How does a recruiter upgrade his/her technical skills ?

[Priti Goel]

Hi All,

I am one of the many recruiter (job seeker) who is finidng it difficult by every passing day to combat the conditions around us given the economic slowdown and the competitive job market.

For all the time that I have left on my hands after my job search efforts , I try to upgrade my knowhow in some or the other way like reading blogs, websites that talk about the Do's and the Don'ts, Boolean Search Strings, and various other recruiting techniques ....But what I a really looking for is some material on how to become a good IT recruiter (I mean from TECHNOLOGY perspective)

Recruiting like to many others happened to me as well. I am not shy in letting people know that I do NOT come from an engineering B/G. Recruiters need not know the indepths of each technology out in the market but with time I have come to realize that each recruiter should know the basics the least and I am not finding any material out there which tells me so....I mean technically from a recruiter's perspective....For example....What is the difference between a BSA and a BA and a SA...What is the difference between a programmer and a developer...etc ....

I am not saying that material is not available on these topics on the internet but I was wondering if there is any thing designed on these lines for recruiters specefically ???

Any suggestions ??

Regards
Priti

[Irina Shamaeva]

It's a great question. How does one figure out, for example, that Javascript and Java are two very different things, or that a software engineer who knows C++ will know C as well? I am not sure how this type of knowledge can be put in one document or quickly taught and am interested to hear what others will say.

One thing that we have done when working in an unfamiliar industry is exploring resumes and job descriptions for sets of keywords and correlation between keywords. As an example, if you have a job description, you can try picking a few keywords that seem important, use them on indeed.com or simply on Google and review similar job descriptions. So -- knowing and using Boolean Strings can help you gain this type of knowledge.
Of course, chatting with candidates also helps quite a bit. :)

[Jan Kirchner]

Irina,

I totally agree with you that candidates are a great source of information. My experience, especially with senior level candidates, is that many of them are happy to find someone who is genuinely interested in their field. Listenting to them and asking them questions has taught me a lot of the technologic insights I have.

[John Rose]

Priti, and anyone who is a interested in the words from a long term 'Professional'

My original training in the wonderful world of 'Recruitment' is the foundation upon which I have survived 17+ years with my sanity intact...Your life's' and skills awareness & knowledge foundation are key...if you do not understand the basics of the discipline into which you are venturing as a recruiter then do not enter in the first place. Under-pinning knowledge is essential to recruitment as a profession, just like it is for any task/job/career you undertake. If you have to ask basic questions of a candidate, then you should not be recruit for that position/role. A useful tip, is to create a spreadsheet of acronyms used and their definitions - I currently have multiple sheets for different industries/skills e.g. one of my sheets contains 600+ acronyms for aerospace, but some are linked to other industries.

All too often I find people pretending to be a Niche or Specialist Recruiter and after talking with them for 1 minute, realise they are shallow and only interested in one thing...money...and not the person v position.

I am continuously learning through webinars, reading (news feeds, journals, blogs, trade/industry publications, society news/updates) and the list goes on. Find your passion and prepare, prepare, prepare and listen and learn...

Good Luck in your venture, Cheers, John

[Priti Goel]

HI Irina/ Ian/ John

Thank you all for your valuable inputs respectively. Have been pretty much been doing that for all these years and have been fairly successful doing so. But lately, I have been seeing this need of being more technology savvy than I already am, so that is why this post.
I would be surprised if some one really came up with some kind of documentation that would answer my query but I just wanted to check if I was thinking beyond lines ...Just wanted to explore ....so just thought out loud :-) and guess what I am glad I asked because what John just said hit me and made me think, why on earth did I not make the list of acronyms that I have learnt over the period of years ...Duhhhh Me.... Oh Well, I will start from here on...Like they say, It's never too late :-)



I thank you all again .

Regards
Priti

[Manick Paul]

Dear Priti,

Its good to know about your weakness you are discussing with us. In your problem I like to suggest you that Its not possible to know about each and every technologies into IT as its a very vast area. But when you start working on any particular requirement before starting you should understand the requirement 100% and for that you can search on the web about the tools and tech. you are looking for in the req. then when you feel that you got enough input then you can go ahead or else nothing will work rather than waste of time. This way day by day you will get the experience as much you will work & its not possible to know everything over the night.

Few basic things you should aware of like Common Platforms in IT, Prog. Languages, Data Base, Datawarehousing Tools, Mainframe, Testing Tools etc.

And above all Boolean Strings is a good place to know all about Recruitment so try to be active here I hope you get lot of things.

And I shall try to send you few things give me sometime.

Keep in touch

Regards
Manick

[Priti Goel]

Thanks my friend :-)

Manick Paul said:

Dear Priti,

Its good to know about your weakness you are discussing with us. In your problem I like to suggest you that Its not possible to know about each and every technologies into IT as its a very vast area. But when you start working on any particular requirement before starting you should understand the requirement 100% and for that you can search on the web about the tools and tech. you are looking for in the req. then when you feel that you got enough input then you can go ahead or else nothing will work rather than waste of time. This way day by day you will get the experience as much you will work & its not possible to know everything over the night.

Few basic things you should aware of like Common Platforms in IT, Prog. Languages, Data Base, Datawarehousing Tools, Mainframe, Testing Tools etc.

And above all Boolean Strings is a good place to know all about Recruitment so try to be active here I hope you get lot of things.

And I shall try to send you few things give me sometime.

Keep in touch

Regards
Manick

[Nikhilesh Chand Mathur]

One of the best places to learn is to speak to the line managers who are hiring for this role. They would know exactly what they are looking for and would be happy to share that with you. The biggest stumbling point for any recruiter is not being able to understand what the role involves...

I would typically spend 15-20 minutes on each job spec before starting work on it. It becomes even more critical when you recruit at top management levels, like I do. One has to read between the lines and come up with questions which are not necessarily answered by the job spec. Believe me... your clients will love you if you come up with grey areas in their requirements

My 2 cents worth

Cheers
Nikhil

[Kevin Pravin]

Manik,

Please do send it to me also, i am a learner. [e-mail]

Thanks in advance.

 

Manick Paul said:

Dear Priti,

Its good to know about your weakness you are discussing with us. In your problem I like to suggest you that Its not possible to know about each and every technologies into IT as its a very vast area. But when you start working on any particular requirement before starting you should understand the requirement 100% and for that you can search on the web about the tools and tech. you are looking for in the req. then when you feel that you got enough input then you can go ahead or else nothing will work rather than waste of time. This way day by day you will get the experience as much you will work & its not possible to know everything over the night.

Few basic things you should aware of like Common Platforms in IT, Prog. Languages, Data Base, Datawarehousing Tools, Mainframe, Testing Tools etc.

And above all Boolean Strings is a good place to know all about Recruitment so try to be active here I hope you get lot of things.

And I shall try to send you few things give me sometime.

Keep in touch

Regards
Manick