How Do You Sell Your Mechanical Engineering Jobs to the Best Candidates?

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Tips to Attract the Best-Quality Candidates

Hiring the best candidates for mechanical engineering jobs is proving challenging to say the least. How can you sell the position to the most talented mechanical engineers so they join your team?

The skills shortage certainly isn’t helping. The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows nearly 140,000 new jobs are expected to be created by 2026, draining the shallow skills pool of newly-emerging qualified engineers.

Here’s how to unlock the discovery of talent you need for your mechanical engineering jobs.

Adjust Your Hiring Criteria

You have the criteria of hard skills required for a candidate to fulfil the duties of the role. But you must also seek the soft skills that will benefit your company. Engineers who also possess communication and leadership skills are more valuable than those with only technical ability.

These candidates will have the ability to do more in-house with less training time required. Adjust your hiring criteria to accommodate your search. Being harsh on minimum experience, for example, may immediately lose you some highly qualified candidates.

Use Temporary Staffing

Hiring engineers on a temporary and temp-to-perm basis allows your company to continue with business development without suffering from a lack of skills. You need the workforce and skills to deliver at a competitive pace. Using temp or temp-to-perm staffing will:

  • Support your current workforce
  • Prevent burnout
  • Boost morale
  • Improve retention

You may also discover some incredible talent through temp-to-perm contracts.

Reduce Time to Hire

You must pre-define a recruitment timetable to ensure you can act swiftly on candidates. When you manage to locate the talent you need, don’t give them a reason to be distracted with competitors:

  • Keep in regular contact
  • Be flexible with scheduling
  • Treat them like clients
  • Make hiring a priority

Such a well-executed process will reflect positively on your company, and leave a great impression on your preferred candidate.

Communicate Constantly

Communication is key throughout the hiring process. Don’t leave candidates in the dark. Even if they’re unsuccessful this time, nurture a possible connection for the future – always think ahead.

Hiring managers must also communicate throughout with each other, evaluating candidates, gathering feedback, and ensuring all aspects of the criteria have been covered.

Work on Your Talent Pipeline

A talent pipeline is a great way for companies to develop their own workforce of the future. Here’s why you must work on a talent pipeline:

  • To find the best people for the position
  • To retain employees by hiring them for long-term positions
  • To prepare for when an employee leaves or moves on from the company

Talent pipelines are a way to build the workforce for tomorrow, designed to help companies work through their recruitment and retention issues, and make sure that they have enough people with the right skillsets on board.

Pay Competitively

Competing in today’s economy means that companies must pay competitively. It’s crucial to attract and retain the best employees. A skills shortage means salaries are rising, and you need to keep up with this trend. Paying competitively is important because it can help companies attract and retain talent, improve morale to committed employees, and increase quality of work delivered (you know what they say about paying peanuts…).

Employee Referral Schemes

Providing an incentive that encourages your loyal employees to recommend fellow skilled engineers is a cost-effective hiring process, and usually a reliable source for locating some high-quality talent.

Mechanical engineers who receive a recommendation for your company through word of mouth will find it difficult not to at least enter your talent pipeline, leaving the rest to you to encourage them to join.

Use a Specialist Staffing Agency

Engineers can be found anywhere in the world, but they’re not always easy to find. The best way to find an engineer is by using a specialist recruitment agency. And the reason is simple – without a specialist agency, it will be really tough and costly to find someone who is perfect for the position needed.

You need to find candidates who are not only highly skilled in their field, but are also a great fit with company culture. We can bridge this gap by providing you with access to a pool of talent you may never have otherwise discovered, via our established and well-nurtured network.

Want to know more? Contact us today and see how productive a partnership with MAC Inc. could be to your hiring needs.