Every help desk manager has his or her own theories and methods for finding and
retaining the best people to work in call centers. Recently, I asked one former
and one current help desk manager to share their advice for finding and keeping
good people in their help desk operations. Both preferred to remain anonymous,
but they were willing to share some of their favorite hiring and retention tips.
After you read their techniques, I invite you to contribute your own
comments.In a minute, that phone is going to ring…
The first person I interviewed, I’ll call Terry. A few years ago, Terry hired and trained receptionists for a large law firm. Now, he works as a telecommunications support analyst for a Fortune 500 company, and he’s in charge of teaching telephone etiquette to all the new operators in his department, as well as to the administrative assistants in the company.
When I asked Terry if he had any secrets to hiring good help desk people, the first thing he said was, “I make them answer the phone for me. I’ve been burned too many times by people who came across great in interviews but just didn’t work out when you put them on the phones.”
Pressed for details, Terry said: “If I’m interviewing someone I think has a good chance of making it, I tell them, ‘That phone is going to ring in a minute. I want you to answer, "ABC Company," and take it from there.'"
Terry then leaves the room, calls the line, and when the candidate answers he says, “Well you’ve disconnected me five times in a row now. Do you think you could possibly connect me to Frank Farnsworth and get it right this time?!’”
He said people’s reactions have varied from just hanging up to cursing at him, but what he’s looking for is the person who’s able to keep his composure.
“I like to see how they’ll react to a hostile caller, because on the help desk, we get a lot of those,” he said.
Determining technical proficiency
As a general rule, Terry doesn’t administer any tests to determine a candidate’s technical proficiency. He typically doesn’t interview candidates who don’t have the right stuff on their resumes. However, every now and then, if he gets a certain vibe during an interview, he’ll ask the candidate to explain, in user’s terms, how to perform a basic task like changing a password.
Listen up
I’ll call the second person I interviewed Jerry. He works for a national healthcare provider. I first met Jerry when I interviewed for an open position on his help desk team.
In his position as manager of system administration, Jerry has ten full-time help desk analysts reporting to him. They provide level-one support for over 16,000 network users, but they specialize in issues relating to security administration and access to various network resources and 27 enterprise applications. (When you call the help desk at Jerry’s company, you have to press 3 to get routed to his group.)
Jerry doesn’t believe in making people answer the phone as part of the interview. He trusts his gut when it comes to evaluating a candidate.
“Communication skills are more important to me than technical skills,” Jerry said. “I can teach technical skills. I pay attention to how a person communicates with me during the interview. Listening is the most important skill for a help desk analyst, and I look for people who are good listeners, who pay attention during a conversation.”
The wrong type of person
When I asked whether Jerry knew of any personality types that he thought didn’t make good help desk analysts, he quickly replied, "People who are too technical. I've had people in here who were technical wizards but weren't very good at communicating.
“I can sit and talk about BIOS settings and operating system versions and explain why such-and-such happened,” Jerry said, "but that’s not what our customers want to hear.”
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