4 Challenges Companies Face When Recruiting Technical Candidates

Technical candidates are in high demand and that has created a very competitive environment for companies looking to recruit top talent. Here we share key challenges companies face when recruiting technical candidates and how to overcome them.

What challenges do companies in construction, engineering and technology sectors face when recruiting technical candidates? In our experience the following factors often cause problems when a company wants to scale or fill vacant positions. Forewarned is forearmed, we recommend aligning your recruitment process with these challenges to ensure a more satisfactory outcome.

1. Skills Shortage

We’re seeing a significant skills shortage amongst technical candidates with 5-6 years experience. Typically, these graduates have either embedded themselves into a company with great career progression, and therefore are not looking for a new role, or have left the industry altogether.

Our recommendation is to take a proactive approach by targeting passive candidates (people who are not actively looking for a new role) and ensuring that you’re doing everything possible to attract them to your company. That should involve aligning your employer brand with their needs by identifying the things that are important to them – career progression and new opportunities are often the most important factors for candidates with a few years of experience under their belt.

2. Niche Areas Require Specialist Expertise

Finding candidates with the right expertise to fill very niche roles is also a challenge for many companies. Mission critical facilities are a good example of this. With the advent of digitalisation and cloud platforms, there’s unprecedented demand for candidates with experience in this area – such as designing data centres. We’re also seeing similar trends in areas that are relatively new to the market, for example cyber security. Finding technology candidates with the right calibre is extremely difficult.

The solution is to work with specialist recruiters rather than a recruitment agency that recruits across all sectors. If your company operates in a niche area or requires highly specialist expertise, work with people who are immersed in that area and function. Their contact book becomes invaluable, as they have a direct line to the talent you need.

3. Getting A Good Fit

Skills and experience are critical but so are other attributes that can make the difference between whether a candidate accepts your job offer or not. Getting a good culture fit is essential – a poor fit is likely to result in that candidate leaving at the earliest opportunity and can also impact overall performance while they’re in the job.

By communicating your company values, employer brand and company culture clearly from the offset, candidates will be able to be more selective in what opportunities they pursue. Go into detail with your recruitment consultant about different candidates. Often they will know the candidate very well, having worked with them over several years, and will be able to advise you on whether they’re a good fit.

4. Speed Of Recruitment

With high demand for technical candidates; speed is of the essence. Companies need to get candidates in front of them quickly, before they find something else.

Many companies can benefit from refining their recruitment process. Removing friction, decreasing timescales and putting themselves in the best position to snap up the right candidate when they present themselves. For more advice on avoiding a slow recruitment process, see this blog post by Jason.

It’s a challenging time but with the right approach you don’t have to recruit second best. If you would like to speak to any of our team about a particular recruitment challenge, please get in touch.

Call 01252 413080 or email [email protected]