How to hire a support specialist

How to hire a support specialist, step by step

Here's a step-by-step support specialist hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write a support specialist job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new support specialist
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

What does a support specialist do?

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   Before you post your support specialist job, you should take the time to determine what type of worker your business needs. While certain jobs definitely require a full-time employee, it's sometimes better to find a support specialist for hire on a part-time basis or as a contractor.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   Hiring the perfect support specialist also involves considering the ideal background you'd like them to have. Depending on what industry or field they have experience in, they'll bring different skills to the job. It's also important to consider what levels of seniority and education the job requires and what kind of salary such a candidate would likely demand.

   This list shows salaries for various types of support specialists.

   Type of Support Specialist	Description	Hourly rate
   Support Specialist	Computer support specialists provide help and advice to people and organizations using computer software or equipment. Some, called computer network support specialists, support information technology (IT) employees within their organization... Show more	$12-30

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • Customer Service
   • Patients
   • Mental Health
   • Social Work
   • Peer Support
   • Data Entry
   • Technical Support
   • Troubleshoot
   • Substance Abuse
   • Community Resources
   • CPR
   • Phone Calls
   • Support Services
   • PowerPoint

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Manage project SharePoint site for the purpose of supporting ongoing collaboration
   • Provide Cerner CPOE learning support to physicians.
   • Train in motivational interviewing, HIPAA regulations, CPR certify, emergency preparedness, suicide awareness, and team building.
   • Participate in inventory taking process and maintain stockroom organization and cleanliness.
   • Create and maintain a database of ACH clients.
   • Configure, setup VPN connections, remote access.

   More support specialist duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in your support specialist job description helps attract top candidates to the position. A support specialist salary can be affected by several factors, such as geography, experience, seniority, certifications, and the prestige of the hiring company.

   For example, the average salary for a support specialist in Missouri may be lower than in New York, and an entry-level support specialist usually earns less than a senior-level support specialist. Additionally, a support specialist with certifications may command a higher salary, and working for a well-known company or start-up may also impact an employee's pay.

   Average support specialist salary

   $40,782yearly

   $19.61 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level support specialist salary

   $25,000 yearly salary

   Updated January 2, 2026

   Average support specialist salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	New York	$53,773	$26
   2	California	$52,787	$25
   3	District of Columbia	$51,740	$25
   4	Maryland	$49,514	$24
   5	Virginia	$47,399	$23
   6	Illinois	$45,671	$22
   7	Texas	$45,455	$22
   8	Massachusetts	$44,722	$22
   9	Georgia	$44,509	$21
   10	Pennsylvania	$43,779	$21
   11	Oklahoma	$43,248	$21
   12	Arizona	$42,071	$20
   13	Florida	$41,578	$20
   14	Ohio	$40,105	$19
   15	Michigan	$39,006	$19
   16	Colorado	$38,989	$19
   17	Wisconsin	$38,983	$19
   18	Washington	$38,854	$19
   19	North Carolina	$38,480	$19
   20	Oregon	$37,631	$18

   Average support specialist salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	Microsoft	$113,301	$54.47	8
   2	KLA	$107,182	$51.53	21
   3	Meta	$102,002	$49.04	51
   4	InterSystems	$97,822	$47.03
   5	Jane Street	$97,063	$46.66	1
   6	Amdocs	$96,353	$46.32	1
   7	Google	$95,871	$46.09	13
   8	Barclays	$93,534	$44.97
   9	Novartis	$90,463	$43.49	11
   10	Citi	$87,893	$42.26	19
   11	Apple	$87,794	$42.21	13
   12	HP	$85,696	$41.20	12
   13	Thomson Reuters	$85,608	$41.16
   14	IBM	$85,257	$40.99	134
   15	Envestnet	$85,241	$40.98
   16	The United Illuminating Company	$84,212	$40.49
   17	Erp Analysts	$83,051	$39.93
   18	Alliance Global Services	$82,649	$39.74
   19	SAP	$82,050	$39.45	8
   20	Jacobs Engineering Group	$81,047	$38.96

4. Writing a support specialist job description

   A job description for a support specialist role includes a summary of the job's main responsibilities, required skills, and preferred background experience. Including a salary range can also go a long way in attracting more candidates to apply, and showing the first name of the hiring manager can also make applicants more comfortable. As an example, here's a support specialist job description:

   Support specialist job description example

   Full time
   Type Of Hire : Experienced (relevant combo of work and education) Education Desired : Bachelor of Commerce/Business Travel Percentage : 5 - 10% Job Description At FIS, our technology and our people are moving forward. We advance the way the world pays, banks and invests. We believe in building inclusive, diverse teams. Together, we innovate to help our colleagues, clients and communities succeed. If you’re ready to grow your career and make an impact in fintech, we have one question: Are you FIS?
   
   About the role:
   As a Client Relations Account Manager, you will be responsible for ensuring excellent and consistent rapport with FIS clients. You will act as the primary liaison for the service side of the client relationship, including ongoing relationship management, escalations, project oversight and service delivery
   
   What you will be doing:
   • Ensure a positive and consistent relationship for one or more assigned clients
   • Serve as primary point of contact to support problem resolution and ensure client retention
   • Develop strong working relationships with assigned clients and FIS resources
   • Coordinate with clients, relationship managers and other appropriate areas to ensure clients are properly serviced, paperwork is properly executed, and all operational arrangements are in place to service assigned accounts
   
   What you will need:
   • The ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships, both internally as well as externally
   • Organizational and time management skills
   • Broad knowledge of FIS products and related services
   • A strong aptitude to analyze and solve problems
   • Prior banking or finance related experiences a plus
   
   What we offer you:
   At FIS, we are as committed to growing our employees’ careers as our own business. We offer:
   • Opportunities to innovate in fintech
   • Inclusive and diverse team atmosphere
   • Professional and personal development
   • Resources to contribute to your community
   • Competitive salary and benefits . Privacy Statement FIS is committed to protecting the privacy and security of all personal information that we process in order to provide services to our clients. For specific information on how FIS protects personal information online, please see the Online Privacy Notice. EEOC Statement FIS is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, genetic information, national origin, disability, veteran status, and other protected characteristics. The EEO is the Law poster is available here supplement document available here
   For positions located in the US, the following conditions apply. If you are made a conditional offer of employment, you will be required to undergo a drug test. ADA Disclaimer: In developing this job description care was taken to include all competencies needed to successfully perform in this position. However, for Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) purposes, the essential functions of the job may or may not have been described for purposes of ADA reasonable accommodation. All reasonable accommodation requests will be reviewed and evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Sourcing Model Recruitment at FIS works primarily on a direct sourcing model; a relatively small portion of our hiring is through recruitment agencies. FIS does not accept resumes from recruitment agencies which are not on the preferred supplier list and is not responsible for any related fees for resumes submitted to job postings, our employees, or any other part of our company. #pridepass

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   There are a few common ways to find support specialists for your business:

   • Promoting internally or recruiting from your existing workforce.
   • Ask for referrals from friends, family members, and current employees.
   • Attend job fairs at local colleges to meet candidates with the right educational background.
   • Use social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to recruit passive job-seekers.

   To find support specialist candidates, you can consider the following options:

   • Post your job opening on Zippia or other job search websites.
   • Use niche websites that focus on engineering and technology jobs, such as dice, engineering.com, stack overflow, it job pro.
   • Post your job on free job posting websites.

6. Interview candidates

   To successfully recruit support specialists, your first interview needs to engage with candidates to learn about their interest in the role and experience in the field. You can go into more detail about the company, the role, and the responsibilities during follow-up interviews.

   You should also ask about candidates' unique skills and talents to see if they match the ideal candidate profile you developed earlier. Candidates good enough for the next step can complete the technical interview.

   Sometimes, it's not enough to interview support specialist candidates, so you can ask them to do a test project. If you are not a technical person and don't know what a test project should be, you can use these websites:

   • TestDome
   • CodeSignal
   • Testlify
   • BarRaiser
   • Coderbyte

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new support specialist

   Once you've decided on a perfect support specialist candidate, it's time to write an offer letter. In addition to salary, it should include benefits and perks available to the employee. Qualified candidates may be considered for other positions, so make sure your offer is competitive. Candidates may wish to negotiate. Once you've settled on the details, formalize your agreement with a contract.

   It's also good etiquette to follow up with applicants who don't get the job by sending them an email letting them know that the position has been filled.

   To prepare for the new employee's start date, you can create an onboarding schedule and complete any necessary paperwork, such as employee action forms and onboarding documents like I-9 forms, benefits enrollment, and federal and state tax forms. Human Resources should also ensure that a new employee file is created.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

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How much does it cost to hire a support specialist?