You were simply not looking there: how to find employees for a project in technical support

Hello! My name is Egor Shatov, I am a senior engineer of the ABBYY support group and the speaker of the Project Management in IT course at Digital October. Today I will talk about what are the chances to replenish the product team with a specialist from technical support and how to properly organize the transfer to a new position.

Jobs in technical support willingly take young professionals who need to gain experience, and professionals from other areas who seek to plunge deeper into the sphere of IT. Many people want to make a career in the company and are willing to learn, to work a lot and work well - perhaps in the product team.

What are good shots from technical support

Often, user requests require in-depth analysis. To find out why the application crashes, the necessary page does not open, or the promotional code does not apply, the technical support officer has to dive into the details: study the documentation, consult with colleagues, build hypotheses about what went wrong. Thanks to this experience, a person firstly studies in depth the product or its module, secondly, it acquaints itself with questions and problems that arise among users.

In technical support other important qualities are gained: communication skills, ability to work in a team. Often, technical support deadlines are tougher than in other departments, so that employees learn time management and learn to manage their work processes.
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Many companies initially recruit in support of people with the background, which has to continue a career in IT. For example, ABBYY support is usually attended by graduates of technical universities, people who previously worked in technical support, or former enikeyschiki.

Employees who work in the support of a large customer service or simple products can already gain enough experience in a year to move to other project units; in more complex products, this path can be completed in two to three years.

When to go for employees in technical support

It happens that your department has a task, but there are no resources to solve it. And the possibility of hiring a new employee - too. If the task is easy or moderately difficult, you can contact the head of technical support and ask him to identify a fighter who is interested in development and will be able to devote part of his time to your task.

Such a combination of duties must be coordinated not only with the head of technical support, but also with the employee himself. It should not happen that a person works for two for “thank you”. You can agree with the employee that he will work with you for several months, and if the results are good, they will take him to the grocery team.

For many positions, product knowledge is a key requirement. It is much more profitable to take an experienced technical support employee for such a position and quickly complete his education than to look for a specialized specialist in the market, and then wait for many months until he sinks into both the product and the team.

Most often from technical support go to the post of tester. But this is not the only career path. An excellent SMM specialist, an analyst, a marketer, a developer, and so on can grow from a technician technician - it all depends on the background and interests.

When a technician technician is not an option

Search frames in technical support does not work well if:

1. You have a simple product. The bulk of requests for technical support are not related to the work of the product, but to the features of the service (delivery, return of goods, etc.). In this case, employees do not have to delve deeply into the product.
2. Position is critical for business. For such a vacancy you need to take a person with specialized experience.
3. In the department avral. A newcomer, only a member of the course of affairs, will not bring any good himself, and will distract others from work.

How to choose employees

Interest in development, perhaps, is the main selection criterion. If a person is constantly striving to deepen their knowledge, is not afraid to expand their range of tasks, to take responsibility, and in general is well manifested in the current position, it suits you.

The most convenient way to shift the choice to the head of technical support: he is always aware of the strengths and weaknesses of its employees. For example, if a person effectively communicates with users, writes beautiful letters, he has a very high customer satisfaction rating, the manager may recommend it to the marketing department. And in the position of account managers or in technical management, he will offer people who know how to negotiate, independently solve emerging non-standard issues and organize their working time.

How to grow professionals

Suppose you decide to work for the future: you have chosen an employee and you want him to come to you in six months. Such a person can be gradually - with the consent of his manager - loaded with tasks for your product: first with test ones, if he copes successfully, then with serious combat ones. You can start with the 80/20 ratio (80% of requests and 20% of additional work) and gradually increase the share of your tasks in the total volume.

A person will more quickly get involved if you open access to the knowledge base, create conditions for communicating with people in other departments that are involved in your business processes: with logisticians, analysts, developers. From a young specialist can grow a big professional.

By the way, in ABBYY there are vacancies in technical support (and not only).