looking for (i.e., the real job), what they are doing (the work) and where they are going (the opportunity). Getting these answers allow you to identify work, knowledge, and experience that you possess that directly and indirectly relate. Now your job becomes making these connections with the interviewer during the conversation. If you’ve asked good questions you’ll gain better insight into the opportunity and provide the interviewer with the information they need to draw a proper conclusion on how good of a fit you would be for the opportunity. You will now have a better understanding of whether this is a job that you want. If we can accomplish those two things then interview is considered a success.

Oh, and the by-product of asking good questions is demonstrating interest and enthusiasm, which is more than just a cheap trick.

Understand that I have nothing against HR/Recruiters, in fact, some companies have great staffs that do excellent jobs, but most HR/Recruiters function as generalist (typically don’t know your field), have WAY TOO MANY JOBS to fill, and work with thankless managers who don’t understand the complexity of their jobs. So the fact that they can’t assist is more a function of how their company works more than anything else.

So when you find a company that you’re interested in and they have a current position open that seems to match your skills you are much better off using your network to connect directly into the company. Should that not be an available option then you should get in touch with a recruiter that works with the company and can provide you with a greater depth of information about the role, hiring process, etc., and if all that fails pick up the phone and call the company directly, but remember don’t just send it.

Obviously I don’t live in Utopia so I know that not all parties in the process put all of their cards on the table up front, but a talented recruiter asking the right questions of both sides and with a mindset focused on not wasting anyone’s time should be able to determine the viability of the process as the candidate and company move through the steps.

The problem most recruiters have though is when the eventual bump in the road occurs and they aren’t sure if it’s “real” problem or just a scared/emotional candidate that needs some support/understanding to help them feel more at ease with the process. The good news is that this is a learned skill and the better a recruiter can become at knowing which is which the less headaches they (their clients and their candidates) will have and they’ll spend more time making placements instead of chasing placements.

With that goal in mind, the questions you should ask become absolutely essential to achieving this goal. While everyone has their stock questions, it’s imperative to dig a bit deeper than “tell me about the job”. Also, it’s imperative to ask these questions on the interview as opposed to just prior to an offer (which can make you look uninterested or even indecisive).

Instead of just asking detailed questions about the job like what you’re responsibilities are (yes, you still need to ask that), ask questions that come from a different perspective and get the interviewer to think about this position differently than just a list of required skills and responsibilities.

Questions similar to the following are great entry points.
• What do see as the key attributes to success in this role?
• What would the first 6 months of this position look like?
• How long do you believe it would take to make a measurable impact?

Beyond having a clearer idea of what’s important to the interviewer, these questions will provide you a much different perspective and a much clearer picture of what this position really is and what it means to the organization.

Radio Interview

Dan Martineau featured on RecruiterEco Radio:

Who Is Dan Martineau?

President of Martineau Recruiting Technology since it’s inception in 2000, Dan Martineau brings an extensive IT and Executive Recruiting background to his client companies and client candidates.

Joining Dunhill Professional Search of Winston Salem in 1983 after attending the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Dan began his recruiting career in IT. During his 17 years with Dunhill, Dan distinguished himself as one of Dunhill’s best. He was recognized as the #1 Recruiter in the nation for Dunhill, and the winner of the “Millie Michaels Award” from 1995 through 1999, while also being inducted in the Million-Dollar Club.

In May of 2000 Dan and his brother and business partner, Bill Martineau, leveraged their 40+ combined years of recruiting and placement experience by starting their own firm, Martineau Recruiting Technology, Inc. where they specialize solely in the Information Technology industry.

Since that time Dan has been a member of The Pinnacle Society, the premier consortium of the country’s top producing recruiters, even serving on its Board of Directors.

Conducting numerous training seminars for Dunhill Staffing Corp., NC Association of Personnel Consultants, American Staffing Association (ASA), National Association of Personnel Services (NAPS) among others in the fields of Information Systems/Technology, Recruiting and Marketing Methodologies, Dan continues to make his mark on throughout the Placement Industry.

PERSONAL

Married to Elaine Willard in 1990, Dan is the father of three sons, Joseph, Michael and Sean. He is active within his church and community and volunteers at Greensboro’s Urban Ministry Homeless Shelter and has coached youth soccer and baseball.