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I always think that it is personality. An engineer that can convese with a client and make them feel comfortable goes a long way towards building customer relationships. Technical skills are important, but many of them can be trained. Personality is much more difficult to change.
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The most important item in my view is what I call 'fit' ... that must fit with your organisation, carry the same values or ethos ... you can teach them your systems, software, solutions, you can even teach them new tech skills but you cannot teach them how to fit into you team; this must be part of their nature.
If your team 'fits' well together then you have a huge skill base and talent base to leverage within the market place. |
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Is this a first hire, or do you already have employees?
I will tell you from experience that it it CRITICAL - especially if it's a first employee - that you have NO misgivings about bringing this person on. You have to be 100% confident that: 1) They DO have the skills you're looking for 2) That YOU have the TIME to devote to training them - not just on tehchnical issues, but also around how you service your customers, who your customers are, etc. 3) That you can honestly afford this person; expect the first three months of their salary to be 100% OVERHEAD as your time is taken away from work you need to do in order to ramp them up. I'm not at all trying to discourage you. the right employee can make the difference between where you are today, and where you want to be tomorrow - just do whatever you need to do to be sure you're ready. Have a plan of action - what will their first day, week, month and quarter look like? If YOU don't know what they'll be doing, and how their time should be spent, and have that laid out for them they will feel lost. Again, plan ahead. Set goals for them - concrete, measurable goals. Example: by the end of the first week have a domain built inhouse in a lab environment based around SBS 2008 which they can show you can email to and from it's own domain, etc. Make sure YOU know and THEY know how their progress and sucess will be measured over time Communicate with them - Meet daily, then weekly once they are established. talk about how they feel they are doing, how they feel the COMPANY is doing, and how you feel they are doing. Do they have any ideas or questions. Review tickets they've gone over. HOWEVER, and I hope this isn't taken the wrong way - care about them, but DON'T become BUDDIES with them. At least not yet. They need to feel that they have a "mentor". they need to see that you are serious about your business, and that they are a valued part of your goals and rewards - but if they become a buddy too soon, you WILL find that it's too difficult to guide and mentor, or in some cases, descipline them when necessary. I know this sounds HARSH - but it's important for BOTH your sakes. And for the sake of the company. Wow did this go on longer than I was planning :-) But it's all from my own personal experience, and mistakes I HAVE made. I hope this helps. Gavin Steiner Interprom Inc. www.interprom.com |
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The route we have taken for recruitment is student placement. Basically we invite the local university to place a student (ideally in their last year) with us for work experience. Its a great chance to see how they 'fit' and gauge their technical ability. 'Try before you Buy'!!
This of course is a planned approach and doesn't deal with staff replacement, but we have been lucky to keep our staff and therefore can take this approach. Hope that helps. Scott |
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Fundamentally - even if ti "feels good" during an interview you will not know how a person truly is until they've worked for you. Pay attention to your training and expect to be available regularly for support during the initial weeks. But the best thing you can do is solicit feedback from your clients on their performance. If your clients aren't "feeling it" then it may not matter at all. You don't want a situation where you cannot send a tech to a specific client - that's a slippery slope.
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