I have highlighted below a few recommendations that will increase attraction, enabling you to hire strong talent for your business:
- Define the role. What skills, experience, qualifications are required for the engineering position you are hiring for?
- Ensure you put together a detailed, clear, concise, informative and interesting job description. This will be shared with the candidate through the interview process. Don’t bore before you meet them! It is important to show the candidate, that you have taken the time to put together an effective job description and are genuinely focused to find the right talent. First impressions count!
- Do not presume by withholding salary and benefits on a recruitment campaign or advertisement you will attract strong talent. You will experience a 35% drop in applications by adopting this method. Creates a negative impression.
- Ensure you understand the recruitment market. Are your salary and benefits at a competitive market level? If not, this must be addressed, or the vacancy will remain unfilled. Causing and costing high impact to your business.
- Ensure you have full availability to interview and are fully aware of the interview process you would like to adopt. Strong candidates are not on the market for long. If your diary isn’t flexible, you will not only weaken the candidate interest or lose the candidate but run risk of creating a negative impact of the companies recruitment methods and culture. If your diary is full, appoint someone you trust to action the interviews (and) possibly make the appointment on your behalf.
- Conduct successful job interviews. Your job interview process should be fair, efficient, professional and informative. Be prepared to answer questions from candidates and be sure to give them a chance to learn more about your company and the position.
- Make a competitive offer. You will know the candidate’s current salary and package. Do not under offer or offer less than you have advertised the role ((unless this has been openly discussed with the candidate (maybe due to being a junior candidate to the specification) at interview or with the recruiter through the process)). If you find a strong engineering candidate, be sure to make them a competitive offer. Offering a role is not like buying a property, start negotiations low and then gradually increase. You have one chance to make a negative impact before you lose the candidate trust and interest. Don’t make this that chance.
- Throughout the process, be open about your company, share opportunities for growth or career and learning development. What can you offer as an employer?
- Focus on your company culture. Engineering candidates are often looking for employers that offer a positive work environment, opportunities for collaboration, and challenges that will help them to grow and develop.
- Be flexible and willing to work with candidates on their start dates. Employers can react in very different ways when they receive a resignation. In the Engineering sector, this is not always professional. They may need your support.
- Use social media to your advantage. Social media is a great way to share your business activities and positive culture. Great way to connect with future talent. Post photos and videos of your employees and company events, share articles, blog posts about your company and your industry.
There are a lot of ways to increase productivity of attracting and hiring strong engineering talent for your company. Whether that next employee is an Executive, Director, Operations, Sales, Support, Technical, Design, Mechanical, Electrical, Maintenance, Logistics, Production. Hopefully the 11 recommendations I have shared with you, will add to the recruitment experience you already provide!
