Now hiring: Channel partners actively recruiting on what they look for in a candidate

As the job market heats up around September, three channel partners who are actively hiring discuss candidate preferences and culture

The IT channel in September 2023 looks almost completely unrecognisable, compared to this time last year.

Over the past 12 months, lasting economic turbulence and increasing vendor layoffs spilling over into the rest of the channel have made starting and growing a career in IT channel sales increasingly challenging.

"There are a variety of positions we are actively recruiting currently, especially for early careers individuals, such as 1st line technical support roles (perfect for those who want to learn IT from the ground up and who have good general customer service skills)," Zoe Chartley, founder and managing director of The Channel Recruiter, tells CRN.

"Inside sales account managers and sales support roles are being heavily recruited as well across the UK."

As the job market traditionally heats up around September, CRN spoke to three partners who are actively recruiting to get their assessment on how candidates can stand out when entering the channel, what the skills gap means for new hires and their own companies' hiring process.

Read on for thoughts from CTS, Titan Data Solutions and Logicalis.

Now hiring: Channel partners actively recruiting on what they look for in a candidate

As the job market heats up around September, three channel partners who are actively hiring discuss candidate preferences and culture

CTS

One of Google's largest dedicated European cloud partners, Cloud Technology Services, is also staffing up.

In a lightning round of questions directly from Google Cloud Next this week, COO Chris Bunch outlines the roles and skills CTS is currently on the lookout for, particularly in go to market.

"We are hiring. Primarily around sales and marketing roles focused on driving demand, as we look to close out the year strongly, but also prime ourselves for further growth in 2024," he tells CRN.

"Heading into Q4, the most in-demand roles are in sales, at the mid-senior level," Bunch says.

"But the company is also adding marketing and business development capacity at the moment, and has openings for technical roles intermittently."

Even as conversations around the talent shortage abound, according to Bunch, CTS has not experienced a lack of qualified talent in cloud.

"Nothing particularly challenging noted, we've spent a lot of time and effort on brand for different types of roles, and our in-house recruiters do a great job.

"I think in some markets, technical talent availability has perhaps increased - but there are still plenty of companies hiring smart people, so it's a mistake to think it's 'easier' at the moment," he adds.

Now hiring: Channel partners actively recruiting on what they look for in a candidate

As the job market heats up around September, three channel partners who are actively hiring discuss candidate preferences and culture

Titan Data Solutions

Having gone from a pandemic start-up into a thriving specialist distributor, Titan Data Solutions is "always recruiting", sales director Steve Low tells CRN.

At the moment, however, technical skills are in focus.

"We've grown rapidly, meaning we're always looking for new people and always recruiting and we are also creating new roles."

As a smaller company with wide reach, counting 30-odd employees among its ranks, Titan values breadth and flexibility in new recruits.

"I think the industry is quite stagnant in terms of job titles.

"Looking at the demographic currently making business decisions within the channel, it's a completely new audience.

"And I feel like the way the channel is set up is actually quite static in the way people communicate to that new demographic," Low explains.

Titan is also recruiting in sales and marketing, but currently a big focus is a newly created technical services role, which Low hopes to eventually build a team around.

"We're looking for an individual for this role, because it makes us more relevant to our vendor community and to our customers.

"What you often have is a fantastic proposition and product, but where we can add more value is by bringing in someone to build a professional service around the deployment of that technology."

According to Low, the way that a lot of channel professionals build their early careers tends to be led by vendor education.

Instead, Titan is looking for hires that can speak to multiple different vendors' technologies with competence and ease.

"This, firstly, takes the pressure off the vendor for internal recruitment, while they build up business in the UK. Secondly, a lot of our resellers tend to be Tier 1 focused and that's the way the industry is led.

"But the way that everyone trains people in our channel is funded by the vendors.

"And so you'll get many people who are very well trained on Tier 1 tech, but not from an agnostic perspective.

"So I don't necessarily think it's a skills gap - good people are everywhere.

"I just think the syllabus is lacking and it's led by manufacturers rather than being agnostic."

Barring his wider comments on industry trends, Low is optimistic about talent availability, and open to pulling from a broad set of career backgrounds for open roles at Titan.

"We do use recruitment - the deeper the specialism of the role, the more reliant we are on it.

"And we do recruit from vendors as well. But for us it's important that a candidate has worked at more than one and has a more well-rounded view," he says.

"We find ourselves speaking to candidates with an end-user background too, in fact we hired somebody from the end-user side a few months ago.

"Taking a step back, we're speaking to end customers all the time and there's people who do it for a living.

"To bring them into our world is a bit of an education, but yes, end-user sales is something we've looked at as a recruitment pool."

Logicalis

Maidenhead-headquartered MSP Logicalis has several open roles in September, UK&I CEO Alex Louth confirmed to CRN this week.

"We're hiring now. We've got a number of open roles pretty much throughout our whole organisation," he says.

However, the CEO emphasised the rigour of the company's hiring process, stating: "We are picky. We want to be picky. We do get moaned at by recruiters that our recruitment process is too drawn out.

"But you know what I think it's worth it to get the right individuals at the end."

The Cisco and Microsoft partner invests heavily in retention, with Louth stating: "But we balance that with a strong onboarding process, not just ‘here's your laptop now work, get on with it'.

"We have a very strong, engaged process with HR and the local teams."