MSP Best Practices for Running an Effective Interview Process
Just because you hired the most qualified MSP candidate doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve made a “good” hiring decision. You’ve made a good hiring decision when you know you haven’t made a hiring mistake. Easier said than done, but that’s why it’s our job as interviewers to figure out who we are “getting into bed with” before the offer goes out.
You’re going to get better each time you interview, and you’ll learn how to spot the good ones, better sell your company, and ultimately feel more confident when you pull the trigger. Here are three practical ways to run an effective interview process.
Create Candidate Composite: You must be able to spot the right person when they walk through the door. A job description is completely different; that’s an outward-facing document. Who really fits best into your company? Start by curating a list of experiences and traits that you believe would translate into a successful hire based on your job doing the work—then rank them—and screen for those during the interview process. What’s more important? Hiring someone who’s organized or autonomous? Driven/hungry vs. articulate? We know you want it all, but that’s not going to translate into the realities of the candidate pool.
Motivations: We call this “getting answers to the test.” If the test is “Will this person be interested enough in my opportunity to sign my offer?” then the answers need to be uncovered during the interview by incorporating questions that ask about candidate motivations. The win-win hires are the candidates who are on the job market in search of the opportunities your company happens to be offering. You can learn a lot about a candidate by asking, “Why are you on the job market?” Often, you’re not going to get the whole truth the first time you ask, so probe for more context. And ask that question multiple times during different stages of the interview process to peel back the layers, revealing their true motivations for changing jobs. Plus, you need to know if you can scratch that itch if you want to retain them. Every candidate in the MSP industry hits the job market in search of “career growth,” so you need to unpack what that really means, including asking why they think their current employer can’t offer it to them. Maybe after probing deeper, you’ll uncover they got passed up for a promotion twice because they scored unsatisfactorily during their last performance reviews. Ask when they expect to see this “elusive” career growth—on day 1, in 3 months, in 6 months?
Sell the Opportunity: You’re going to sprinkle in the answers you uncovered during the motivations questions you asked earlier in the interview as your ammo by highlighting the things they said they wanted into your description of the role and company. Paint a picture of your opportunity in the most favorable light without lying. Sell the career track that addresses the boxes that the candidate said they need/want checked in their next career move. This is called the Question-Sell Method. Thirty percent of your time spent interviewing is for the employee’s edification. Before you ask a question, you’re explaining or selling. Here’s an example based on a candidate who’s motivated to find a new MSP employer who’s more process-driven and organized:
Here at XYZMSP, we believe in creating processes that allow our technicians to operate efficiently. We want our techs spending as little time as possible spinning their wheels trying to find documentation or closing a ticket they should just escalate. So I’d like to talk about your experiences working efficiently; can you walk me through your methodology for working efficiently when handling inbound level 2 tickets to ensure a speedy resolution?
Give extra attention to the candidates who seem like they’re pounding down your door to work for you because they are so interested in your company, even if they aren’t the most qualified.
At the end of the interview, help the candidate connect the dots by being explicit about how the skills and experiences they possess are likely to translate into successful results performing your job. Don’t assume they understand how their experience/skill is likely to greatly increase their close percentage or ability to prospect and ultimately make more money—point it out and connect the dots for how that skill/experience is likely to benefit them in applying it to their model. If you like someone, tell them and tell them why.
Interview tempo matters: Block out the competition by moving people through the interview process quickly—because good candidates will always have options.
