Let me be frank. Hiring is hard no matter the position. When you add into the mix technical positions that require knowledge and the ability to problem solve or troubleshoot on the fly, hiring the right super star technician is quite the task.
It’s not as simple as resume reading, interview, appraisal, rinse and repeat.
It’s about getting a crystal-clear, repeatable process that dives into the biggest challenges of hiring good people that will help you increase client satisfaction and your bottom line.
Right now, the risks are real.
If you hire a bad employee, you not only risk losing clients, but you might end up with a poisoned company-wide culture. In the event you make the wrong decision in hiring, you likely will keep that person on the team far longer than they should be simply because you’re trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. You’re trying to get them to assimilate to your position and environment, even though they never will.
Hire someone with too many skills for the position, and they might leave as soon as they find a better opportunity. Hire someone with too little and you may never get them to a place where they need to be, OR you might end up wishing they’d leave and stuck with their underperformance simply because they ‘get by’ in the job.
With unemployment at low rates, and the with the prospect finding good hires extremely difficult in today’s job market, it is critical that you have a process that can identify and retain high quality super star technicians.
Today I want to walk through the 9-step process that I successfully used when running my MSP. Note—this process was always a work in progress. I expect you to continually tweak your processes with a goal of improving them. That means improving your potential hire’s experience as well as targeting and identifying the right fits for your company.
STEP 1: Marketing the position
The first thing you will want to do is market the position. By all means, post your job on Indeed, Zip Recruiter, or LinkedIn.
BUT here’s the catch—these platforms will likely get you the bottom feeders and job hoppers (especially in today’s market). Many of them will never contact you back, so your conversion rate to a prospective hire will be pretty low.
The best hires will be the ones you hunt down, find, and push into your hiring process.
You might be thinking, how in the heck do I hunt a potential employee?
You’re going to use those same tools you passively advertise on, but rather than just waiting for bites, you go hunting for the people you want. Spend a little time each week (I spend 15 minutes) hunting on LinkedIn. Look at your competitor’s employees. Look at their friends. Look for people that look like are working in a similar position to what you’re looking for.
You are hunting for people that seem happy at their current gig. You DON’T want to hunt down the people that hate their job!
Then send them InMial, inquiring whether they are looking for a next step or new position. Lay out who you are looking for (what type of position) and see if they’ll bite.
You won’t getting a hundred percent response here, but you will get bites.
I’d go to your new clients and ask your technical contact if they’ve in the past worked with technicians they really liked. You might be able to create a list of good candidates from these new technical contacts. They may be able to introduce you to a couple. Otherwise, check them out on LinkedIn and follow your hunting process.
STEP 2: Resume Screening
Get a copy of their resume to review. This is an easy step.
Take a look at it. Look for spelling or punctuation errors. How they produce one thing (like their resume) is probably how they’ll do their job.
How long did they work at each job? What will your job look like on their list of jobs? Is it an upgrade or downgrade for them?
What types of responsibilities have they had that could transfer into your position? One of my best helpdesk managers had previously managed a McDonalds for 5 years. Don’t completely pigeonhole your hires to the IT field (granted this depends on the position you’re filling).
STEP 3: Technical Screening
At this point, you’ve evaluated their resume and know they aren’t a job hopper. They have some experience interesting to you.
Now is your chance to both sell your company to them and see if they have some minimum knowledge that you really can’t train. Also get into the taboo subject about salary requirements (this will come in handy to compare candidates). If you have one candidate with lots of tech knowledge wanting $50K and one with no experience wanting $20K, can you really compare them apples to apples?
When I do a technical interview, I’m asking the candidate questions about Windows knowledge, networking, troubleshooting, and am evaluating their communication. I need to see how they will interact with a client calling in with an issue.
I also want to evaluate whether their problem solving will be in line with solving an issue in a security-conscious way. If they are willing to recklessly risk opening up holes in our network without a second guess, most often I pass on the candidate.
STEP 4: Fit Video
I like sending out a request to every candidate to create a video telling a story of how they’ve improved something. This gets me to understand whether they align with a critical core value of ours (Do It Better) as well as shows me how they might communicate with clients. Are they super arrogant? Are they constantly the victim? Do they seem empowered?
The key here is figuring out if you think they will fit with your team.
STEP 5: Reference Checks
You might think this is just a formality that doesn’t need a lot of attention, but I consider the information I get from references good as gold.
I highly recommend you call each of the candidate’s previous employers. Ask if they’d ever consider rehiring them on their team. Also ask what they liked the most about them being on their team.
Then listen. This is where you might have to read through the lines.
If they say they cannot disclose anything. Or say that the employee never gave them permission to share about their employment, is a BIG red flag to walk away from the candidate.
STEP 6: Score Card Review
This is where you put everything together from the other steps in the process.
Evaluate your business case for the hire and their salary requirements.
Determine whether they fit your core values.
Decide the next steps for the candidate.
If they do fit your core values and have experience you like, but you aren’t ready for them on your team or don’t quite have the business case yet but might later on, keep them in your Rolodex. With these people, I touch base with them semi regularly (monthly or at least quarterly to check in by email). You want to start building a list of candidates that you can turn to in the event you need to hire someone ASAP. They will all be vetted good candidates (and it’s likely at least one of them will be ready for their next big thing).
STEP 7: 60 Day Review
This is a really hard thing to keep yourself honest on. I get it. The hardest part of running an MSP or any business is having to let someone go.
I want you to be honest here. Does the new hire live up to your core values (you CANNOT change core values just to keep people on the team)? Is there any drama at work? Get some client feedback on their performance. Update their hiring scorecard to see if anything has changed (does their performance fit with the scorecard and your expectations?).
You will need to answer the ultimate question: do you keep them on the team?
STEP 8: ALWAYS Be Hiring
Once you find someone that fits, don’t stop. Remember, something will always come up. Someone will need to move for family. Or win the lottery. Or find a “dream” job. You will always have openings on your team at some point. Even if you’re not growing (and if you are, you should be revisiting your Rolodex all the time to make sure you will have capacity).
STEP 9: Make Sure You Have A Solid Employment Agreement
Your lawyer is probably going to want to help you here. In my experience these are the pieces that you will want to have within your agreement. Note: agreements might require state by state guidance in addition to these pieces:
In my experience, these are the pieces you will want to (at minimum) have in place:
- Non-Disclosure
- Non-Compete
- Non-Solicitation (for clients)
- No Moonlighting
- Non-Solicitation (for employees)
Those are the 9 steps that I think you should seriously consider to implement as part of your hiring process. It is easy to find hires. It is extremely hard to find good fit hires. If you’re not doing anything to plan for backfilling positions, you likely will never get the best super stars. To hit a super star roster will take continuous recruiting, evaluation and follow up.
