Hiring is not the easiest task no matter what industry you work in. Add that to the fact that the MSP industry is full of people with a lot of technical expertise, but lacking some of the soft skills that make recruitment easier.
Still, whether you’re a larger company looking to fill a role, or a start-up looking to grow the business, hiring new staff is essential for scaling up. For the uninitiated MSP business owner, here are some basic steps that will put on the path toward successful hiring and recruitment.
Before you start
It is important to think carefully about what hiring means for you and your MSP business. Hiring, onboarding and maintaining new employees involves a lot of time and resources, and should not be taken on lightly. Make sure that you know exactly why you’re hiring and whether you are in a position to allocate those resources.
First, consider what you are hiring for: to reduce the burden on a team? To grow your client base? To investigate new revenue streams? Once you’ve established your goal, figure out if it can be achieved with restructuring your current staff, or investing in new technology. Both of these are likely to be cheaper and less time-intensive than hiring new staff.
If you have decided that you do need new staff, consider the timeframe of their employment. Hebeca Front, a business writer at Eliteassignmenthelp and Revieweal, advises to ask yourself “Is this a long-term project that requires a permanent addition to the staff, or a short-term goal that can be achieved with a temporary hire? These need not be mutually exclusive, but bear in mind that it’s a lot easier to hire someone temporarily and offer them a permanent position later on than vice versa.”
Finding candidates
Once you’re sure you need new employees, there are many ways to go about sourcing candidates. From the outside, recruitment might seem like an easy, logical process, but it’s not always that simple. There’s a reason recruitment companies exist. Think about whether you have the time and staff available to run the whole recruitment process in-house, or whether you’d prefer to work with an external company.
On the other hand, taking control of the recruitment process will allow you to vet your candidates with a more experienced eye. Recruitment firms may not be familiar with the technical requirements of a role in an MSP business and therefore miss out on candidates that could be ideal. By recruiting in-house, you can direct your energy to specific areas more likely to yield the best MSP candidates.
Writing a job post
A job opportunity lives and dies by its job post. It’s the first thing a candidate sees and it will determine what kind of applicants you receive. The difficulty with MSP roles is that they are very technical, and conveying that technical information in a brief and readable job posting can be difficult.
Sheila Hope, a marketing blogger at Uktopwriters and Bestibritishessays, recommends, “when writing your post, try your best to be informative but concise. Start with a clear description of the role and duties, but don’t go into exhaustive detail. Avoid starting off with a wordy biography for your company; even qualified applicants might lose interest, or skim read through and miss important information.”
When it comes to technical skills, make sure you’re realistic about what you require of new candidates. On the job training can usually teach technical skills, especially for entry-level positions, so requiring them from your candidates might scare off the less experienced. When hiring for your MSP, or any job for that matter, soft skills like communication, teamwork and self-motivation are often more important because these are much harder to teach.
Posting your ads
Now that you’ve got your well-crafted, concise ad for your well-thought-out, valuable role, you want to get it in front of as many eyes as possible. There are various online job boards that can disseminate your ad to millions of people all around the world, but also think about more targeted approaches to recruitment.
If you’re looking for local candidates, approach local news sources or nearby colleges. You could also advertise on the specialized email lists of MSP communities to reach candidates most dedicated to the industry. Choose the right places and the candidates will do the work for you!
Photo: Andrey_Popov / Shutterstock
