EP231 – How to Find the Right Talent in Your MSP by Using AI with Dean Watmough and Ian Luckett

IAN: In this IT Experts podcast, we're going to help you work out how to find the right MSP talent using AI.

INTRO: Welcome to the IT Experts podcast, the only podcast to help MSPs scale to 1 million, and if already there, get to five and go faster at the end of the day. Isn't it all about building a business that works for you rather than you for it? I hope you enjoy the show.

IAN: So good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome to the IT Experts podcast. What an amazing title. We've got the click bait. We've got you listening, we've got you wrapped in our grapples. Now we use the words AI. How can AI help me? How can it help me? Today's podcast, you're going to love this one. We've got Dean from Humnize back in the podcast lounge again.

And Dean's going to explain a little bit about who he is and what he does and how he helps people in a minute. But we're going to help you to really start to take your MSP further faster by getting the right talent. But we're going to use some really cool, sexy tools to do just that. So before we get stuck into it too much, Dean, welcome back. For people who don't know who you are, Dean, can you just explain who are you, what do you do, and who do you help?

DEAN: Thanks for having me back, Ian. Great to be here. So yeah. My name is Dean Watmough. I run a recruitment business called Humnize. We focus on the MSP sector. And for us it's all about using AI data and human insight to help you find the best people for your roles and for your company culture.

IAN: Fantastic. And you only work in the channel, don't you, in the MSP channel?

DEAN: Pretty much, yeah. That's where we focus. We come from the MSP world ourselves. I owned an MSP worked at MSP, so we really know what good looks like and we know the pain points that MSPs have when it comes to finding good people.

IAN: Lovely, lovely. Do you know what, let's just go of topic straight away, right? 'cause you know that this is what happens. We've got a lovely script and I'm just going to talk about something else. I was listening to something the other day, listening to someone talking the other day, and AI is, obviously is an amazing innovation that's going to help, that helps efficiencies in all businesses, but it's also going to be removing some of the lower level triage. I was even talking to someone, talking about doctors and nurses in hospitals and things like this because, there's certain routes that a ticket can go. There's certain routes that a doctor could go with things like that. So it's going to start to remove some of the lower level roles.

Now, in your opinion, do you think that's going to make the pool of experts, the actual people, the humans as they call them, that we've got to do the thinking for you? Because AI's great, but it's like a cake, isn't it? Bad ingredients in bad output. You've got to, as we just said before the show, you've got to know how to use it. You've got to know how to ask it, the right questions, how to train it so that it delivers the great results. But what do you think is the, I guess the question is, what do you think the future is on, AI and the resource pool? Is the resource pool going to shrink? We going to end up with a real big problem where anybody who's human working in the tech space is actually going to have to be paid a bucket load of money because they're the only people left to operate the machines. What's your take on this one?

DEAN: I think if it's used correctly, what it should do is enable humans to focus on the more important work. A lot of first line ticket issues can be resolved very quickly through AI. It, so taking the workload away, the grunt work away enables it does two things. It probably gets faster answers for the client who's got the issue. But it means that the people actually on support desks and in IT roles. Can actually probably get a bit more enjoyment from what they do because they're not just password resetting all the time. Yeah. And doing the basic stuff so they can start to concentrate on more important and more engaging and more rewarding work that that a typical MSP has.

IAN: Excellent. Excellent. So give us a bit of a state of the nation. Where are we? Where have we been with recruitment? You sent over some very interesting stats about CVs and the fact that 14% of CVs are actually accurate, which I find, I think my CV, I look at my CV, I think that's quite mind. You haven't done my CV for a while, so we don't, we won't talk about that. But, where have we come from right now? Why is the current recruitment process using CVs, interviews, quick chats. Why is that broken, Dean? 'cause that's what we're saying here, isn't it?

DEAN: It is just archaic now when you look at it. Okay. That 14% that is about how a CV predicts someone's performance in the job they're applying for. Okay. So it's, it only predicts with 14% accuracy, so that means there's a huge amount of wastage. Let's just rewind a second, because if an MSP is recruiting, it's for one of three reasons. One is growth.

IAN: Yep.

DEAN: Is the preference, the preferred one. Two is someone's left. So you're backfilling three is you are letting someone go 'cause they've not worked out now. So that means two thirds of the time, it's a reactive process. Okay. You're having to let's get this moving. We need to fill, we need to get someone into the business quickly with we are feeling some pain, someone's left or having to move someone along. So typically you just put your job description, out-list a bullet points, stick that on Indeed or one of the job boards, and it's so easy to do that.

IAN: Yeah.

DEAN: But it's also really easy to apply for a job. There are easy apply buttons. And that means you get a huge amount of volume, but you don't get the quality. And genuinely we speak to people who've had over 1500 applicants, for a role. So you create your own problem 'cause how are you going to find that needle in that haystack? It's impossible. So become overwhelmed, with the volume of work you've got to get through and the majority of the time you are reviewing CVs. Hiring manager on average spends 23 hours screening CVs for a job. Okay. And that, when it comes to the applicants through a job board that have applied for the role, 72% are unsuitable. So there's a huge amount of wastage, we were talking beforehand 75% of hiring managers have caught people lying on CVs whilst they're interviewing them, and they're also hugely open to bias, unconscious bias. Okay. People with, certain types of names are more likely to be selected, to go into a process. So we've got to overcome that issue of as well. LinkedIn's not much better in terms of caliber, of candidates, and it's expensive to advertise as well on LinkedIn. For us, it's all about let's help you get beyond the CV, let's learn about the human being. Because at the end of the day, that's what you bring into your business and as an MSP, your clients aren't buying the tech, they're buying the team. Yeah. So it's so important. You bring the right people into your team. People are aligned with your values and what our data tells as well, because we're always surveying our database what the data tells is that particularly younger generations. They're not looking for salary. It's not that important to them. They're looking for company culture. A place where they can grow. A place where they can learn. Yeah. Okay. So that you, all the human things, all the softer stuff, which again, it's very hard to pick those things out in a CV and all our clients will tell us all the time. We'd rather higher attitude 'cause we can train tech. So it's about how do you find the attitude from a CV? You don't. So there's a lot of wasted time screening CVs. Trying to get to the right people.

IAN: Brilliant. I think everybody who's listening to this podcast now can resonate that wherever you are, wherever you've been in history, in life, in business, you have put up with listening to different types of people, and not performing.

Now, we talked about we're going to talk in a minute about skills based assessment and how AI can help. In my view, it's yes, you've got to select the candidate before you put them through the assessment, but are you saying we do that the other way round so that they feel, they self-qualify and filter themselves before? How does AI work in this process then? How do, how does it get introduced?

DEAN: So before you even get to AI in that aspect you can do yourself some huge favors by putting some good screening questions into your application process. And that does two things. It sits out people who are just easy applying and not even knowing what they're applying for 'cause they've got to answer some questions to actually get into your process. So put some hoops in there that they have to jump through.

IAN: Yeah.

DEAN: So that means that if people are wanting to answer those questions, they're motivated. You don't want people who are gonna drop out of the process. Are gonna ghost you, which happens quite a bit.

So that's what we like to do. Get some really good, quite only two or three. That's all you need into your application process. So then in terms of AI works brilliantly when it has data. And when you know how to use AI and edit it effectively and what questions to ask it. So the more data you have the more likely it's going to predict that someone is a good fit for the role, very hard to do that. If you just give it a job description and a cv, it'll do a half decent job. Yeah. But it doesn't know really much about the person. We use skills tests not just to assess technical capabilities, but more importantly to test culture fit. Personality traits, values alignment. So the company values and the candidate's values, is there some alignment there? We do things whereby we will also have an initial screening call with a candidate. And we gather all the data we need there as well. We put them into the testing process. We use their test results. That goes into the AI engine as well. So all the time it's learning more about the person and if they're a good fit. We also get our clients to take the tests. So some, the members of the tech team, for instance, will also take the test. So you're getting some good benchmarking data.

IAN: So you're building the database. Yeah.

DEAN: Correct. So again, it, this is what the team's data looks like. How well does this person fit and match into that team? And lastly, in our process, we do a 15 minute recorded screening call. We take the transcript from that call. And we put that into, add that into the data pool as well. So AI reviews everything and then we're able to provide our clients with a really good assessment, which tells you how strong a fit they are compared with the rest of the team, how well they align with the company values, how likely you are to retain them for the long term, because that's a really important aspect. Yeah. You want to make sure you're bringing the right people in and you're not going to have to go through the recruitment process again. Really valuable is now particularly with technical roles. We all know some techies are not people, okay. It doesn't mean they can't do the job. They might be amazing at the job, but they might not interview very well.

And another stat is that only 25% of hiring managers have ever been trained in interviewing and interviewing processes. Yeah. Yeah. Who we provide from AI. How you can get the best out of that particular candidate in an interview. So what questions to ask, what kind of interview scenarios they're going to respond better in.

So that helps the hiring manager and it helps the candidate. And then ultimately, if they are going to bring that person into the business. The AI also gives you a good onboarding plan. For that candidate and it's all personalized. That's where, so where we've gone from a CV, which is just words on a page to really understanding the person behind the CV and how you can make the most of the time with them, and how if you bring them into the business, you can really help them thrive.

IAN: But it actually sounds like you've gone another step beyond that in terms of understanding, the business, the culture, the behavior, the values, and all of that kind of great stuff of the business that you are trying to match, which has never really been done before, has it? Because I'm guessing that, if I, if you were recruiting for me, they'd say, Hey, Ian, who are you? What'd you do? Who'd you help? And what are you looking for? And that would be it really, wouldn't it be like a five minute conversation on, we're an MSP, we will help technical people. This is what we do. So we help solve technical problems. This is what we do. We are based here. This is the team that's going to be it. But you are going even deeper into that because I think, what we hear particularly with our clients and people in the channel is very much that if someone's got the wrong skills, but the right behavior, they could work out if they've got the wrong behavior and the right skills. This is not going to work out. This is going to be like hard work. So how do you how do you really lean into the, and you mentioned just a before about a culture test and the behavior test because it's really about value matching, isn't it? That's what recruitment's all about, isn't it? Is value matching and how do you make sure that covers all the bases off on that area?

DEAN: We get the client to take a culture test,

IAN: Right?

DEAN: And that gives us a benchmark for the values of that business. And then we have members of their team taking that same test. So again we growing that data set there. And then that's part of the full skills test. And our skills test, typically it's about half an hour. You don't want to go any more than that 'cause it becomes a bit too much for the candidates. But that really helps us understand where they're going to fit.

IAN: Yeah.

DEAN: Okay. We had a great one recently where we've got one of our clients they specialize in supporting other tech teams, so they're not supporting typical end users. It's all the tech teams. So they're very strong technically but they're not, having to have your typical customer service type of skills. Yeah. That the softer skills, but they're then, they've now started to develop an end user team. So they said, look, we want you to help us find people who are, who have those end user skills. They're still good technically, but they need to be a bit more extrovert. The personality aspect of the skills test really helps us focus on those people who are higher in extroversion. And what we do. It's all, there's still a really good element of gut feel in yeah. In hiring someone you've got to have that feeling. I'm going to get on with this person. And we say, go with that. But we say, let the data support your gut feel. And in this instance Amy, who they actually took on board in the end, she was top of the tree. She was 89% across the board in terms of her scores for suitability customer service skills. Everything else extroversion was high as well. And they got the best feeling about who when they interviewed her. So that's about making a more confident hiring decision. And she's absolutely flying and loving the role. So it's about, as I say, combining that data and that gut feel that's the important thing.

IAN: Absolutely love it. We'll get onto the wrapping up shortly, but, is, you mentioned about the gut feel and that AI isn't just the answer all on its own. There's lots of other things in there. I love that. I love the part and I totally agree with it and practice it as well about making it as hard for people to apply as possible so that if they just hit the button. We were recruiting a little while ago a couple of years ago actually. And it was through Indeed and then all of a sudden I didn't realize first time we'd done it. I didn't realize that they did this. It was like an English test or a, it wasn't an intellect test, but it was like an English test. Oh, this candidate's filled out. I said, what's that? I didn't know anything about that. So I said to my wife, we were sitting there one Saturday night, glass of wine in their hand. I said, oh, I'm going to apply for my own job and see what it's, to experience what it's going through. It was really hard. I'm not sure I would've got the job myself actually, but putting , those tests in place so that people skip through those hoops and we even did a video at the end to say, hey, so you want to come and join the Growth Hub? This is what we're about, fill out this next further question. And it just, we went down from like a hundred down to five people. The system's doing the work, right? They don't go, when people, oh, I've got to sift through 25 CVs. I bet you don't you've just gone, it's a bit like marketing with MSPs. You've just gone full market. Yes, I want a tech in London. Great. You are going to be busy for the rest of it. So I love the process and I think as well. There's a bit of confidence isn't there, that needs to be installed in this process to say that this is what we want, this is the person we want, this is how we want And if you don't fit that criteria, I don't want to talk to you. I don't want you in my sales funnel, I don't want you in my marketing funnel. 'cause this is just marketing, right? It's just marketing with people. And I think having the confidence to, to put that up the front, I think is a really. Really important issues so that they self-qualify themself in and out your funnel, don't they?

DEAN: And I think. What you typically get is on a job advert, it is normally listed bullet points. So one, one of the things we always say at the outset is, what are the three most important things this person needs to do for you? Yeah, okay. What are they going to be doing the most every single day? Because the rest of those bullet points, the kind of peripheries, so it's all about focusing. And then you can make your questions, those application questions specific to those three key things.

IAN: Yeah.

DEAN: So that's important because you want to make sure you're talking to people who could be good at the role.

IAN: Yeah.

DEAN: But it's, yeah it's very much about MSPs also want people who've got MSP experience that nine times out 10 we are asked, can you find us people with MSP experience? And one of the reasons we introduced the skills test was because, that's a small pool of talent. Yeah. Okay. And it's a pool, we know we've got skill shortages. There's not many people coming into the p MSP tech roles. So it pushes the price up, pushes salaries up as well. So the reason we brought the skills testing original was to say, just because someone hasn't worked in an MSP doesn't mean they don't have the skills, the mindset, the mental agility to actually cope with that environment and the skills test do that. It helps you say, look, they don't have MSP experience, but actually they work in a business at the moment and they're looking after 60 different sites. So it's almost like they've got 60 different clients.

IAN: Yeah. Transferable skills, isn't it?

DEAN: Transferable skills. So it's about that, don't be let's broaden the horizons, but let's just, let's not just broaden those horizons and throw volume of candidates at you. Let's broaden the horizons and actually throw you fewer candidates. But we are picking out the key skills that you said are important that candidate has, whether they be technical or personal.

IAN: Yeah. Fantastic. Dean, absolutely love the structure that you've gone through here and put this together and really exciting to see some technical ways to use AI to help MSP business owners. Absolutely love this. What's your top three takeaways? What's your summary from the podcast that every MSP needs to do as soon as they stop listening?

DEAN: I think you really need to, don't just rush the process. Think about what you want. Okay. Think about which of your current employees would you love to clone because they've got the right attitude and skill sets that you need. I think, what are the key three things you need this person to do in the role that you're hiring for? On Indeed, for instance, because all you're going to create is noise.

IAN: Yeah.

DEAN: And you don't want noise. 'cause it just takes so much time and effort to actually get to any of the quality candidates. So yeah. I think, what's the ideal candidate profile? I. Once you know this once you know the profile and who you're looking for, you can then think, how can we attract them more effectively? What kind of job, what do they want to see in the job ad? What is going to engage them, what's going to interest them? Because the top candidates out there, they're getting between five to seven offer from your competition.

IAN: Yeah.

DEAN: And the best candidates are actually not actively looking. So it's how you can actually get their attention. Yeah. And get them into some kind of dialogue. Yeah,

IAN: This isn't a numbers game. It's just a reminder. This is not a numbers game. The more people you get, you're not, it's about that unicorn. This is just like marketing for new clients. This is just so specific. The tighter you get in the niche. The skills, the expertise, the behaviors you want, the more you tell them about who you are, what you do and who you help. You'll get much much, much more success.

So, Absolutely love today's show. Dean, thanks ever so much again for popping on. If people want to test you out, shameless plug time. That's what it's all about. We don't really care. How do they get in contact with you and what's the thing they're going to get?

DEAN: So our website is humnize.com. It's spelled H-U-M-N-I-Z-E. So it's pronounced humanized, but spelled humnize we thought it was a great name at the time. And it's,

IAN: we'll put the link in the show notes.

DEAN: Yeah. Great stuff. Yeah. And look, just reach out if you are struggling. If you are considering, how can we recruit more effectively? Should we try something different because. We're getting volume, but we're not getting the quality. We are always happy to help. We can provide you with market intelligence who's out there, the size of talent pools, all those kind of things. We can help you, improve your job ads. And we do this for free all the time for people. We're just, keen to engage with MSPs that would like to try a different way.

IAN: Fantastic. Lovely. We'll put all your contact details in the show notes, as I said so it'd be super easy for people to get to you. Great, thanks very much again.

Good luck. I'm glad to see Humnize going from strength to strength. It's been a few years now, hasn't it? And since we first met and great to see everything moving in the right direction and now bringing in a bit of technology to help everyone get results quicker. Fantastic stuff. Good luck. Thanks again and I look forward to speaking to you soon, mate. You take care.

DEAN: Thanks for having me again. Thanks very much, Ian.

IAN: No problem. Cheers buddy.

OUTRO: Hang on a minute. Just before you go, and if you're curious about how this episode links with the ability to scale your MSP to a million or if you are already there, accelerate to five, then we want to invite you to come and take the MSP Mastery quiz. And in just three minutes, you're going to get a 360 degrees scan of your business where you can identify the one or two tactics that engage in, align your people and help generate more leads in your MSP. It's really simple. Just click on the link in the show notes. And if you have enjoyed this episode, we'd love to get some feedback from you by means of a rating review on Spotify or iTunes, or your podcast platform of choice. We really appreciate every single one of them. Now, you can go and enjoy the rest of your day, and we look forward to catching up and connecting with you soon. All the best.