|
Fall,
2006 Newsletter
Best Practices in Technical Hiring: Ensuring You Don't Miss Out on
Quality Candidates.
Over the past couple of months, the local technical labor market has
tightened noticeably. The competition for skilled technical employees
is intensifying, and the really good candidates are not available for
long. Many, if not most, candidates receive multiple job offers.
Consequently, if your plans include hiring technical staff this fall, you
may wish to examine your hiring process, streamlining and expediting it as
much as possible. Unfortunately, companies no longer have the luxury
of a long hiring cycle — several of our clients have lost out on their
candidate of choice due to a delay in scheduling interviews or in extending
a competitive offer of employment.
What You Can Do
The following initiatives will help improve your hiring
results:
Establish a relationship with a recruiter specializing in the
technical skills or industry important to you. This will
provide you with two important benefits:
·
An awareness of the local job market for the
specific skill sets you are seeking. Your recruiter will be able to
advise you on local availability and going rates for technical staff with
your desired qualifications.
·
An increased likelihood of the recruiter
making a great match for you. By maintaining an on-going dialogue,
the recruiter gains a thorough understanding of your hiring needs —
more than just what is included in the job description. The recruiter
will get a feel for esoteric factors such as work environment, office
pace/tempo and management style, as well as the subtle traits you look for
in candidates.
Streamline the recruiting process. This includes the
time required to review resumes, identify candidates to be interviewed,
conduct interviews, and decide whether the candidate should be hired. There
is a need for urgency throughout this entire process; however, the two most
time-consuming stages are typically interviewing and determining whether to
extend an offer.
·
Interviewing. Consider a phone
screen as a first step. This may help you quickly narrow your field
of candidates to interview. Make every effort to coordinate manager
schedules to minimize the need for multiple interviews. In fact, if
you are hiring on a contract or contract-to-direct basis, one interview is
sufficient as long as management "key players" are all scheduled
for the same day.
·
Extending an offer. Define the process
of determining whether an offer will be generated after the interview. Who
are the decision-makers? Who will be granting final approval? Schedule a
time within 24 hours of the interview for the key players to get together
and make a decision. In our experience, this is where many companies lose
good candidates: They take too long after an interview to extend an offer,
and then are dismayed to find that the candidate has already accepted
another offer.
Extend a competitive offer. Gone are the days in
which technical candidates would jump at the first offer. With several
offers in hand, many candidates have neither the desire nor the need to
counter-offer if your offer is below market value. Make a reasonable
initial offer and improve your chances of a positive outcome.
Although the technical job market may ease again as economic cycles run
their course, the importance of a streamlined, efficient hiring process
will not diminish. The Bureau of Labor Statistics expects the economy to
generate 200,000 more engineering jobs by 2014. Coupled with the retirement
of the baby-boomer generation, this anticipated increase in demand will
exacerbate the fierce competition for technical talent for years to
come.
Triad Engineering Corp has specialized
for over 37 years in helping clients fill their technical staffing
needs on a contract and contract-to-direct basis. Triad is locally owned
and operated, focusing solely on the engineering and engineering
support staffing needs of its clients throughout
New England. Please contact us at
800-649-1514 or visit our web site www.triad-eng.com for more information.
|