5 Must Have Skills - Mopey Murphys Need Not Apply
July 9, 2008 by Phil Gerbyshak
Filed under Phil Gerbyshak, hiring
I’ve been doing a LOT of hiring lately, and folks have asked me what I look for when I hire folks for my IT Help Desk. I find that the best folks have these 5 qualities in abundance, with number 0 being non-negotiables.
0) Attitude and communication skills - If you can’t talk or write very well, with a positive attitude all the time, I really don’t want you on my team. Mopey Murphys need not apply!
1) Inbound call center/help desk experience - This shows you can handle stress, and you can do more than 1 thing at a time, a key quality each of our best folks exhibit.
2) Expertise in Microsoft Office 2003 (soon to be in Office 2007) - You must have Outlook expertise, and you must be extremely good with Word and Excel, with the ability to use the Help menu and Google to find other answers.
3) Demonstrated excellence somewhere else - If you were great somewhere else, you’ll probably be great when you’re on my team. Associate of the month, Analyst of the Year, you name it, if you’ve earned it, it counts.
4) Technical skills/certifications (HDI Certifications, MCP, MCDST, MCSA, A+, etc.) - these show you are committed to learning on your own time.
5) Passion for something - if you don’t have passion, you don’t have much, so I look for a passion in just about anything, and then I ask how to fit that into what we do.
Give me 5, and think about What do YOU hire for?
Flickr photo credit to swimboy1
*heh* I like how you skillfully avoided saying “Slackers need not apply.”
(0) is so important and so forgotten in the days of shortcutting our written and spoken language. I am one of the few people in our group that makes an effort to at least use proper capitalization, punctuation and grammar. I am the kind of typos after the fact, though, which still bugs me, but I find that to be a sign that I still care about what I am putting down from my mind through the keyboard.
Well I have 1 through 4 down - even went as far as gettnig an MBA in InfoSec. As for as 0 and 5 …
Attitude and communication skills - I can communicate quite well, just that we are not allowed to communicate with other departments.
Passion for something - My passion is to leave my current employer. I am actively seeking employment elsewhere. I have upgraded my skills and education and am seeking advancement whereas my current employer is unwilling to fulfill.
Hey Phil, thanks for the link - I’ll give Mopey your regards as well. You have him pegged!
Great post.
Terry
hey phil enjoy your blog. how about using that creative brain of yours by entering our competition at, see you there
http://www.digitalmoneyworld.com/e-dream-design-your-own/
In defense of “Mopey Murphy”: That very well might be the result of a bad manager that someone has had to toil underneath for years. Additionally, a realistic point of view (mind you, not necessarily a pessimistic one) can often come across like this as well. Yes, ideally we see challenges like budget crunches and shortage of staff as opportunities to try and make things better with limited resources, but you can’t always put a smile one when the world has been telling you you can’t dance for a long time. (see http://www.wetherobots.com/ for the reference)
I have often wondered where the balancing fine line between being realistic and being pessimistic or optimistic lies. The constant “EVERYTHING IS GREAT! WE HAVE NO PROBLEMS! WE HAVE GREAT CUSTOMERS! YOU ARE ALL EQUALLY WONDERFUL!” cheery attitude that I see in a lot of managers comes across as painfully insincere, and worse, obviously insincere. It is done in the service of not wanting to appear negative or biased or whatever, but the end result is often the opposite on employees.
I admit that I question a lot of the catch-phrasism I see here on Slacker Manager. You guys do a great job at looking at a lot of different ways to be good managers and on how to motivate employees you are supervising, but there are certainly times when I see something here that strikes me as a little less than genuine and a little more pie in the sky everything is wonderful optimism.
That brings up some very important questions about how you remain who you are and remain sincere to not only your employees but yourself. How do you remain realistic without being saccharine? How do you acknowledge the darker side of things while also keeping a positive but not delusional attitude?
csbmonkey - You are right on the money with your question about “how do you remain realistic without being saccharine? How do you acknowledge the darker side of things while also keeping a positive but not delusional attitude.” I’ve been struggling with this question myself for some time, as I find a lot of folks are curious to my answer, as I am generally a very positive “Things are great” perspective. I’ll address this in full next week because it’s so important, but one of the ways I do that is by focusing on what is right, yet sharing where we can improve. Things are seldom as good, or as bad, as we think they are, at least not for long. Feeling woe is me doesn’t help ANYONE out.
I know this post was about the job interview, so I’ll also say that if you’re spewing forth no solutions and complaining at a job interview, or if you’re only sharing a my job is great and nothing could be improved attitude, neither will get you onto my team. You need to optimistic that things CAN change, even if they totally suck right now.
I promise I’ll do a full post on this next week. Thanks for bringing it up!
CK - Sorry to hear things are tough right now. Where are you located? Perhaps I can help you find a better fit for you?
Terry - Always glad to share a link where it fits. Hi back to you and Mopey!
moneypenny - tough question. I’ll give it some thought soon. Thanks for stopping by.
Thanks Phil! I’ll be e-mailing you soon.
But the point I want to stress is that it isn’t just me! It isn’t just my department nor my division but the entire organization! I was told by an individual who attended a retirement benefits meeting. The meeting was standing room only! The HR rep said that it was the largest in the history of the Organization and that they had to hold a second meeting for others who couldn’t fit in the room. People are wanting to leave!
Some co-workers have approched me asking for me to hire them if I get another job. They stress that they want to work for me rather than our current employer.
Some of my fellow co-workers have hired lawyers in order to protect themselves for our employer. I know of a few who had to bring their lawyers in with them to “meetings” as procautions.