The latest episode in our Cyber Anxiety Series has just dropped. Luke Betteridge hosts this episode alongside series regulars Daniel Welling and Simon Butler, joined by a special guest, Colin Dologhan. This episode covers The Art of Recruitment, and who better to speak to than our in-house head of Dedicated Tech Recruitment.
Colin's expertise is put to the test by the team, where he gives his view on the following topics:
We created this podcast to help support MSPs through the ever-evolving field of the digital world. The goal is to give tangible tips and strategies that MSPs and others in the tech industry can use while releasing the built-up anxiety around the sector.
The latest episode in our Cyber Anxiety Series has just dropped. Luke Betteridge hosts this episode alongside series regulars Daniel Welling and Simon Butler, joined by a special guest, Colin Dologhan. This episode covers The Art of Recruitment, and who better to speak to than our in-house head of Dedicated Tech Recruitment.
Colin's expertise is put to the test by the team, where he gives his view on the following topics:
We created this podcast to help support MSPs through the ever-evolving field of the digital world. The goal is to give tangible tips and strategies that MSPs and others in the tech industry can use while releasing the built-up anxiety around the sector.
00:00:03:21 - 00:00:24:04
Luke B
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another Inbay podcast for those of you who haven't listened before. My name is Luke Betteridge. I am the sales team manager at Inbay and I'll be hosting today's session. I've also got with me our series regulars, and that is Daniel Welling and Simon Butler. And we've also got a very special guest as well, recruitment manager from Inbay, and that is Colin Dologhan.
00:00:24:05 - 00:00:47:09
Luke B
So thank you, everyone, for joining us today. So we're going to do something a little bit different to our previous episodes we’re actually going to be looking at recruitment and some of the recruitment challenges that the IT industry has faced in the last couple of years. I think it's safe to say that it's been a big talking point probably since the pandemic going back to 2020, which is still quite scary to think that, that was over three years ago now that happened.
00:00:47:21 - 00:01:12:26
Luke B
But since then, recruitment has been a huge challenge in the industry. So today we’re gonna have a bit of a discussion around kind of what the challenges are, how some MSPs can work to overcome those, and also to look at it from a kind of employee angle if you're looking to be recruited into the I.T. space. So before we get started, Colin, can I hand over to you to do a little bit of an introduction about yourself and a little bit about your history in recruitment.
00:01:12:28 - 00:01:40:07
Colin D
That's great. Thanks a lot. Luke I've been with Inbay now for eight months. It feels a lot longer than that, so it's never a dull moment with Inbay prior to Inbay, I've got almost, well, nearly 25 years. I'm showing my age across tech recruitment, and that's within RPO, recruitment process outsourcing and agency. All my experience has been within I.T. be that development, delivery business change.
00:01:40:18 - 00:02:06:16
Colin D
So I've seen it really from all angles, and I've certainly seen the changes that Luke mentioned over the last few years. It's a completely different industry to what it was even six months ago. it never standstill, let's put it that way. But one thing I'd like to point out, recruitment is a very subjective subject, it is something that it's not an exact science and there are no right and wrong.
00:02:06:19 - 00:02:20:18
Colin D
There's more science coming into recruitment processes now. But again, there's a human element on both sides of the fence. So yeah, it's always fun. My opinion are my own and whether you agree or disagree do let me know.
00:02:22:08 - 00:02:43:07
Luke B
Thanks for that Colin, appreciate it. So what we’re probably going to do to get started is I know initially before we started recording this, Simon we were talking about the fact that you've been a bit of a one man band for many years, so there's a few questions around the approaches for someone who's looking to either be recruited into the I.T space or who's in the space already and is looking to move to a new company.
00:02:43:17 - 00:02:50:08
Luke B
So again, do you have any sort of initial questions just to test Colin's knowledge and get us started on this
00:02:50:10 - 00:03:10:02
Simon B
Okay. Well, the probably the first thing as as a potential candidate is where should we be looking these days? What is the best place to be looking? Because obviously, you know, you can look directly on companies websites, but if you don't know the company exists, you know, where are you looking for candidates now? You know, are you going to Indeed or what are you using these days?
00:03:10:25 - 00:03:32:24
Colin D
Well, again, it's a good question because there is a plethora of places to look now. It used to be you'd go straight to your tried and trusted job boards, your job serves your job sites, for example. And everything would be on there Everything would be updated on a weekly basis. about 12 months ago, I was looking for a role myself, and with 20 years recruitment.
00:03:32:24 - 00:03:59:03
Colin D
I thought this would be a doddle I know where to go within three days I'd identified about 100 different sites I could be looking at. So it really is very, very tough social networking LinkedIn being the obvious one. Very, very important. So it's worth getting your profile out there. It's worth getting a little green badge, ‘looking for work’ on LinkedIn profile put down, looking for work, put down what you do.
00:03:59:04 - 00:04:18:29
Colin D
It's no use saying I'm looking for work and that people have to click through to find out what you actually do. So make your LinkedIn profile as clear as you can and connect with as many industry people as you can. The LinkedIn job board, although very effective, you often see 500 plus applicants for a single role
00:04:19:01 - 00:04:43:17
Colin D
Now, statistically, and I've had this myself over 300 applicants for one role I may only have five candidates I want to speak to. So don't be afraid and look at that number and think there's no point in me applying to that. So do pop your CV over. The traditional job boards are still all their Jobserve in the IT world has always been the most effective in my experience from an agency side.
00:04:43:19 - 00:05:00:08
Colin D
Certainly when looking for contracts, job sites, indeed, CW Jobs, Monster, the list could just go on and on. So you've got to spread your net as wide as you possibly can and also leverage against your social network if possible.
00:05:01:03 - 00:05:24:05
Simon B
Lovely, back when I was doing job hunting, which was many years ago, I went through every iteration of CV you could come up with. The multi page, including everything, the single page, including only the most recent stuff, a mixture of the two, different fonts, different structure, different formats. You know, every time you go and read something, someone will say, Oh no, you should do this.
00:05:24:13 - 00:05:37:27
Simon B
Do you include references? Do you not include references? Do you include your age? Do you not include your age or date of birth and all this sort of stuff. So when it comes to the CV, what are you expecting to see on the CV? Let's start with that.
00:05:39:06 - 00:06:08:15
Colin D
On a CV again, it's a very subjective subject as we know, Simon. but the CV for me has to be clear, concise, well formatted, and I would generally like to see start of the CV personal details. Date of birth is something I certainly wouldn't expect to see on a CV nowadays. A little personal statement and then certainly from an IT world, I like to see a table of skills.
00:06:08:25 - 00:06:36:26
Colin D
So it could be I’ve worked with Azure Cloud two or three years. I've done security in this two or three years as a recruiter myself at heart, I want the information there. I could be looking at, you know, upwards of two or 300 CVS a day on occasion, depending on the volume of work. So you don't want to be trawling through 14 or 15 pages and believe me, I have seen 14 or 15 page CVs looking for the salient information.
00:06:36:26 - 00:07:10:20
Colin D
If you've got more than three or four years experience, I don't want to know if you were a school prefect when you were doing your GCSEs. That's completely irrelevant to me. I don't really want to know if, I don't know you, captained the school Tiddlywinks team it's not relevant. So couple of lines on interests. Just bullet points, a table of skills up top and depending on your experience level, only the last five years experience I see as being that relevant because the IT world, the technology moves so quickly.
00:07:10:20 - 00:07:35:24
Colin D
Anything more than five years old is more than likely going to be considered legacy to some extent. So the other thing I'd suggest is if you’re senior support guide that you've got project management skills as well and you can do either role, don't try and shoehorn it all onto one CV. Don't be afraid to have two or three different versions of your CV available and then or even tailor your CV for the role you're applying for.
00:07:36:07 - 00:08:00:20
Colin D
Nowadays, employers want to see what they want, if that makes any sense. So it's not worth sending a senior assistant administration role over for a project management role because they're not going to look twice at you. So it's tailoring it. It's making sure the information is clear in terms of number of pages, 2 to 3, I'd say certainly three tops.
00:08:00:24 - 00:08:20:27
Colin D
I don't think a CV should go on beyond three pages shoehorning 20 years of experience onto one page. That's going to be nigh and impossible as well. So you be the judge. You look at it if it makes sense to you, then run with it. But I would say 2 to 3 pages would be the most I'll be looking for or expecting.
00:08:22:00 - 00:08:41:29
Simon B
Okay, What about non-work things? Now, I'm not saying, you know, including hobbies, but I'm sort of thinking, you know, if you're, say, heavy in forums on your subject matter or, you know, you do a lot with open source and things like this, you've got your own GitHub profile and things like this. Are you looking to include those kind of, you know, looking to include those sort of things?
00:08:41:29 - 00:08:47:05
Simon B
And how would you do it? Would you do it at the top at the end? You know, how would you include them, if you like.
00:08:47:13 - 00:09:11:04
Colin D
In the little personal profile that I mentioned, sort of right under your name and details where you live, whatever it may be, just link, just the link your Github, your open source, whatever it may be, and let the recruiter go and take a look themselves. I mean, most agency recruiters aren't that technical, but they will take a look but a client if it goes to a client and the hiring manager will almost certainly take a look.
00:09:12:05 - 00:09:38:12
Colin D
On that note as here is one of these anecdotes I was talking about. Make sure your social media is clean and clear. I have lost candidates because clients have gone through and looked at their Facebook, for example. Everyone's got their opinions, but some certainly wouldn't fit in with certain clients. So it's ensuring you go through your social media and you're happy with what people can see.
00:09:38:15 - 00:10:00:17
Luke B
I guess that's something about the new world at the moment, isn't it? With social media? It's not something that’ve been really considered before, that you've got an online profile that potential employers are going to have, have a look through and see what your kind of public persona is. So I can imagine a lot of people have lost job opportunities because their social media, let's just say, is not quite the cleanest.
00:10:00:19 - 00:10:30:19
Colin D
Yeah as I say, I've got experience of that where somebody had locked down their profile but left their early teenage years up there and every other word began or ended in an expletive. So it took some coercion to explain this to the client, look they’ve matured now. So it’s just important you look at it, people can see everything nowadays, be it Twitter, be it LinkedIn, be it Facebook, and it's being aware that some clients, some recruiters will go and look at your history and profile.
00:10:31:21 - 00:10:50:03
Luke B
Yeah, makes sense. I'm just whilst we’re talking about CVs. The other thing that's always come to mind for me that I've always been more curious on is cover letters, because obviously a lot of time you'll get the whole upload your CV and a cover letter, but there's never normally any more expansion on what is to be included in the cover letter apart from include one.
00:10:50:05 - 00:10:55:08
Luke B
So again from your experience, Colin, what would you suggest is the best way to approach a cover letter?
00:10:55:10 - 00:11:23:16
Colin D
I generally am not a fan. This comes back down to my own personal opinion is I will very rarely look at a cover letter. I'll jump straight in to look for the skills and backgrounds. Now if you are to do a cover letter short, brief, relevant to the role. But again, it's not something if you're going via an agency, they more than likely won't pay much attention to the cover letter.
00:11:23:19 - 00:11:35:25
Colin D
And it almost certainly won't get sent to the employer. As an employer myself, I tend to go straight in on the skills and so I'm not a fan of cover letters, but that's not to say they don't hold value.
00:11:37:13 - 00:11:53:24
Luke B
Okay. Yeah. So again, it could be down to the actual the business themselves if they request a cover letter because again, I think for, you know, going back to when I was looking for roles, some would say just to, you know, include your CV in an there’ll be others that would say, please include a cover letter. So I guess that's down to personal preference.
00:11:53:24 - 00:11:55:02
Luke B
of that company.
00:11:55:05 - 00:11:58:27
Colin D
Yeah, that, that's the way I would look at cover letters.
00:11:59:00 - 00:12:20:15
Luke B
And just kind of I know we're going to sidestep a little bit here to look at kind of the recruitment aspect from the employers. I know you mentioned earlier about looking at potentially 2 to 300 CVS in a day. As a recruiter yourself, obviously there'll be a lot of companies out there that will kind of take on the recruitment burden themselves without maybe having an internal recruiter, without using an agency again.
00:12:20:15 - 00:12:30:02
Luke B
How would you advise someone approach that if you were to have suddenly hundreds of CVs coming in? What is your method to be able to filter through those kind of as quickly and efficiently as possible?
00:12:30:04 - 00:12:53:07
Colin D
Well, once you once you go down that road first of all if you do get two or 300 CVS directly you're doing very, very well. it really is very, very time consuming. And I can I've been doing this 20, 25 years. I can very quickly nip through a CV in under a minute, probably depending on the role, depending on the individual.
00:12:53:09 - 00:13:18:00
Colin D
If you're not used to doing that, it's going to be extraordinarily time consuming. So you've really got to be prepared for the burden that the tidal wave that may come your way. And you've got to be pretty ruthless. You've got to know what you're looking for and you've got to as often as not on a CV, you've got to look for what's not on the CV as opposed to what is on the CV, and then set up initial calls.
00:13:18:00 - 00:13:40:29
Colin D
So for Inbay, I'm generally having anywhere between 5 to 10 calls a day with candidates. And so you've got to know what you're looking for. You've got to stay to the point it's very easy to spend half an hour on a phone call with somebody. But if you've got a volume, if you've got 30 calls to line up, you've really got to know what you're looking for and be to the point and just be ruthless.
00:13:40:29 - 00:13:54:21
Colin D
I know it sounds horrible, but recruitment can be quite a ruthless industry. So it's it's worth bearing that in mind. But I would always recommend getting a good recruiter to take that burden away from it. But I am biased, of course.
00:13:55:10 - 00:14:12:28
Luke B
Oh, of course. Of course. But so I guess actually when I spoken to some people before the challenges, in the industry at the moment seem to be the opposite. It's not having an abundance of CVs coming through, but actually putting out specific job roles and having either a lack of CVs come through or the not the right type of people coming through.
00:14:13:02 - 00:14:23:04
Luke B
and really struggling to find that right candidate. So again, what's kind of your advice to companies when they're actually doing the initial advertising or looking for these types of people?
00:14:23:06 - 00:14:57:08
Colin D
Well, I mean, that's something again, and I’ll call on my own recent experience is still a very candidate driven market for one reason or another. Right across the IT sector, there are skills shortages. So the first thing I'd say to employers is be flexible. Every job spec generally will have 10 to 15 skills listed. Be realistic. You're not going to get somebody with all of those 10 to 15 skills so I always try and encourage employers to whittle that down to a key four or five skills that you must have and then what orbits around those.
00:14:57:08 - 00:15:23:18
Colin D
So you've got to have that flexibility on the individual. You've got to make the process as pain free for the candidate. And I know this sounds ridiculous because historically businesses have they can pick and choose, but nowadays when I was looking you will spend 10 minutes uploading your CV to an ATS, putting in your personal details, and then all of a sudden it says, List all your experience.
00:15:23:18 - 00:15:43:10
Colin D
And I'm thinking, You've got my CV. Why do you need all my experience to be typed into your little ATS? So I didn't apply for those roles. I just it wasn't worth my time of. I spent all day filling up double, double entry sort of data, so make it as easy as possible. One interview if you can, two interviews max.
00:15:44:17 - 00:16:00:04
Colin D
and it's a personality thing as much as anything else. It's don't be judge and jury. Try and get under the skin because a candidate will want to see the human side of the business, not just this is what we do. What can you offer the candidate they're going to be working for you every day. Can you work hybrid?
00:16:00:04 - 00:16:18:26
Colin D
Can they have some flexi time? What perks do you offer? What differentiates you from your competitor five doors down the road? So you've got to put that mindset on that no longer is a candidate selling themselves to you. It's very much a two way street. You've got to sell yourself to the candidate as well.
00:16:20:07 - 00:16:53:18
Simon B
Can I also just add into there from a candidate's point of view, I'd like the employers to be honest. So if you're writing the job spec, for crying out loud, get someone who's technical to look at it., Asking for 15 years of Office 365 experience when the product's only been realistically available for ten is not is just it's just silly asking for you know loads of other stuff and you know thinking you're going to get you know a networking genius and you're going to pay first line helpdesk is another bugbear of the IT world you know And.
00:16:53:21 - 00:17:02:10
Colin D
Sorry my favourite one SImon is a recent, IT graduate with five years commercial experience, I had that on a job spec once. what is going on.
00:17:02:14 - 00:17:29:08
Simon B
You just can't yeah they need to they need to be yeah it needs someone to look at it with a sensible hat on almost you know is what you're asking for realistic at the salary level you are asking for, you know, if you want someone who's got five years experience with Azure that's fine, but you're not going to get them for first or second line helpdesk support because somebody else is going to pay significantly more than that.
00:17:29:11 - 00:17:36:05
Simon B
So I think employers need to be very clear about what their requirements are.
00:17:36:05 - 00:18:00:27
Colin D
I totally agree Simon on a lot of that. One of the main things and it's very difficult companies are very closed around salary, certainly if they're recruiting directly. So if possible, always get your salary out there. I know that can be difficult if it's a direct advert, but if you're going via an agency, don't restrict the agency and say don't put salaries up there because there's nothing worse than competitive plus benefits or whatever it may be.
00:18:00:27 - 00:18:30:12
Colin D
And you call up and it's 30% below market rate. So that's something that I definitely recommend. Going back to CVs By the way, you touched on another thing there, Simon references I would always say references available on request, never ever put reference details on a CV because certainly if they're senior I.T. professionals and this is on a public job board, they will start getting inundated by agencies looking for a new contact.
00:18:30:12 - 00:18:35:18
Colin D
So keep that to yourself until your at least at interview stage.
00:18:35:20 - 00:18:50:18
Luke B
So Daniel I noticed you’ve been very quiet during this one. So I just want to sort of throw it over to you to see if there's anything that you had or any kind of challenges you faced in the past when you've looked at recruitment or looking at getting the right types of people in for businesses?
00:18:50:21 - 00:19:23:29
Daniel W
Yeah, I think. But broadly, there's been nothing said that I ferociously disagree with. And in fact a lot that makes a lot of sense just to pick up on the topic of social proof and references, I think today we're very lucky to have LinkedIn. And so we can we can very easily sidestep the official referencing channel if we know someone that we know works with a candidate or indeed at a company.
00:19:24:01 - 00:19:53:12
Daniel W
So, you know, both the employer and their and the candidate can off the record reference each other by virtue of knowing who knows who, and if not in just the social domain online. We also have a thriving community around the MSP space, which it really is worth investing the time in, both as an employer and an employee to to attend.
00:19:53:14 - 00:20:33:09
Daniel W
You get to to develop relationships better than you do just by being a LinkedIn connection. And those relationships really pay dividends in the long term in both identifying and also then being confident about entering a new, a new arrangement. So so yeah, it's a it's a different it's a different world out there. to the one it was ten or 15 years ago, but equally a lot of the core elements are the same candidates want to work for good companies and have good progression options and be well supported.
00:20:33:11 - 00:20:47:00
Daniel W
And employers still want ambitious enthusiastic candidates they help them grow the business and and yeah that's still the name of the game.
00:20:47:03 - 00:20:57:18
Luke B
So Colin from your experience in the last couple of years, what is it you're seeing that MSPs are really struggling with or that kind of are The real challenges are out there at the moment.
00:20:57:20 - 00:21:25:13
Colin D
The challenges, again, they're more industry wide rather than well, I'd say purely MSP. There is a big skills gap right across the I.T. marketplace. It's moved so quickly now an MSP may say, I want Azure I want these as your Certs I want everything else and the workforce is struggling to keep up because it's quite a big investment to to get for example Microsoft or whatever technology it may be.
00:21:25:13 - 00:21:49:13
Colin D
So I think it's realism from the employers, the MSPs, whoever hire for aptitude as much as the ready made skills. So if you've got somebody there who's got six months Azure instead of maybe two years, what's the depth to that? Can they pick up? How did they learn? You've got to think imaginatively rather than looking for that ready made perfect option every time.
00:21:49:13 - 00:22:17:23
Colin D
So again, I touched on it earlier on. It is flexibility, open mind and just stick with it. That right person is there, but you've got to maybe open your mind, perhaps more so than you would have done two or three years ago. And a lot of that, the big the big one at the moment is offering some form of, if not full time work from home, certainly hybrid working that really does open your pool massively.
00:22:17:23 - 00:22:21:12
Colin D
So if that's a possibility for you, I’d certainly offer it.
00:22:21:14 - 00:22:46:00
Luke B
And I guess that is one of the big changes that we've seen the last couple of years is the ability to work from home and have a hybrid working model. I think again, even if you go back to probably 2019, I'd say 90, 95% of companies had everyone in the office kind of five days a week. And it was just a norm, even though probably from a technology point of view, we had the ability to work from home then it's been since everything happened in 2020 that companies have kind of been open to allowing that to happen.
00:22:46:00 - 00:22:49:05
Colin D
Yeah definitely.
00:22:49:08 - 00:23:11:08
Luke B
So again, this is more just out of interest. So for everyone listening, Colin specialises internally in Inbay to recruit for our dedicated tech. So our dedicated techs are essentially remote based engineers that are based in Sri Lanka and South Africa. So this is more for a bit of fun I just wanted to know about some of the challenges you've kind of experienced recruiting outside of the UK.
00:23:11:08 - 00:23:25:19
Luke B
So, you know, with that focus, I know we focus in Sri Lanka and South Africa, but that kind of international recruitment, how have you found that and kind of what has been kind of the fun you’ve had with it, but also some of the challenges you may have experienced doing that?
00:23:25:22 - 00:23:49:04
Colin D
It's it's been a real eye opener, actually. So I think in the UK, I can only really speak for the UK market. We've got this perception of perhaps overseas workforces maybe not being as skilled, perhaps not been as engaging, perhaps the comms aren't quite right. I've been astonished, certainly more so in Sri Lanka because of I've spent more time recruiting out there.
00:23:49:16 - 00:24:25:20
Colin D
The level of these guys is something else. They are constantly studying. They have got Microsoft certifications that really in the UK people don't tend to do unless the employer pays for them. So the enthusiasm, they're very keen to to work in foreign markets, the skill levels are all very, very good the main challenge from an Inbay perspective and our clients and dedicated tech as a whole is making sure that these guys can communicate effectively because a lot of them, they're not using English as their first language every day.
00:24:25:23 - 00:24:48:27
Colin D
So it's helping them, guiding them, giving them resources. So they might not be an Inbay employee today, but if they work on their English skills, they could be tomorrow, the day after be that in one of our markets, same for South Africa, the skill levels are very, very high. These guys are always trying to better themselves. So in that respect, it's been an eye opener.
00:24:49:00 - 00:25:12:04
Colin D
The other eye opener for me is that their job market is facing very, very similar challenges to the UK. So it's not a case of clicking my fingers. Here's 20 brilliant engineers that we can put on site tomorrow. It really is a case that Inbay we have to offer the benefits that our competitors don't. We have to offer flexibility, we have to offer training, progression.
00:25:12:06 - 00:25:27:21
Colin D
It's very similar the market, although thousands of miles away is very, very similar and parallels the UK to a large extent. So it's not a case of clicking your fingers. We have to be extraordinarily selective in who we take on at Inbay as well.
00:25:27:24 - 00:25:44:16
Luke B
Yeah, so I was gonna say it's more of a sort of worldwide issue at the moment with the recruitment. It's not something that's very specific to the UK or even the Western market. But I was going to say some of our colleagues in Sri Lanka probably speak much better English than I do so I know when it comes to communication, some of them are absolutely excellent.
00:25:44:16 - 00:25:52:29
Daniel W
Yeah, I didn't, I didn't actually know you had South African bases as well now.
00:25:53:01 - 00:26:10:27
Colin D
Yet we've recently formalized that so we've got an entity out in South Africa and I think at the last count 4 engineers. So it's going well and it does split the time zones up a little bit for us as well. So so yeah, it's truly a global business.
00:26:11:03 - 00:26:40:16
Luke B
Thanks for that Colin and really appreciate your insight into kind of everything around recruitment. I know we spoke before and it might be worth actually us coming back again for next month's podcast. to maybe focus on the retention side of it. I know we kind of maybe glossed over a little bit today about being a company that sells yourself to the candidates, but, you know, maybe we could have another session where we focus a bit more on what companies can be doing not only to, you know, attract these people to them, but actually keep their staff and kind of build that workforce that way.
00:26:40:16 - 00:26:57:21
Luke B
So again, that might be a really good idea to bring Colin back and have a bit of a chat about retention. But again, thank you very much for joining us today. Really appreciate everyone's time. And to everyone listening at home, if you've got any sort of questions or if you want to chat with us about anything recruitment related, then please feel free to get in touch.
00:26:57:24 - 00:27:00:14
Luke B
And we look forward to speaking to you again. Thank you.