The Minneapolis tech sector is a goldmine of IT opportunities. Businesses ranging from Twin Cities startups to Fortune 500s are eager to fill their vacant technical positions. That’s good news for local IT professionals keen to start their next full-time or consulting jobs. Yet the heightened demand for talent doesn’t lower the bar to entry. Job seekers still need to hit the right marks as they search for IT positions and interview with top Minneapolis businesses. Thankfully, working with a recruiter can help you get a better understanding of the local market and effectively appeal to local businesses that align with your technical skills and professional goals.

 

Finding the Right Opportunity

One of the reasons there are so many job opportunities in the Minneapolis tech sector these days has to do with how quickly the startup community is scaling. At least 72 new startups have launched in the Twin Cities area since 2015, which is the second highest increase in the Midwest. Keeping track of current job openings (especially for openings that fit your career goals) is becoming a full time gig.

An IT recruitment partner can function like an alert system for the types of roles that fit your career goals. Partnering with a recruiter during your search can help identify positions that might not even be on your radar.

For example, our recruiters take the time to conduct in-depth consultations so that they can understand your career objectives, skills, experience, preferred job title, and desired responsibilities. When your profile matches our openings, we notify you of the opportunity and answer any questions you might have. That way, you can keep tabs on your skill development rather than hawkishly watching the changing tide of the Minneapolis tech market.  

 

Following High-Demand Skills

Which skills are the most lucrative in the Minneapolis tech community? There is no set-in-stone answer. New businesses, fluctuating talent supplies, and emerging technologies all contribute to the local demand in nuanced ways. Unless you are talking with decision makers and are aware of the waves of talent in and out of the area, most assumptions about top tech skills will be hazy.

The process of working with a recruiter can determine which of your skills are selling points and which additional skills will help to up the ante. IT staffing firms see the lists of languages, frameworks, and technologies that businesses need to succeed. By connecting the dots, they can determine larger Minneapolis trends and guide job seekers as they enhance their careers.

One example our recruiters have seen is the expanded demand for data science skills within the national and Minneapolis market. More businesses are attempting to leverage their terabytes of data and gain actionable insight. MapReduce, Cloudera, and Cassandra are increasingly sought after, though the talent pool hasn’t caught up with the technology yet. Job seekers that ask about the gaps in the talent pool can better direct their ongoing learning and make their career growth more efficient on the whole.

 

Improving Your Appeal

Once you’ve reviewed local tech opportunities to find the right fit, there are still some important details to learn concerning how to get your target employers interested. What skills do they value most? What personal traits do they want in their employees? What goals are they prioritizing? Knowing the answers to these questions helps to better align you with a company’s ideal candidate, improving your success in the interview and beyond.

Working with a recruiter helps to quickly unearth details about a company or interviewer, information that might take hours to find on the web. In some cases, you might not even be able to find crucial details (i.e. an interviewer’s style or the traits of the company’s top performers). Recruiters who take the time to build relationships with companies can find out and relay this information back to candidates as a way of getting both the interviewer and the candidate understanding each other.

By getting insight into the company (on top of the range of local opportunities and demand for technical skills), Minneapolis tech professionals are able to take the burden of their IT job search off their shoulders. So when you ask yourself “should I work with a recruiter to find a job?” keep these three advantages in mind and make your choice.

 

Want to improve your job search? Start working with a recruiter today or search our jobs to find the right fit for you. 

 

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