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Developing and effective technical recruitment strategy
Recruiting & Staffing
Developing and effective technical recruitment strategy
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We are a major aerospace manufacturing company with a forecasted need for design and stress engineers. With a shortage and availability of technical talent what should we consider in developing an eff
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Developing and effective technical recruitment strategy
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Developing and effective technical recruitment strategy
posted at 7/21/2000 5:32 AM EDT
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Posts: 7
First: 7/21/2000 Last: 12/13/2002 |
We are a major aerospace manufacturing company with a forecasted need for design and stress engineers. With a shortage and availability of technical talent what should we consider in developing an effective and responsive recruitment strategy beyond news paper ads, job fairs,and internet recruiting, etc. |
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Developing and effective technical recruitment strategy
posted at 7/25/2000 3:12 AM EDT
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Posts: 3
First: 4/7/2000 Last: 7/25/2000 |
I am the publisher of the tips booklets "113 Tips for Recruiting Valuable Employees" and "107 Tips for Keeping Valuable Employees." I also write freelance articles on recruitment and retention for national publications. Here are some things you should do if you want to get an inside track on engineers:
--Start developing relationships with engineering schools, particularly with professors. They are in an excellent position to steer students your way. --Offer significant scholarships at engineering schools and become involved in sponsoring campus programs, students contests, anything that will get your name in front of students and faculty--and perhaps result in some publicity for you company. --Offer paid internships for engineering students. --Don't just go aftercollege seniors. Start recruiting college freshmen and sophomores. One of the things I discovered is that many companies that hire engineers are reaching further down into the student ranks--sometimes as far down as high school--to get the attention of bright kids. --Raytheon, the world's largest makes of missiles, is sending its women engineers to promote their profession and company at girl Scout meetings. It is also dispatching other engineers to judge high--school science fairs. --Use your own employees to help recruit. Set up a generous referral bonus program that gives them cash awards for referring job candidates to your company, then more money if the candidate stays on the job a year, and even more if the candidate stays two or three years. --Use the media to publicize all the ways your company is a great place to work. Start positioning yourself NOW as an employer of choice. Hope this helps. Joan Stewart www.publicityhound.com |
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Developing and effective technical recruitment strategy
posted at 7/25/2000 3:46 AM EDT
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Posts: 3
First: 4/7/2000 Last: 7/25/2000 |
I just found this today. It's about recruiting women engineers. Hope it helps.
ATTRACTING WOMEN TO ENGINEERING http://www.briefme.com/a/article.cgi?id=23376&uid=308650 Joan Stewart |
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Developing and effective technical recruitment strategy
posted at 7/26/2000 3:51 AM EDT
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Posts: 1
First: 7/26/2000 Last: 7/26/2000 |
You should develop a recruiting strategy the same way a job candidate should develop a search strategy. Newspaper ads, job fairs and internet recruiting represent about 20% of the labor pool you want to reach. Suggestion: take a look at the Dawson & Dawson Job Search materials, then use your imagination to develop a recruiting strategy that follows the same principles. You will reach the other 80% using this technique. And don't forget to post your openings with Career and Outplacement firms like Dawson and Dawson. When I was consulting for them, I did outplacement for NASA. Posting with these firms is free and they have some outstanding candidates. www.dawson-dawson.com |
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Developing and effective technical recruitment strategy
posted at 7/26/2000 7:09 AM EDT
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Posts: 99
First: 6/22/1999 Last: 12/11/2001 |
Larry-
I worked for a stress design engineering firm in the San Diego county region of California and we had some top notch engineers. Before we began to downsize, I was looking into contacting one of the big aerospace firms that I knew was downsizing their aircraft divison. You may contact some of the larger corporations and indicate your need. Sometimes they'll be happy to assist you in helping to place their laid off employees. I did this at another firm where we had civil engineers. We were downsizing and we contacted some of our colleagues in the same type of business. They ended up hiring 6 of our employees, including an administrative assistant who was married to an engineer. It's an untapped resource but you need to treat the relationship professionally so that the other company doesn't feel you may "steal" their current staff members. |
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Developing and effective technical recruitment strategy
posted at 7/30/2000 5:46 AM EDT
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Posts: 434
First: 6/14/1999 Last: 4/25/2001 |
You've gotten some bits and pieces here of good advice. I'm going to assume that you need experienced folks now, and college recruiting isn't going to help you out much. FYI, I've been doing this for 20 years for high tech companies.
No one's mentioned the Internet, but that's where you'll get some good quick response and start filling up your candidate pipeline. You need to have a good employment webpage, and you need to have your positions posted on sites such as monster.com, hotjobs and smaller sites specific to your needs. Most companies do that and no more; that's a bad mistake. You need to have some dedicated resources to search the web for the talent you need - in this market, a candidate generally doesn't look for a job in the traditional sense. One in demand need only post his/her resume in a large data base and wait for the calls. And they will! One engineer (RF design) that I spoke to last month had received over 100 calls in the first 3 days after posting his resume! Most were from agencies (which he largely ignored), but he listened closely when a company representative called him. The trick is to be one of the first to call. I have my recruiters check the databases for new resumes first thing each morning. Get a good recruitment ad agency to help you design and deliver a message about all the good things you have going for you at your company (this supports the employer of choice concept that was mentioned in an earlier response) Good starting points would be JW Thompson Recruiting Advertising, Bernard Hodes or TMP Worldwide. They can also help with an effective employee referral program. A good one should produce 25 to 30% of your new professional hires. If you'd like an example of a top notch referral program, look at Cisco's Friends program. Once you've got the professional pipeline going, then spend some time focusing on colleges - and the good news is that you can use a lot of the same message to recruit them as what you've used for the professionals (albeit with a different twist - the ad agency can help you). And staff up your organization with good, dedicated recruiters. A good recruiter knows the technology and can figure out the personalities in candidates that'll be a match for the ompany. Another trait of a good recruiter is that he/she always carries some cards with her/him just in case she/he meets he perfect candidate at the grocery store. |
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