How To Get Your First Job in IT?

The need to up your game and match what you’re doing to the requirements of the companies hiring has never been more important.

Let’s look at what you really need to know about securing a job in the IT industry. Whether you’re starting from the bottom and working your way to the top or applying for your dream job, this article has useful tips for you.

What are Tech Companies Looking For?

This is the first question that we need to know. Without knowing what companies are after, how are we going to know how to present ourselves? In short, the majority of companies are looking for two main things: role fit and company fit.

In an ideal world, a candidate will fit perfectly into all of these sections and is, therefore, the perfect applicant. Let’s take a look at what they mean.

A Role Fit

It’s important that you can actually do the job that you’re applying for. A typical method some recruiters use to test this out is asking you how you would deal with a certain challenge. This could be to do with anything IT-related, from coding problems, network troubles or even marketing concerns, it solely depends on the role that you’re applying for. This is something you should be able to master already since you’re applying for a role. In order to prepare yourself, read the job description so you know it inside out and you can see what kind of tasks you’ll be carrying out.

At Netguru, we put a lot of effort into this stage of the recruitment process. We ask each candidate to to answer theoretical questions, solve practical problems and deal with hypothetical scenarios. A lot depends on the position they are applying to: an interview for a Junior Developer position will be very different from that for a Senior Developer.

A Company Fit

To conclude this section, a recruiter will also be interested in what kind of person you are as an individual and how your morals and values align with the businesses. A traditional question for this will fall somewhere along the lines of “Why do you want to work for us?”

“Company fit is a set of competences diagnosed as key competences among all employees, regardless of their business unit or a level of expertise. Do some research about the strategic goals and challenges of the company you are applying for, and try to come up with competences that mark you as a person who is achieving these goals and tackling these challenges. While preparing for the interview, think of some some examples of situations when you have had to behave this way and when the interview finally comes - make sure to describe them!” shares Marianna Pruchniak, Netguru’s Senior Recruitment & Employer Branding Manager.

This information is vital to how well you’re going to be able to respond. Research what kind of difficulties the company might be experiencing, especially when it comes to overtaking competition, and provide answers there in the interview to dramatically boost your chances of securing the job.

Work on Your Personal Skills

“The majority of careers require consistent, if not constant, interaction with other people. This is true even for individual contributor roles that would seem to favor introverted personalities and independent work styles. Even if you’re a software engineer or a writer or statistician, you still need to be able to communicate and collaborate with your team. These interpersonal skills are what make you employable,” explains Alison Doyle in an article for The Balance.

There are many stereotypes surrounding the employees of technology companies, including poor communication skills in the form of verbal, written and listening skills. This means in your resume, putting ‘clear communication skills’, an overused term, isn’t good enough. You need to elaborate the fact that you understand how important communication is in all its forms and refer to specific skills, such as active listening, offering and receiving constructive feedback, or being clear and concise in your explanations.

Writing the Perfect Resume

Of course, all this will only matter if you’re able to secure a job interview in the first place which means you’ll need to write the perfect resume. For help with writing your resume, there is a tonne of tools you can use online and a number of services recommended by the HuffingtonPost.

Within your resume, you’ll want to include all the information we’ve listed above as well as emphasising your experience in the IT industry, a much more relevant point to your education.

However, if you’ve just recently graduated, highlight your education over experience, potentially ignoring any part-time jobs you’ve had to allow more room for detail about what you’ve achieved. You should definitely mention experience gained during the development of personal projects or any interesting additions you’ve created for your professional community.

IF you’re just starting out, try to keep your resume to a single page. Include all the relevant contact information and write to match your resume to the job role that you’re applying, dramatically increasing your chances of securing an interview and, therefore, your next job in the IT industry.