How to Hire an IT DirectorThe #1 IT Hiring Strategy Resource for Small and Medium Businesses

As an SMB, it’s hard to find top talent to fill your IT positions.Most talented individuals work at large enterprises or IT firms

where they are always challenged with new and exciting growth.

As one of those top IT firms, we at SymbioSystems rely on hiring

the best and brightest IT experts. In this guide, we’re going to

share our entire hiring process.

The talent pool is already limited for an SMB. Discover our

best methods for hiring right — the first time.

www.sym.bio

How to Hire an IT Director 2

Overview

3 Determining Cultural FitDetermining Cultural Fit during the interview process

4 Test Problem SolvingEngage your candidate in exercises to test problem-solving skills

5 Behavioral AssessmentLeverage cornerstone performance predictors before hiring

8 Long-Term CompensationDiscover strategies to boost motivation and retention

9 Explore ALL of Your Options for Filling the RoleExplore short-term solutions and strategic alternatives

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Businesses across North America depend on highly skilled IT talent to support a wide range of technology initiatives, but many find it challenging to staff open positions. The reason: a shortage of qualified candidates available for immediate hire.

— 2017 Guide for Technology Professionals

Determining Cultural FitEmpathy is an important quality for determining if a candidate will be a good fit in your team. Get to know your IT candidate from this perspective. Here are some sample questions that can be used to explore empathy with your candidates:

1. You told me you enjoy helping people. How can you tell when someone needs help? Tell me the steps you go through to provide support.

2. If you weren’t an IT expert, what other type of job would you be interested in?

3. Describe something you have learned from being in a supporting role and helping others.

4. What is one thing you wished others knew about you, but don’t?

5. If you could share one thing with someone who is interested in a job that requires helping people, what would it be?

6. Tell me how you know you have connected with another person you are helping or resolving an issue for.

7. One of your users has requested computer support three times in the last 2 hours. None of the requests were urgent and one was an error. She calls again. What do you do?

WHAT TO LOOK FOR: Take some time prior to the interview to think about a range of ideal answers for each question. Every organization creates a unique culture — even though there may not be “right” answer for these questions, there will be themes or empathetic answers that would indicate whether or not the candidate is an ideal fit for your organization.

RED FLAGS: Their values are not in alignment with your org’s values.

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If all other factors are present and strong, it can be worth hiring a candidate with a slight gap or mismatch in his existing experience compared with your job description.

Test Problem SolvingMost of the technical skills can be learned. If all other factors are present and strong, it can be worth hiring a candidate with a slight gap or mismatch in his existing experience compared with your job description. But, testing for systematic thinking, problem solving, and thought process is invaluable. Below are three exercises to to assess technical aptitude:

1. What are the top 3 resources you use when you don't know the solution to a technical problem and are trying to find the answer?

2. Sketch out a systems diagram of the current system you oversee or last oversaw.

3. In 10 steps or fewer, describe to me your step-by-step process to upgrade our Exchange server to the latest version of MS Exchange.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR: An ideal candidate will demonstrate a clear and repeatable process that is easily communicated to others. They should have the ability to see the big picture and think systemically.

RED FLAGS: The candidate has a difficult time citing resources and has a difficult time communicating his or her process. It may make sense to them, but if they cannot communicate a repeatable process to others you can anticipate difficulty in the candidate being able to scale these solutions or delegate to others.

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Behavioral AssessmentA behavioral assessment is a cornerstone to any great hiring strategy. A well-rounded understanding of how the candidate behaves in various situations is often a predictor of future behavior. Below are some suggestions to look at different areas of personality; teamwork and getting along with others, adaptability and time management, communication and finally motivation and values.

Teamwork

1. Talk about a time when you had to work closely with someone whose personality was very different from yours.

2. Give me an example of a time you faced a conflict while working on a team. How did you handle that?

3. Describe a time when you struggled to build a relationship with someone important. How did you eventually overcome that?

4. We all make mistakes we wish we could take back. Tell me about a time you wish you’d handled a situation differently with a colleague.

5. Tell me about a time you needed to get information from someone who wasn’t very responsive. What did you do?

Did the candidate demonstrate the ability to respond constructively to challenging situations? Were their values in alignment with company values? Pay attention not only to her answers, but also to the way she demonstrated her adaptability, time management, communication, and motivation and values throughout the interview process.

Time Management

1. Describe a long-term project that you managed. How did you keep everything moving along in a timely manner?

2. Sometimes it’s just not possible to get everything on your to-do list done. Tell me about a time your responsibilities got a little overwhelming. What did you do?

3. Tell me about a time you set a goal for yourself. How did you go about ensuring that you would meet your objective?

4. Give me an example of a time you managed numerous responsibilities. How did you handle that?

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Communication is an important element in any leadership position. In a high-stress role within a demanding industry, it’s crucial.

What to look for: In a workplace, challenging situations are inevitable. Some of these situations are lose-lose. The only takeaway is to learn from them and move on. But, they all require resourcefulness and interpersonal skills. An ideal candidate will be able to demonstrate the ability to move fluidly through conflict, working within a team, and taking advantage of (or creating) resources that allow projects to move forward.

Red flags: A candidate who is unprepared, shifts blame to colleagues or managers, uses self-justification or doesn't own up to mistakes and the subsequent learning opportunity.

Communication

Communication is an important element in any leadership position. In a high-stress role within a demanding industry, it’s crucial.

These questions will aid in identifying communication skills:

1. Give me an example of a time when you were able to successfully persuade someone to see things your way at work.

2. Tell me about a time when you had to rely on written communication to get your ideas across to your team.

3. Give me an example of a time when you had to explain something fairly complex to a frustrated client. How did you handle this delicate situation?

WHAT TO LOOK FOR: An ideal candidate should show solid experience and a high degree of comfort in all of the above areas. In addition to these areas, pay attention to the communication that is taking place real time, and the degree of communication you experienced with the candidate prior to the interview.

RED FLAGS: The candidate seems uncomfortable with the questions, or struggles to answer them sufficiently. Watch for wordiness.

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“ When hiring a senior manager, you must be sure they are on board and have indications that they already have the organization’s core values.”

— Paul Stock, Values Based Hiring

Motivation and Values

A candidate who will be invested for the longterm is a candidate whose motivations and values are in alignment with your organization’s values.

Ask these questions to guage motivation and values:

1. Tell me about your proudest professional accomplishment.

2. Describe a time when you saw some problem and took the initiative to correct it rather than waiting for someone else to do it.

3. Tell me about a time when you worked under close supervision or extremely loose supervision. How did you handle that?

4. Give me an example of a time you were able to be creative with your work. What was exciting or difficult about it?

5. Tell me about a time you were dissatisfied in your work. What could have been done to make it better?

WHAT TO LOOK FOR: In addition to how the candidate answers these questions, pay attention to the research they’ve done prior to the interview. Do they mention your organization’s core values? Are they focused on teamwork over individual accolades?

RED FLAGS: The candidate does not choose examples that mirror the core values of your organization.

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Long-Term CompensationIT upgrades or overhauls are typically a multi-year process. And hiring an IT Director for the short-term, say 1-2 years, is usually not economical. At Symbio, we not only focus on hiring candidates a candidate whose values are in alignment with ours, but our strategy for making long-term hires that complement our business goals is in creating compensation packages that incentivize tenure. Vesting, multi-year bonuses...whichever route you take, match your offer packages with your desired business outcomes.

While each industry or type of organization is going to have wildly different internal measures of success, key your success metrics to your personnel in the form of compensation and/or recognition.

Examples:

• If you have production infrastructure, tie a bonus to an uptime service level agreement that has a multi-year payout.

• If you have clients with recurring revenue, tie some percentage of their contract to the IT team… because, whether you'd like to believe it or not, without good IT to keep your employees productive, your clients will leave.

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Explore ALL of Your Options for Filling the RoleVetting and hiring the wrong IT Director for your organization is an expensive and time-consuming mistake.

We see this happen most when there is a ticking clock or the pool of candidates is woefully inadequate. These are the situations that call for exploring outside partners for IT expertise.

Just like hiring for internal IT positions, we have a roadmap for outsourcing IT as well. Because even when you’re outsourcing, it’s nice to hire right...the first time.

Here is what to look for when comparing outsourced IT or IT-as-a-Service options alongside hiring an internal candidate:

Advantages of Outsourcing IT

1. Outsourcing reduces risk associated with turnover. One of the worst things that can happen to the continuity of a business is unexpectedly losing an IT leader and having to scramble to fill the role. According to zanebenefits.com 1, the cost of replacing a low-income high-turnover role (16% of an annual income) pales in comparison to replacing a C-suite or director-level employee — it can be up to 213% of the employee’s annual income2. Now more than ever, organizations need to hire right, hire for the long term, and take advantage of short-term solutions to take the pressure off of making the wrong hiring decision.

2. IT as a Service scales up and down to elastically fit your business. It is extraordinarily difficult to build infrastructure that anticipates the needs of your business in the next 4 years…which is often the recommended lifespan of hardware. Outsourcing IT allows organizations to scale with predictable costs and without the burden of managing technology transitions at the expense of other business operations.

1 https://www.zanebenefits.com/

2 https://www.zanebenefits.com/blog/bid/312123/employee-retention-the-real-cost-of-losing-an-employee

Long term, and take advantage of short-term solutions to take the pressure off of making the wrong hiring decision.

It’s nice to hire right... the first time.

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3. IT jobs in SMBs can be viewed as dead-end jobs. It’s hard to offer a compelling career growth plan to an IT Director in an SMB. If they are really good at their job, they will likely be working for a complex organization or an outsourced IT vendor.

4. Outsourcing reduces risk with redundancy. If you have any exposure to the world of IT, you know that when it comes to risk reduction, redundancy is the name of the game. An outsourced vendor is in a much better position to provide coverage for vacation time, rotate staff, and they are heavily incentivized to build redundant infrastructure to ensure no downtime or data loss.

5. IT as a Service can provide a predictable, flat monthly fee for services. Both traditional IT vendors as well as internal teams are rarely incentivized to control costs the way an IT as a Service vendor is. On average we see at least a 20% savings when comparing IT as a Service to traditional models.

6. Lower IT costs at a time when salary is increasing According to the 2017 Salary Guide for Technology Professionals, businesses are competing to hire the best talent before someone else does. “To compete, employers find they must be prepared to extend generous offers with above- market pay and other compelling incentives, such as signing bonuses and work-from-home options.”

Disadvantages of Outsourcing IT

1. Control over personnel. When you hire someone who sits in an office down the hall and reports to you, it is much easier to control how he or she manages the budget, team and priorities.

2. Retaining institutional knowledge. Particularly within larger organizations, the ability to have employees sharing and retaining the inner workings of your infrastructure can be very appealing. This seems to be somewhat eroding as there is more and more fluidity in tech jobs and losing an IT employee can have substantial impacts.

3. Downsizing personnel. No one wants to slash the budget for a vital group within the company...but sometimes it needs to be done for the survival of the business. Most outsourced vendors wouldn't be willing to provide the low level of service required to meet the budgetary constraints in times like this, but it can be sustained for a short period of time when done internally.

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Thinking about outsourcing IT? Interview a Symbio Expert Today.Symbio is a family of dedicated geeks and pioneers of the ethical, efficient, and symbiotic IT-as a-Service-model. We have grown from humble beginnings to provide cutting-edge managed IT services to companies all over North America. Our team works together to support our clients in upgrading their IT while transitioning to a modern technology environment. We love solving puzzles and have tons of fun tackling new challenges. Our company culture is built on a foundation of mindfulness and ethics.

Want to learn more?

Talk to an IT expert at SymbioSystems today and receive your IT assessment at https://www.sym.bio/it-assessment

Traditional IT The Symbio WaySelf serving: Your company’s IT disaster = more billable hours for the traditional IT company.

Symbiotic: You’re happy when your IT is running smoothly — and so are we. (But really).

Headcount and hardware: Does not scale easily, difficult to hire real talent and expensive.

Predictable cost model: No hidden fees or surprises…ever!

Recurring problems: backups don’t work, email server is slow, poor resolution times… you get the picture.

Problems are handled right the first time… and if they do come back, it’s our headache — not yours.

Hard to scale headcount and hardware up and down based on current demand.

Scales exactly to your current size and you don't pay for what you don't use on a monthly basis.

SymbioSystems

1.877.810.4749 www.sym.bio info@sym.bio 268 Bush St. Suite 3141 San Francisco, CA 94104