Best Hiring Practices for MSPs – How to Find the Right Talent

Amid rising demand, MSPs are searching for the top ways to find the talent to help them grow and scale their businesses.

October 4, 2022 - Demand for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) continues to grow as businesses look for ways to streamline technology investments, modernize digital capabilities and outsource IT functions. Seizing the opportunity to scale, MSPs are hiring. But finding the right talent is critical. Most MSPs are small organizations and must choose wisely when it comes to new hires to ensure they attract talent that is skilled, nimble and professional. Here are some of the top ways MSPs are finding the right people with the right skills.

Choosing Wisely

Most MSPs do not have dedicated HR staff or extensive HR training. Hiring can also be time consuming. To ward off standard pitfalls of hiring, many MSPs turn to staffing agencies or headhunters to help manage the hiring process and increase the likelihood of finding candidates with not only the right skill sets, but those who are able to get along well with coworkers and customers alike.

MSPs also require a variety of skill sets to serve their clients. The skill sets of prospective hires should line up with the open positions and client needs. What an MSP may need for a technician can be very different from a service director, for example. Overall, MSP employees should have technical skills and problem-solving ability, but also an interest in new technologies and a desire to learn new skills.

Another factor to consider is the timeline for your hire. Determine if you are looking for a permanent, long-term, or temporary hire. Deciding this upfront, before searching for candidates, creates a more informed recruitment process. Also consider the resources, people and time that can be given to the hiring process. Who will be involved in making hiring decisions? Who will conduct interviews? Who will handle paperwork? Who will handle notifying and onboarding new hires?

Building a Talent Pipeline

Most MSPs stop growing when they don’t have enough talent to deliver more services to more customers. Building a talent pipeline is key to scaling business. Successful MSPs follow some basic best practices, including recruiting for potential, nurturing, and motivating talent and investing in staff to promote long-term retention. New hires should be recruited based on their current skills, ability to learn new skills and their understanding of the MSP business model and customer demands.

MSPs should also invest time in a talent development strategy. Successful MSPs know that they are competing for talent and focus on more than compensation, offering recruits the chance to gain new skills, education, growth potential inside the firm and the opportunity to take part in an engaging workplace.

Having the Right Technology

New employees can be productive right away if the right technologies are in place, including next-generation tools and solutions. These can include RMM (Remote Monitoring and Management) and PSA (Professional Services Automation) tools, along with best practices and training for each.

Employees should have ready access to a help desk to reduce time spent troubleshooting, so they can resolve issues for customers as quickly as possible.

Remote monitoring and management solutions have opened a new frontier of opportunity for MSPs, offering increased ability to automate services for their customers.

The Canopy platform allows MSPs to centrally monitor, manage and control connected devices at scale, while managing the overall health of devices, and addressing service issues before problems arise. Canopy can be used to facilitate remote monitoring of equipment, business assets and even software.

Canopy also feeds real-time data to a dashboard that will provide automation, data analysis and cost reduction capabilities. Plus, the same software can be used to facilitate remote resolution of common problems.

Ensuring that your MSP uses the latest technology can be a powerful recruitment tool when it comes to attracting the best and brightest candidates.

Spreading the Word

Once you are confident that a hiring strategy is in place, it’s time to let recruits know you are hiring. Job sites are a common choice for finding new hires and LinkedIn has now become one of the most popular, widely-used channels for recruiting, offering free and paid hiring services. Headhunters are also a valuable tool when time and hiring expertise are limited.

If you are scaling your MSP business and want to invest in the latest RMM tools, consider Canopy. You can try a free demo today.