Approached by a MSP
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So I had a great conversation with someone at an MSP and they told me that I would be a great fit in their team if I was interested. I've never worked for an MSP but I know a lot of you are a MSP or have worked for one before so I wonder if you guys can shed some light on how it all works. The pay was explained to me and I like that it is a salary with some incentive to do as much billable hours as you can. It's a decent sized company so I'm sure the benefits are average. My real concern is how do you deal with all the training to stay current and how do you keep every customers system details straight. LOL! Another thing would be do you know of any specific questions I should ask them or red flags I need to look for when interviewing with them because I'm sure it has to be a little different from a regular job interview.
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If you go ahead with it you should ask to see notes on customer accounts. That will tell you a ton about how organized they are and what kind of fun you'll be having.
Pro-tip: if there are no notes, run. Run for your life.
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MSPs vary wildly. They are really just like any other company - each one is completely unique between how they work, what work is like, what they offer, what tools they use, etc.
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Most MSPs center their business around an RMM product like Continuum or N-Able. Their workflows, tools sets and pretty much everything that they do gets determined by that decision. It is common for the RMM to drive the design of the MSP. Not all MSPs, of course, but most.
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For shops less drive by RMM tools, I believe that it is most common to find home-grown tool sets. And, of course, standard tools like MediaWiki, Sharepoint, Excel, LogMeIn, ScreenConnect, TeamViewer and others are likely to exist.
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I have worked with MSPs before. Like Scott said they are all different. I have found they are not for me, but I know alot of people like working for them.
I prefer the owning a particular network and building an everyday relationship with my users.
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@IRJ said:
I have worked with MSPs before. Like Scott said they are all different. I have found they are not for me, but I know alot of people like working for them.
I prefer the owning a particular network and building an everyday relationship with my users.
Exactly the same as myself. I want to build a relationship and trust with my coworkers / users and I work hard to do it.
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@IRJ said:
I prefer the owning a particular network and building an everyday relationship with my users.
ITSP / MSP can do that, too. I get that far more in the MSP world than I ever did in the corporate world. All depends on both sides of the fence. But being MSP doesn't rule it out.
My wife was an on site MSP person for a year, for example. She was the person who knew everyone and talked to them every day and went to lunch with the staff and whatever.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@IRJ said:
I prefer the owning a particular network and building an everyday relationship with my users.
ITSP / MSP can do that, too. I get that far more in the MSP world than I ever did in the corporate world. All depends on both sides of the fence. But being MSP doesn't rule it out.
My wife was an on site MSP person for a year, for example. She was the person who knew everyone and talked to them every day and went to lunch with the staff and whatever.
I am not saying you can't, but I worked with 3 different MSPs in my career and I wouldn't work with another one for my full time gig. That is just my personal experience.
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@IRJ said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@IRJ said:
I prefer the owning a particular network and building an everyday relationship with my users.
ITSP / MSP can do that, too. I get that far more in the MSP world than I ever did in the corporate world. All depends on both sides of the fence. But being MSP doesn't rule it out.
My wife was an on site MSP person for a year, for example. She was the person who knew everyone and talked to them every day and went to lunch with the staff and whatever.
I am not saying you can't, but I worked with 3 different MSPs in my career and I wouldn't work with another one for my full time gig. That is just my personal experience.
If you worked at three non-MSPs and had bad experiences, would you rule out working or non-MSP work? Most people have more than three bad work experiences, that's not uncommon. The average job sucks. MSPs might be worse than average when it comes to averages, but who knows. And from my experience, it is clients not the MSPs that are often the problem.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@IRJ said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@IRJ said:
I prefer the owning a particular network and building an everyday relationship with my users.
ITSP / MSP can do that, too. I get that far more in the MSP world than I ever did in the corporate world. All depends on both sides of the fence. But being MSP doesn't rule it out.
My wife was an on site MSP person for a year, for example. She was the person who knew everyone and talked to them every day and went to lunch with the staff and whatever.
I am not saying you can't, but I worked with 3 different MSPs in my career and I wouldn't work with another one for my full time gig. That is just my personal experience.
If you worked at three non-MSPs and had bad experiences, would you rule out working or non-MSP work? Most people have more than three bad work experiences, that's not uncommon. The average job sucks. MSPs might be worse than average when it comes to averages, but who knows. And from my experience, it is clients not the MSPs that are often the problem.
MSPs just aren't for me
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@IRJ said:
MSPs just aren't for me
I guess I just don't understand what aspect of an MSP could work in such a way for that to happen.
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Well I had my interview with this MSP on Thursday and it went awesome! They have a phone engineer position and a network engineer position so I got to talk to both their phone team manager and their network team manager. As we are talking, one of them brings up my project management experience and we start talking about that so they bring up a third position that hasn't been officially created yet because they haven't found anyone that would be a good fit by having IT and PM experience. I couldn't believe that they didn't have a dedicated PM on staff. Well I jumped all over that! I love the stress and satisfaction of managing multiple projects and putting together & executing the plans. Totally got me excited. I guess we will see what happens over the next week to see if they make an offer.
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I also interviewed with a manufacturing company who was looking at moving their IT in house but I just didn't get as excited about that one. Seems like they need a lot of TLC in working out lingering issues that their current MSP is failing at resolving and it just isn't as structured (security wise) as I'm used to so permission get given out freely and I'm just not sure I want to come in and upset everyone as I strip access away. It's still on the table but I just need to decide by next week if I want to move forward and meet with the Ops manager and the company owner.
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Awesome, Congrats and good luck!
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Also my future boss talked to me again early last week and again said that I did have a job (and bonus) and I shouldn't worry. I asked again about getting more money for adding 10 hrs per week and all the miles I will be driving and he said there wasn't any more money at least for the first 6 months to a year. I don't know how his math works but that sounds like a pay cut to me.
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@lhatsynot said:
Also my future boss talked to me again early last week and again said that I did have a job (and bonus) and I shouldn't worry. I asked again about getting more money for adding 10 hrs per week and all the miles I will be driving and he said there wasn't any more money at least for the first 6 months to a year. I don't know how his math works but that sounds like a pay cut to me.
That he's telling you "not to worry" and "there is no money" is fishy. Nothing about that situation sounds good. Nothing sounds "horrible", but certainly not good. Pay cut, worse working conditions on top of the cut, high stress, and high risk of being cut. Worry!!
That he's telling you not to worry and clearly you have to worry is bad. That he's telling you that you have a job in the same breath that he's kinda lying about you not needing to worry suggests a little that you don't have a secure job. That there is no money for a raise and you have to take a paycut screams that your job is in peril.
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Once a job position begins the process of moving backwards, they never really fix that. This isn't some law of the universe or anything, just realistically no company ever takes a situation where they've convinced staff to work longer hours for less money and then later says "we should correct that." It's the beginning of the end. Might be two months, might be twenty years, but it means that there is no reasonably chance that your future career with the bank will ever be as good as it is today.
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Yup... I personally have a clear conscience to look for a new job and fortunately I have time to find one that I really want and will enjoy since the merger is 5 months away. I am also able to look in any city that I want to look which is pretty cool.
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Yup, it's a good position to be in.
