Your career is in IT, not the theater—so how have you found yourself in what looks and feels more like an audition? Welcome to the group interview, where employers bring a pool of job applicants together to face a panel of human resources staff, managers, supervisors, and even potential co-workers.

Usually the candidate group is broken into teams and given either some sort of work-simulation exercise or a controversial hypothetical situation; then the interviewers sit back and observe the process and results.

If the mere thought of these circumstances has you sweating, well, that’s the idea. One of the key areas that group interviews are designed to assess is a candidate’s ability to handle stress and pressure, along with other important factors like teamwork skills, leadership/delegation abilities, giving and receiving feedback, communications skills, and whether or not applicants have a knack for thinking on their feet.

Here’s how you can shine, not sweat, in a group interview:

• Keep your cool: Don’t react negatively if surprised by the group format, the chosen scenario or any other element of the interview. Stay calm and positive no matter what.
• Be assertive, but not aggressive: Interviewers won’t remember you if you blend into the background, so make sure you are a confident participant who contributes your own ideas and viewpoints, but also actively listens to those of others. If you dominate conversation, interrupt others, or get into arguments or power struggles with other candidates, you will also be noticed – but not in a good way.
• Don’t fumble the feedback: Criticism is a workplace necessity, and interviewers will be judging how well you handle it. Make sure you thoughtfully and gracefully accept constructive criticism, and that any feedback you give to others is productive as well. Publicly acknowledging positive contributions from fellow candidates enhances your image as a team player, too.
• Watch your body language and voice: Whether it’s with the other candidates or the interviewers, make sure you smile, shake hands and above all, make good eye contact. When speaking, make sure your voice is neither too soft nor too strident, and keep your answers brief and on-point. Verbal ramblings or repetition demonstrate disorganization or nervousness.
• Add the finishing touch: After the interview, don’t slink away or run out the door, no matter how drained you may feel. Shake hands with everyone – be sure to not only thank the panel, but wish your fellow participants good luck. Do this, and you will stand out as a confident, mature candidate. Don’t forget to follow up with the usual handwritten thank-you notes to the interviewers as well. 

Group interviews are deliberately designed to cause stress, but armed with the tips above, you can turn them into a showcase of your skills instead. Have more questions about how to succeed in a group interview – or conduct one? The staffing specialists at Triumph Services can help!

Cisco CEO John Chambers once said, “A world-class engineer with five peers can out-produce 200 regular engineers.” Yet a recent survey of CIOs revealed that 65% believe that finding skilled professionals today is a challenge. So how do you hire the best and avoid the rest? Recruiting is both an art and a science—tap into the perfect blend of both by following the 5 P’s of successful IT hiring:

1) Proactiveness – Instead of waiting for candidates to come to them, top organizations spend more time actively searching for high-caliber people. This means utilizing traditional networking skills, in addition to newer methods like social media and industry blogs to find candidates and position your company as an industry leader worth working for.

2) Preparation - You need to develop a solid job description, the best of which are created by analyzing the position’s expected contributions to the organization. Input from current employees can also be very valuable in crafting a job profile. In addition, you need to determine any prerequisites for the position—including specific skills, knowledge and/or certifications – that are needed to perform successfully. Finally, hiring managers should familiarize themselves with a candidate’s resume prior to the interview.

3) Process – Good interviewers develop a set of standard questions to create a structured interview process. A combination of behavioral-based questions (which help evaluate judgment and initiative) and situational-based questions (which help assess ability and knowledge) will help you uncover the most information in the shortest amount of time. A structured approach helps avoid bias and makes things fair and consistent for all applicants.

4) Personality – This is one of the toughest parts of an interview, but it is important to get a strong feel for the applicant’s personality. The best candidates will match up in temperament not only with the job itself, but with the corporate culture and the level of customer contact and/or peer interaction the job requires.

5) Professional Help – Research shows that organizations who spend more time recruiting high-caliber people earn a 22% higher return to shareholders than their competitors. However, many resource-strapped HR departments or hiring managers simply do not have the time it takes to develop the networking skills or technical familiarity required to successfully recruit high-quality IT candidates. This is where engaging the services of a professional staffing agency that specializes in IT recruitment can be of immense help.

The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that it costs one-third of a new hire’s annual salary to find a replacement—so making the right IT hire the first time is critical, both from monetary and productivity standpoints. Yet author and business consultant Gregory P. Smith estimates that 2 out of 3 hires prove to be a bad fit within in the first year on the job. By partnering with an IT staffing expert like Triumph Services, you can improve those odds – and your organization’s bottom line.

According to a LinkedIn survey, 41% of nearly 2,000 professionals said that when evaluating candidates’ resumes, they consider volunteer experience to be equally as valuable as paid work experience. Yet only 45% of the candidates surveyed actually included volunteer experience on their resumes. Whether your goal is to get experience for an outside job, or to obtain a paid position within the volunteer organization, here are some simple Do’s and Don’ts for using volunteer work to boost your career.

Using volunteer experience to get a new position in your current field, or change careers:

Do’s: choose a volunteer position based on both skills AND interest; use volunteer work to fill time gaps between jobs; be sociable to ensure that you make positive contacts.

If you are unemployed, try to use your professional skills in your volunteer work. Seek out organizations that need people with your skills. On the other hand, if you want to enter a new career field, look for opportunities that give you the chance to acquire new skills, as well as learn first-hand about the field you are interested in. For example, if you think you might like to be a vet tech, volunteer in an animal hospital or shelter. Whether your goal is a new job in your current profession, or a completely new career, volunteering will ensure there are no gaps in your resume, and gives you the opportunity to make valuable contacts and references.

Don’ts: labeling work as “volunteer” on your resume (focus on the job title or tasks instead); overly restricting yourself (broader horizons = broader experience and contacts); quitting when you find a paid job (volunteering is good for your soul, not just your career!). 

Turning a volunteer job into full-time employment:

Do’s: Be patient, be professional, be committed, and be open that you are looking for full-time work.

If your goal is to land a position within the volunteer organization, then it pays to be the ultimate professional – and upfront about your desires. “Volunteers or interns are frequently the first people considered, because it’s already apparent whether they will fit well, have a good work ethic, and meet the qualifications of the job,” writes Steven Pascal-Joiner and Meg Busse in The Idealist Guide to Nonprofit Careers for Sector Switchers.

Don’ts: overpromising on skills (manage expectations carefully so you don’t disappoint), trying to be top dog (keep the ego in check!), grumbling about money (makes you look insincere), not believing in the cause (another sincerity-killer).

Sparked.com and VolunteerMatch.org are two good places to start searching for solid volunteer opportunities. As Nicole Williams, Connection Director at LinkedIn and author of the career guide, Girl on Top, notes, “When you have a competitive labor market, and a hiring manager has 10 to 15 equally qualified applicants, volunteering can be the thing that ends up differentiating you and getting you over the line.” So get out there and help others – you may just help yourself, too.

For more ways to enhance your career or find great job opportunities, ask the experts at Triumph Services!

The recession means that more companies than ever before are relying on contract employees. Since their numbers can be scaled quickly and cleanly, many companies may stick with the safety and flexibility of this new staffing model, even as the economy begins to recover. With recovery comes increased competition, however, and forward-thinking hiring managers may start asking themselves if offering benefits could help attract more qualified contract talent. The short answer: it depends. Here are four common contractor scenarios and the resulting benefits considerations:

The employee is a 1099 independent contractor, and you are the client. Two words: no benefits. Offering benefits to 1099 employees can jeopardize their IRS independent contractor status. Most 1099ers are well aware of this, and either have their own insurance or expect to go without. To help your 1099 employees, you could offer more money to help offset their private benefit costs, and/or you can refer them to a 3^rd-party benefits resource like Back of the House, which provides independent contractors with access to health and pension/401K plans.

The employee is a W-2 contractor from a staffing agency, and you are the client. If anyone offers benefits in this situation, it’s usually the staffing firm – though the costs for that are often built into their fee. Not all staffing agencies offer benefits, however, so if it is important to your corporate culture that all employees – regardless of classification – have access to benefits, make sure the agency you choose offers them to their contractors.

The employee is a W-2 contractor and you are the client, but there is no staffing agency. This situation is a sticky area with the IRS in regards to whether the contractor is an employee or independent, and is best avoided. Despite the risks, this type of contract is growing, and some organizations do offer access to (or even partially pay for) the same benefits that permanent employees receive, though usually in a scaled-down form. Most contract W-2 employees find their share to be too costly to be attractive – and be prepared for prospective employees to negotiate for higher wages instead if they don’t need the benefits (i.e., they have coverage through their spouse).

The employee is a W-2 contractor for a staffing agency, and you are the agency. This is the situation where offering benefits often makes the most sense. Providing your agency’s employees with health, dental, vision and/or 401K benefits can help attract better talent to offer your clients – depending on how much you contribute to the cost. Even more valuable may be things like sick days and PTO, as those are benefits that they cannot receive from any other source.

Many contract employees find that the benefits offered are too expensive, and prefer a straightforward pay increase instead. But for applicants who are desperate for health coverage, or want perks you can’t purchase elsewhere – like PTO – then offering benefits may give you a hiring edge.

For answers to all your questions about hiring contract employees, contact the staffing professionals at Triumph Services today!