What skills do you look for in your employees?
- Thread starter Minmeo
- Start date
Honesty. Can't stress it enough.
I've seen far to many people claim to know stuff and then just end up doing nothing trying to rip you off by signing up for a job they unfortunately lack the proper skills to have. Now don't get me wrong, everyone needs to start somewhere and learn, but it's better to be honest and say "I do not feel comfortable doing this" instead of "Yeah i know BGP!" and fucking things up for both parties.
As for support it's more or less just someone with the right amount of knowledge who can be polite and resolve issues quickly, not much more to it really. This is something you can also learn if you are given the opportunity.
I've seen far to many people claim to know stuff and then just end up doing nothing trying to rip you off by signing up for a job they unfortunately lack the proper skills to have. Now don't get me wrong, everyone needs to start somewhere and learn, but it's better to be honest and say "I do not feel comfortable doing this" instead of "Yeah i know BGP!" and fucking things up for both parties.
As for support it's more or less just someone with the right amount of knowledge who can be polite and resolve issues quickly, not much more to it really. This is something you can also learn if you are given the opportunity.
You can easily find someone that knows everything very well but it will cost you a lot of money, so depending on your budget you can find someone that knows the basics and can be trained in say 1-3 months. I run an IT deparment and have to deal with people applying for the job, they do their homework and prepare for the interview but when you hire them and send them out there you find out that they don't know much, that's fine as long as they're fast learners and don't break anything as @blergh mentioned, nothing wrong in saying "I don't know how to do that but I can learn quickly" instead of messing something up because you can't admit that you don't know.
drmike
100% Tier-1 Gogent
Depends on level they are working at and who they are interfacing with.
At minimum, across board, I look for folks who are cool headed under pressure. Self starters and those able to think independently go a long way.
I always hire people with 90 day trial period. Meaning it's at-will and for any reason can sever the relationship. This applies to per ticket style folks to the 200k$ per year employees I've dealt with in the past. Actually moved a senior guy across the country, paid for relocating his life / wife / house stuff and he lasted 90 days, with a cash umbrella to GTFO.
People are the hardest part of business, the employees. That's why they are outright rare in the VPS world. They cost money, eat time, require management time most of us don't have / won't make available.
At minimum, across board, I look for folks who are cool headed under pressure. Self starters and those able to think independently go a long way.
I always hire people with 90 day trial period. Meaning it's at-will and for any reason can sever the relationship. This applies to per ticket style folks to the 200k$ per year employees I've dealt with in the past. Actually moved a senior guy across the country, paid for relocating his life / wife / house stuff and he lasted 90 days, with a cash umbrella to GTFO.
People are the hardest part of business, the employees. That's why they are outright rare in the VPS world. They cost money, eat time, require management time most of us don't have / won't make available.
Common sense.
An ability to learn.
'Spade is a spade' attitude
Don't come to me waving your certificates in the air - I'm not interested. Instead, tell me about that time you fucked up a server and got it running again using a few tools at your disposal.
An ability to learn.
'Spade is a spade' attitude
Don't come to me waving your certificates in the air - I'm not interested. Instead, tell me about that time you fucked up a server and got it running again using a few tools at your disposal.
I don't get involved as heavily in the hiring of our support staff, but in general for sales & finance hires I look for passion. Someone who isn't going to be bored coming to work everyday. I also look for someone who wants to progress their career which tends to mean they go above & beyond.
...This is obviously in addition to being well spoken, work experience, education, etc...
...This is obviously in addition to being well spoken, work experience, education, etc...
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As Karl Marx said people are the most important capital (something along that line).
In romanian we have an old saying, the man sanctifies the place. (Omul sfinteste locul)
If you have good people it is almost impossible to fail, they will figure out how to solve the most difficult problems, otherwise, no matter how much money you have, one day they will run out through a string of big and small mistakes.
It must be honest first, then intelligent, fast-learner and adapter, then fairly competent.
In romanian we have an old saying, the man sanctifies the place. (Omul sfinteste locul)
If you have good people it is almost impossible to fail, they will figure out how to solve the most difficult problems, otherwise, no matter how much money you have, one day they will run out through a string of big and small mistakes.
It must be honest first, then intelligent, fast-learner and adapter, then fairly competent.
Sorry about no-edit, but i just remembered a joke which could have been inspired from a real event:
At IBM one guy seriously screws up and loses 10 mil for the company. He is called to the boss and he listens what the boss had to say, then offers his resignation which he had ready.
What ??? Said the boss I dont want to hear about it, after we invested 10 mil in your training, you cannot leave.
At IBM one guy seriously screws up and loses 10 mil for the company. He is called to the boss and he listens what the boss had to say, then offers his resignation which he had ready.
What ??? Said the boss I dont want to hear about it, after we invested 10 mil in your training, you cannot leave.
I like that.
nunim
VPS Junkie
I believe these are the most important skills in any profession, sadly few people seem to possess them.
Especially that "Common Sense" thing. I think it needs to be renamed to "Uncommon sense" given the rarity these days.
Shados
Professional Snake Miner
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That is actually a common story, not sure if it was truly IBM or not, but its classic nevertheless
The biggest thing for us is common sense and the ability to learn on the fly. A lot of the people we bring in may not have direct experience with cPanel, or with DNS, etc, but given some basic questions can they Google and dig through the information to come to the right result.
The biggest issue we have is the same one everyone has - getting through the smooth talkers. We've found that a simple competency test takes care of this, as well as if someone mentions "well I've written some SQL queries blah blah": Ok great, now tell me the syntax to do a select on table blah for example.
The biggest issue we have is the same one everyone has - getting through the smooth talkers. We've found that a simple competency test takes care of this, as well as if someone mentions "well I've written some SQL queries blah blah": Ok great, now tell me the syntax to do a select on table blah for example.
The best human quality for us is disposition. We've work with merely graduated students that lack any prior experience and they have developed every task and project we have given them. They had no experience, but they fulfilled our needs by self-learning, searching, and studying what they needed to give us the expected results. This does not come without disposition and a pure will to work and learn.
ryguy222
New Member
The best skill/training is on the job training. Every environment is different, even if similar tools are used.
Top skills I look at is honesty (takes a bit of time to figure that one out), and basic technical understanding. If you understand the basics the rest can be taught fairly quickly.
Top skills I look at is honesty (takes a bit of time to figure that one out), and basic technical understanding. If you understand the basics the rest can be taught fairly quickly.
mikho
Not to be taken seriously, ever!
The person need to be interested of the work he/she is supposed to do.
A will to learn new stuff.
A brain where knowledge stick.
A personality that works with the other staff (more important if all staff is working in a office)
Skills are secondary because if the above is available, skills will come with the proper training/environment.
A will to learn new stuff.
A brain where knowledge stick.
A personality that works with the other staff (more important if all staff is working in a office)
Skills are secondary because if the above is available, skills will come with the proper training/environment.
mikho
Not to be taken seriously, ever!
I call urban legend on that story. Heard it myself, each time a different company. A bank, Microsoft, stock trading.
Minmeo
New Member
Thanks. This is an interesting industry and I hope to one day work in it. Does anyone have a cPanel certification? Do employers require that? I will continue to work on and break and fix my own servers for now but one day want to volunteer and gain experience and hopefully get a decent job working for a web host!