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Finding the right candidates for your advanced engineering positions can be difficult. When you’re looking for applicants at the forefront of their field, whatever the sector, leveraging the services of a specialist engineering recruitment agency can offer clear benefits, including a reduced time to hire and onboard candidates, access to the knowledge of consultants that have a deep understanding of the industry, and access to talent networks which often span the globe.
An estimated 265,000 skilled workers will need to be recruited in 2023 to meet forecasted industry demands for 2024. However, due to the skills gap, there is an expected shortfall of 48,000 candidates.
Although the Institution of Engineering and Technology has helmed efforts to address this problem by encouraging the government to invest in the teaching of engineering in primary and secondary education, the government cannot solely address the problem. Recruitment services and enterprises require a pragmatic approach to solve hiring issues.
In this post, we’ll show you how to discover impactful, executive-level hires for your organisation by focusing on your needs as a business and your requirements for the specific role. We will also outline the benefits of utilising the services offered by executive recruiters in removing the pain points and barriers to getting the best staff for your business.
Engineering trends transforming communities and lives
With the engineering industry estimated to contribute £645 billion to the annual economy of the UK alone and an estimated eight million people employed in engineering jobs—roughly 26% of all UK workers—the sector is not only progressing lives within the field but also the lives of people everywhere, even if they often don’t recognise it.
Engineering trends are helping to develop new technologies in all sectors—from treating illnesses to easing congestion on our morning commutes—and have a significant community impact.
However, with such a vast pool of potential candidates to draw upon, filling open engineering jobs and attracting the right talent to your roles as a business can be difficult.
From parsing through CVs that don’t meet requirements to screening candidates for culture fit, hiring can cost you time and money—particularly in advanced engineering, where the skills shortage impacts businesses. With many companies having to turn down new contracts with clients and investors, this lack of sector-specific skilled professionals is hitting hard.
With 72% of businesses reporting increasing workloads on existing staff, and over three-quarters of businesses polled by the British Chambers of Commerce noting reduced output and productivity, locking in an effective hiring strategy has never been more important.
Executive recruiters help fill advanced engineering jobs
When in the planning and design stages for a new role, particularly for engineering jobs—where advanced-level candidates may often have several offers and multiple recruiters vying for their attention—it is best to start with an engaging, concise overview of the position. In no more than four sentences, it ought to describe:
- The job title
- Expectations of how the job will function and where it will be located
- How it contributes towards achieving your business goals
- Why a candidate would love to work for your organisation
Attracting executive candidates by linking the role to the broader community impact is often important too, especially as younger engineers gain the skills to begin applying for more advanced roles. EngineeringUK, a not-for-profit research organisation focused on getting young people into STEM careers, has noted that 90% of young people want careers that combat social issues.
Don’t forget to involve your current employees in writing this description. Modifying the description of existing roles as they become vacant is important in attracting the newest batch of talented engineers. By involving the team whose vacancy you are attempting to fill, you will get a first-hand rundown of areas in which the team would like to improve and can hone the overview to plug these gaps.
Clearly defining your needs and requirements
After clearly defining the role, your business needs to address its needs and requirements for that specific engineering role. This could include the following:
- Any upcoming deadlines new hires may need to address
- Any KPIs or measurements of success that executive engineers will be expected to hit
- Whether travel will be expected as part of the role
- If the role includes management duties, details of the size of the team and whether they’re remote or on-site
It’s best to leave some room for flexibility in your job specification, particularly if the role is likely to change or take on additional responsibilities as business needs evolve. By doing this, you won’t just be listing rote tasks but instead exciting candidates by showing that you expect to develop their skills.
Senior and executive candidates are naturally ambitious and goal-oriented and want to hear how their achievements will contribute to your vision.
If the role already exists, consider the aforementioned process of modifying the description and required essentials: have they changed since the current or previous holder of the post was onboarded? This will enable you to remove any criteria that no longer need to be met or add new ones in their place—if, for instance, you have switched to a new suite of CAD software tools and have started to consider diversity and inclusivity.
Research conducted in 2022 by the Behavioural Insights Team of the UK’s Government Equalities Office found that women are less likely to apply for a role if they don’t meet all the requirements compared to their male counterparts. Though there are now more women in engineering jobs than ever before—increasing to 16.5% of total engineering jobs from 10.5% in 2010—engineering is still an overwhelmingly male-skewing career path, particularly at the executive level.
It’s worth considering whether superfluous requirements or the language of your older job descriptions are turning away the talented female executives that might lead you to your next business victory.
Getting the best person for roles in advanced engineering
The person specification is your opportunity to highlight the administration, communication and creative competencies you expect a candidate to possess if they were to fit the engineering jobs you are looking to fill.
Similarly, you might highlight any aspects of their character you think would enable them to complete their tasks effectively—such as being comfortable with delegating tasks in the case of a management position—and any other aptitudes directly related to the role.
Although culture fit should be considered in all parts of the job description and person specification, highlighting aspects of your business that you’re proud of—from the industry awards you’ve gained to the perks you offer—will help you interest talented candidates who might not otherwise have considered your company.
You should attract executives and senior engineers from diverse backgrounds—you don’t just want to hire candidates that reflect the present business culture but also help shape and enrich that culture's future.
Finding the right engineering recruitment agency
The right engineering recruitment consultancy can assist you with all the tasks mentioned. They also offer efficiencies and cost-savings for businesses looking to hire in some other important ways:
- An engineering recruitment and engineering staffing agency can speed up the hiring process
- Engineering recruitment agencies can also attract those candidates that aren’t actively looking for new roles but may be attracted by the aspects of the role your recruitment partner knows they’re interested in, such as the location, salary or sector.
- By drawing upon their expansive talent networks, a well-established executive recruiter can find candidates at the forefront of their respective fields faster than many businesses. They also have access to recruitment and marketing tools, which can see your vacancies seen by more candidates.
- Executive recruiters can develop and hone a strong brand message for your business
- Through their industry expertise, knowledge of market and engineering trends, once engineering recruitment specialists have built a relationship with your enterprise, you can expect a bespoke approach to hiring. For instance, if you're an engineering firm with strong ties to community projects, a recruitment consultancy will work with you to ensure you're attracting candidates that value your principles.
Finding the right engineering recruitment specialist gives you access to the best candidates, but it isn’t a relationship you should enter into lightly.
The right consultancy will want to know about you and your business and work with you to innovate in the areas you’re already the best at—whatever engineering sector you find yourself in. The best engineering staffing agency will guide you through the hiring process whilst looking to minimise costs and offer support when required.
The process of working with executive recruiters
When you begin working with an engineering recruitment agency or an engineering staffing agency, it’s important first to ascertain how they work and their internal culture as an executive recruiter.
If you’re filling executive-level engineering jobs, you want to be certain that the recruiter working for you will do their utmost to represent your business in the best light—and, moreover, that you will enjoy maintaining a working relationship with them.
Many executive recruiters, particularly in the engineering sector, will offer case studies on their sites, highlighting their service delivery record and any stand-out roles they’ve filled recently. Reading their case studies will also give you an idea of the calibre of companies they’ve worked alongside and highlight specific consultants within the company you may wish to build a relationship with in the future.
After an initial consultation, the recruiter will take the details of the role you have prepared and begin to hone the advertisement for the role, researching the salary range of similar roles of your competitors, as well as your company culture and management style, so they can accurately inform candidates, particularly at the executive level.
The engineering job will then be posted to the recruiter’s website, all relevant careers websites and social media channels—also reaching out to their networks to find candidates who wish to progress their career. By leveraging recruitment software to parse through received CVs, your consultant will start contacting candidates to determine fit, before presenting you with the most qualified matches in a way that brings each candidate to life, rather than just passing across relevant CVs.
Once candidates have had a formal interview with a business, the recruiter will collect feedback from both parties to improve processes and practices on both sides of the hiring relationship. If a job offer is made, the engineering recruitment agency will also be there to assist in any negotiations that may need to occur around salary or benefits. In addition, the agency can assist candidates and businesses with any onboarding processes they may have.
How executive recruiters help retain talent in engineering jobs
Using the services of an engineering recruitment consultancy won’t just streamline the hiring process but can also help your business in holding on to talented employees once they’re on board:
- By leveraging their marketing knowledge, executive recruiters can help you to offer competitive salaries for your engineering jobs, which can not only give you an edge when it comes to addressing your competitors but also retain staff. A study conducted by Deloitte found that 40% of employees will stay with their companies for higher wages
- By attracting better-quality candidates through their knowledge of the engineering trends which are shaping employment, an executive recruitment agency can ensure that staff turnover is reduced and that new hires are a good fit for your company culture and the role itself—hiring the right talent from the start pays for itself
- In saving you time and money, executive recruiters enable you to dedicate more time to training and mentorship. Being able to develop your workforce—especially at the executive level, which attracts particularly ambitious candidates is important, as is challenging your employees to improve their existing skill set
The hiring and onboarding cost for executive employees in 2023 is estimated to be around $17,000 when considering the hours which go into sourcing high-quality candidates. Posting advertisements on job boards, scheduling and conducting interviews, and the cost of IT equipment and training or courses once the candidate is onboarded all mount up. Since this activity doesn’t generate income, hiring the wrong candidate can be a big risk for businesses, albeit one which can be offset by utilising the services of engineering recruitment agencies.
An engineering recruitment agency progressing lives everywhere
We’re so convinced that we can support you in your next executive search that we’ve put in place a best service promise. Amoria Bond has a track record of delivering timely staffing solutions for roles at all levels of seniority, discovering candidates that have gone on to have long-term careers in the companies we placed them with. If you want to learn about our advanced engineering recruitment agency, discover more on our specialisms page, or get in touch to discuss your business requirements.
