Closing The MSP Talent Gap By ‘Future Proofing’ Your Hiring

‘The best way to retain and create a win-win situation is to hire someone that uses your opportunity as career advancement from day one, and not just compensation,’ MSP staffing firm founder John Davenjay told an audience of MSPs at XChange NexGen 2022.

Job candidates know that the talent gap is plaguing many companies in the tech industry today. They also know that makes them very much in-demand.

There are many forces at play. Professionals are prioritizing work-life balance, opting to work less hours for less pay if it means greater flexibility and the opportunity to work from home. Still other professionals are leveraging the talent gap to find companies willing to pay them a higher salary.

Salaries are growing faster than inflation, leaving MSPs with less room to increase their salaries over time. And at the same time, many professionals are taking interviews with no intention to leave their current employer, according to John Davenjay, founder and CEO of Bowman Williams, a firm that specializes in staffing for more than 800 MSP clients.

“A significantly higher percentage — 57 percent — of MSP candidates in 2022 are receiving job offers for more than what they were targeting against the market … that is a hard thing to keep up with,” Davenjay said.

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Many professionals are also using new job offers to receive a counteroffer from their current employer for a higher salary. The counteroffer, Davenjay said, is the biggest challenge by far for MSPs.

While there is no silver bullet for hiring, there are strategies that MSPs can employ to find a good candidate and bring them aboard, Davenjay said.

MSPs should strive to “future-proof” their job descriptions. Rather than hire a person that will do exactly what you want them to do right now, who will then inevitably leave after two years to go work for another MSP, identify a target skill set instead of a bull’s eye and be willing to train the employee. In other words, hire a notch below what you’re looking for today, Davenjay told the audience at CRN parent The Channel Company’s XChange NexGen 2022 conference in Orlando, Fla.

“Build positive skill sets [so] someone can slide in. The person who you hire has to view your job as the next logical step in their career,” he said. “That way, they don’t have their head on a swivel looking for the next opportunity outside of your company.”

Finding the right person for the job is a “huge” issue right now for Technology Architects, Inc., a De Pere, Wisconsin-based MSP.

“People don’t want to move to Wisconsin for work … and they want to make $100,000 a year,” said William Hernandez, owner of Technology Architects, Inc., a De Pere, Wisconsin-based MSP.

Hernandez said that the talent gap is just as big an issue for Tier 1 engineers as it is for Tier 3 talent. He is also often hiring people that may not be at the level he is looking for as a way to combat the talent gap.

“I’ll hire whoever I can get — if it’s an entry-level, younger person, I take them … I’ll talk to them about what the different levels are, and if they want to be a Microsoft [professional] or a networking [professional]. I’ll ask them: ‘What do you want to do?’” Hernandez said.

Future proof hiring also creates a longer shelf life for the candidate being hired, Davenjay said.

“I can tell you this from firsthand experience in professional services and running sales organizations that unequivocally, the best way to retain and create a win-win situation is to hire someone that uses your opportunity as career advancement from day one, and not just compensation.”