Engineering Recruitment, Engineers Recruitment, Engineering Employment, Engineering Professionals, Engineering Jobs, WA, Australia

John Masters 18 July 2011

I am astonished at how many internal recruiters have not yet figured out that recruiting professionals such as engineers is not just a numbers game. Poor staff retention, disloyal and unpredictable applicants, not to mention a rampant salary bidding war – is that not enough to convince them? Yet, employment agents continue to be judged in terms of the number of vacancies filled rather than placement outcomes – a practice that in my view merely reflects their success in turning over a collection of excessively mobile candidates from a limited pool of talent. Before engaging an employment agent recruiters should be looking at their ability to effectively assimilate your engineering recruitment needs and they should possess the knowledge required to scratch beneath the surface of a candidate’s CV to make sure all the relevant attributes are considered in the ensuing selection process. In this article I hope to demonstrate that a boutique employment agent with consultants who specialise in a particular profession should be top of the list of preferred suppliers.

The Goldilocks principle: In astronomy it refers to a habitable zone (not too hot, not too cold – just right), in engineering it is the candidate who’s perfectly fit for the job. According to the 2010 Engineers Australia Salary and Benefits Survey recruitment, retention and remuneration remained the key challenges for human resource teams, with 62% of respondents saying they had experienced professional engineer skills shortages, up from 53% in 2009.  Nearly 30% of respondents indicated that the skills shortages led to major problems, including project delays and cost increases.

For the same period covered by the survey  the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that wages in the mining sector grew more than 20% over the year to September 2010, outpacing national salary growth of about 7%. The Ambit Engineering Recruitment firm noted a surge of almost $30,000 during August alone for chief engineers on mining projects.

Fast forward to July 2011 and the trend continues. The Hudson’s latest Employment Expectations report states that “demand for resource-associated engineering and infrastructure has contributed to net 43.5% of employers within these industries expecting to increase permanent employee numbers over the next quarter” (July to September 2011).

Employers, particularly those outside of the resource sectors, are finding it almost impossible to keep up with the skyrocketing salary demands of applicants, high recruitment costs and in many cases relocation and visa sponsorship costs. The reality is that this problem is not going to go away any time soon.

Appointing an engineering recruiter broadens the field from which you want to attract engineers by giving you access to a database built by the recruiter’s ongoing efforts to constructively engage and develop a network of engineering professionals. This does not completely overcome the problems associated with a general shortage of engineering skills, and it almost certainly won’t give you any significant edge on other employers that are competing for the same talent. However, using a recruiter that specialises exclusively in the engineering profession gives you access to consultants who through their superior understanding of the various classifications of an engineering career will help you gain access to talent largely overlooked by competitors. Drawing on their knowledge of the engineering profession they can help you find ways of increasing the pool of available engineering professionals to select from by introducing flexibility into the job criteria without compromising standards.

Engineering is a broad and diverse profession and I believe it is important to pay close attention to the four main classifications that define the capabilities of individual engineering professionals. Below is an overview of the elements that make up each classification which should be considered when defining your engineering employment needs:

Occupational Category

In Australia, and most other countries, the Engineering Team is made up of three distinct occupational categories which are broadly defined by the type of qualification and the level of application of their knowledge and experience in the industry. Experienced engineering recruitment consultants are able to use their insight into the following occupational categories to advise clients on appropriate selection criteria:

Professional Engineer: According to Engineers Australia the Professional Engineer applies "advanced skills in the analysis and knowledge of science, engineering, technology, management and social responsibility to problem solving and synthesis in new and existing fields. This encompasses advanced design and research, development of systems and products, manufacturing and field engineering and, with further professional formation, in specialist practice or supervision and management." A Professional Engineer typically leads teams or works in them and often holds positions that require them "to make balanced judgements between design refinement, cost, risk and environmental impact".

Engineering Technologists: Engineers Australia defines it as such: "Engineering technologists apply skills in analysis and knowledge of scientific and technological principles, management and social responsibility to new and existing technologies in standard design, testing, inspection plant operation, manufacturing or field work and, with advanced expertise, adapt standard practices to particular applications and supervise and manage such work."

Engineering Officers (also referred to as engineering technicians or engineering associates): According to Engineers Australia "Engineering Associates generally apply engineering principles and practices in support of, or to supplement, the work of professional engineers, technologists or other professional officers." Engineering associates are often known as “Technical Officers and prepare drawings and specifications that provide the details of design to those who manufacture or construct an item. Engineering Associates may also undertake design tasks under the supervision of senior technical officers or engineering professionals. A technical officer in electronics could, for example, be involved in writing computer programs or in aspects of designing electronic systems."
A common mistake that employers make when selecting a specific level (occupational category) for a particular engineering job vacancy is that they tend to limit their options by specifying qualification and accreditation requirements higher than is required for the type of role in question. Consider the following points:

• Before recruiting engineers consider the level of technical analysis likely to be applied by the incumbent. Perhaps the level of engineering required in the role can be competently done by a technologist or even an engineering officer?
• Take into account the level of responsibility and type of accountability when planning an engineering recruitment campaign. A senior engineering manager may require alternative qualifications, business acumen and leadership skills, but does he or she need to be a chartered professional engineer?
• If necessary review your organisational structure to optimise the use of available skills according to the occupational categories. This improves the opportunity for succession planning and encourages self development (for example, an engineering technologist can undertake studies to articulate to the level of professional engineer to become eligible for promotion). This also significantly reduces the reliance on engineering recruitment in the future.
• Regularity and legal requirements may restrict the extent to which you can open up particular roles to different occupational categories. Once again there may be opportunity to restructure so that only certain team members are required to have authority to sign off on designs for instance.

The Engineering Discipline

A candidate's engineering career is characterised by his/her particular branch of field of study. Broadly speaking engineering professionals can be divided into the four main disciplines of chemical, civil, electrical and mechanical engineering, with several branches within each discipline covering a wide range of fields.

An experienced engineering recruitment consultant will apply his or her knowledge of the engineering career and its respective disciplines to assess where there may be opportunity to help clients adapt the selection criteria for certain engineering disciplines. Optimising the selection criteria relating to engineering disciplines can increase the pool of talent available to fill vacancies.

For successful engineer recruiting, job specifications need to reflect the importance of qualifications and experience in relation to engineering discipline and field of expertise as applied to particular engineering job functions (see below). The relevance of a candidate's branch or field of engineering may diminish as a position becomes more supervisory or management focused. This can be illustrated by the analogy of a conductor of an orchestra who may only have the ability to play one particular musical instrument but he directs and coordinates an entire performance requiring many instruments.

Senior technical specialists on the other hand should possess resumes that show evidence of consistent experience and ongoing education in a particular field.

Job Function

This is the way in which engineering professionals apply their field of expertise, or at least what engineering employment activities have made up a large part of their engineering career. Typical job functions include: design; maintenance; research and development; project management; asset management; supervisory; line management; commissioning; OHS and executive management.

An experienced engineering recruitment consultant understands how an engineering career is impacted by experience in different job functions and how this shape the skill sets of engineering professionals.

For any engineering recruitment campaign it is important to recognise the significance in experience gained in different job functions, especially when industry and technical knowledge is a match. Applicants for an engineering job with a maintenance focus may be able to draw from extensive design experience on similar plants and in a similar industries, but transferring behaviours adopted in an organised and highly resourced design office to the deadline-driven and unpredictable nature of a maintenance shutdown need to be taken into account when considering a transfer of skills to a new role.

Industry Experience

Industry background can affect a range of capabilities in engineering professionals. The most obvious being the relevance of their technical experience. However, there are many other factors than can affect the relevance and nature of an applicant’s industry background and these should be considered by your engineering recruitment consultants when searching for suitable engineers.

A good recruitment consultant’s knowledge of the engineering career extends to how it is impacted by experience in different industries. If you decide to broaden the scope of acceptable industry experience in your selection criteria to make the role accessible to a larger number of engineering professionals, then your consultant’s experience in different industries is essential to help ensure that referred applicants still have the most important and relevant attributes.

The oil and gas industry for example demands an almost zero risk tolerance for many of the job functions, while the nature of hazards associated with materials handling in the iron ore industry may allow for more flexibility in managing risk. In other words a design engineer in one industry could be too pedantic for another and vice versa, with huge cost implications. With the industry as volatile as it is, engaging a professional Goldilocks Engineer hunter might be just the thing to put your company in that habitable zone.