Market Engineering Jobs by Marketing Your Company
4 Tactics to Be The Employer of Choice in a Tough Hiring Market
According to a study by Workable, engineering jobs take the longest time to fill in the United States with an average of 62 days. I doubt we needed to tell you this. Unemployment is rising, competition for talent is high, and average salaries for engineers are among the highest of all trades in the United States. These four tactics will help you stand out as the employer of choice for talented job seekers searching for engineering jobs. Executed diligently, these four tactics could form the foundation for a hiring strategy that helps recruit the most talented candidates faster, despite engineers being among the top five hardest-to-hire skilled trades professionals.
1. Demonstrate Your Unique Value
Salary, benefits, training and development opportunities… every company offers these. To win the hearts and minds of top talent, you must offer more. Why should a candidate choose your company to work for? Engineers want to be valued by their bosses and their peers. If you can demonstrate that you are a great company to work for, you will improve your chances of hiring the best engineers without the need to compete on salary alone.
Consider the environment and culture that you have worked so hard to develop, and highlight this when advertising engineering jobs. For example, are your managers open to new ideas? Do you allow flexible working patterns? What opportunities are there for special project work? Is your executive team hands-on and visible? People work hardest for companies whose values align with their own. Consider your corporate values and show candidates that you are their ideal employer.
2. Encourage Employees to Be Your Brand Advocates
If your current employees sing your praises from the highest rooftops, consider the effect on prospective new recruits. If your employees are in love with their work, encourage them to tell others. Do you have a referral program in place? Will your employees record some videos sharing their experience in your team? People listen to their family and friends. It’s how we decide which new restaurant to visit. It could be how your next star employee decides to approach you for an engineering job. When interviewing engineers, consider employing your employees and brand advocates into the process. Your prospective engineer will gain a genuine insight into what it is like to work for your company – it could be the influencing factor in their decision to accept your job offer. A word of warning here. Relying on financial reward to promote employee referrals risks cheapening the program. Your employees must want to refer your company as an employer, and that is a cultural issue.
3. Focus on Total Compensation, Not Salary
While it is true that talented professionals will switch engineering jobs for a higher salary, you can gain the upper hand in negotiations by focusing on the total value of your compensation package. This is likely to include bonuses, equity, other benefits, and your personal development proposition. Consider also to highlight the number of paid vacation days you offer, as well as health and life insurance, retirement planning, and payment of professional fees. If your total compensation package is competitive, you won’t need to offer over-inflated salaries to attract top talent.
4. Engineers Must Meet Their Boss
Repeatedly, workplace surveys (like this one from Gallup) conclude that the number one reason for employees moving on is a bad boss. Your candidate’s new boss could be your ace in the hole, the deciding factor that turns a great candidate into an even better new recruit. Ensuring that engineers meet their future boss will allow both parties to test their potential employee/manager relationship. Should they strike a good chord immediately, it’s another incentive for the candidate to join your team.
Work Hard, Hire Fast
To hire the best talent fast in a tight labor market, you need to offer more than a high salary. It is crucial that you market yourself as unique. Highlighting your unique value – your culture, your employees, your managers, and your total compensation package – will raise you above your competitors. As specialist recruiters, we help employers uncover their unique value and align the best engineers for their engineering jobs. To learn how we can help you recruit top engineering talent faster, contact the MAC Incorporated team today.
