Are you making these 5 engineering and IT recruitment mistakes?
There are several common mistakes that companies make with their engineering and IT recruitment.
How many of these errors do you avoid in your own business’s hiring process?
The top 5 engineering and IT recruitment mistakes
1) Not using a specialist engineering or IT recruiter
If you’ve used a recruiter before, you might be familiar with situations where you’ve requested a certain kind of professional and then not gotten quite what you asked for.
For example, you needed someone to fill a construction estimator position. A generalist recruiter may have suggested a surfeit of “estimators”. Unfortunately, the experience of these estimators was not all relevant to the particular construction role you had in mind.
Using a specialist engineering or IT recruitment company is different. They have:
- Subject matter knowledge of your field and industry
- Often, previous experience working with companies just like yours to fill similar roles
- Wider links to and knowledge of industry developments and this specific part of the jobs market
2) Using a number of recruiters
Using multiple recruiters doesn’t incentivise finding the best candidate for the engineering or IT job you want to fill. It encourages locating the fastest possible candidate to fill a role.
By using multiple recruiters (especially generalist recruiters) to fill a position, you put a heavy priority on speed and quantity. You lose out on quality.
Aim to use a single recruiter and build a relationship with them so they know precisely what you’re looking for. This includes the specific kind of hard and soft skills as well as a candidate that will be the right cultural fit for your workplace too.
3) Generalising in your interview process and job descriptions
It can be tempting to think that once you’ve worked hard to create a single effective interview process, that’s the approach you should use for every person you want to hire.
Just as you should create unique job descriptions for every position, you should adjust your interview process to target the precise qualities, hard skills, and soft skills you want from candidates. To do this:
- Don’t rely on first impressions
- Don’t ask the same cookie-cutter questions when recruiting for every role
- Don’t ignore the value of skills or competency-based interview questions
4) Overlooking the value of company culture messaging
More than ever before, candidates are investigating the culture of a company before they choose to sign on the dotted line. This is especially the case with younger talent. But it is increasingly a priority for many professionals – especially in candidate-led jobs markets like engineering and IT.
If your brand doesn’t communicate your values, mission, and the attractive, supportive, exciting workplace culture you offer, it’s time to think about altering your messaging.
Because company culture has huge value when it comes to attracting the best talent to fill your vacant engineering and IT jobs. It lets you:
- Showcase your position and experience in the industry
- Demonstrate what makes you a great place to work
- Appeal to candidates’ drives and values by underlining your own
5) Not taking advantage of advances in recruitment tech
Recruitment technology is not a high priority for most businesses. Especially not in economically sensitive times.
Yet facing the many challenges of IT and engineering recruitment with only yesterday’s technology and strategies can end up costing you more time and money. The reach and visibility of your vacancies may suffer – as can the quality of candidates you attract.
A specialist engineering or IT recruitment company like Ernest Gordon will use AI recruitment tools and the latest approaches to ensure your recruitment process is swift and cost-effective. As well as one that secures you access to the best professionals.
If you handle recruitment in-house, it’s worth considering how much the technology and channels you use are hindering the results you get from your hiring process.
Want to speak to an expert to make sure you’re not making other recruitment mistakes?
Ernest Gordon is a specialist IT and engineering recruitment company. Our proven, open, honest, and transparent process finds you the ideal candidates from our extensive talent pool.
Let’s talk through your specific needs.. Chat with one of our friendly and helpful advisors today.