6 Things to Keep in Mind While Hiring an Engineer Online

Recruiting engineers in today’s market scenario is tough. Engineers, particularly software engineers, are in high demand and therefore have the luxury of being meticulous about potential jobs. Whether you are looking to do a simple fix on your website or planning the first version of your product, great engineers make all the difference.

So how do you hire the best engineers? How do you make sure that you are leaving no stone unturned, especially when trying to hire online, or hire remotely - which makes it tougher? Explore our tips and resources below to learn how to hire an engineer, including tips on identifying the right skills, and adopting the right strategies through the process.

1. Become the company they want to join 

To attract quality software engineers, you need to become the type of startup or organization they want to work for. Although compensation is important, it’s only a short-lived motivator. Those who have their pick of the top jobs look at factors beyond salary.

Most companies begin the hiring process with a job description. However, to hire great engineers, the process needs to begin with your brand. In order to make your company desirable to engineers, you need to showcase your culture on your website, social media, and other external communications.

As a company, you may want to consider investing in learning and development opportunities, or take on more ambitious products that will appeal to top-tier engineers.

2. An appealing job description

Next in line to attracting the right talent is an effective, engaging, and inclusive job description.

The first step to writing an effective engineering job description is to explain how the role fits in with your overall company mission. Tying the role to a greater cause can appeal to engineers who aren’t drawn to salary alone.

Another central element of a successful job ad is the inclusion of the role’s key benefits. Considering the competitive nature of the engineering job market, it is not good enough to only specify the competitive salary as the role’s main benefit.

You need to be seriously considering: “why would a candidate apply to my engineering role over others?”

Effective job ads will excite candidates by including a ‘benefits of the job’ section, made up of a range of career incentives that draw top talent in.

3. The ‘no-rush’ screening

Engineers need to have excellent problem-solving abilities, technical knowledge, and an analytical mindset.

In your screening, make sure to ask insightful and targeted questions that will help identify if a candidate possesses the necessary skills for your engineering role.

The screening phase also provides a great opportunity to build a relationship with the applicants. Arrange a phone call for an informal chat and get to know more about their motivations for applying. Ask them what they hope to gain from working with the company. Even if you decide that a candidate isn’t suitable, you can still contact them in the future about other positions`.

It is also essential that you use the screening process to shout about your company and highlight what the benefits are that are awaiting the successful candidate(s).

4. The ‘in-depth’ interview

Interviewing is a skill that improves with practice and preparation. But too often, companies don’t put in the work necessary to identify great candidates and instead make decisions based on imperfect information, using their gut as a fallback.

At Carnera, We follow a 9-step stringent and validated hiring process, carried out by 6+ members from our team, to ensure the best quality of resources are being brought onboard. We use a scorecard for grading candidates on a common set of skills / cultural fit from 1 to 10. Everyone of the 6+ members are invited to the follow-up discussions. Successful hiring decisions require at least one “champion” (overall score of 10). Anyone involved in the hiring process can veto a hire.

While you don’t necessarily need to use our system, you should employ some system that everyone in your team understands. Not only does it make hiring easier, but it also makes your team look more professional from the candidate’s perspective and gives you a better chance of closing a hire.

5. Close fast

In practice hiring decisions invariably involve tradeoffs. You could trade quality for speed by rejecting solid candidates to wait for the dream one. Or you could trade money for time by paying a candidate above the market rate to join now. You should be aware of all these tradeoffs and make the one that's best for your circumstances.

If you feel confident that you’ve found the right engineer for a role, close quickly. Given the current engineering skills shortage, great engineers get snapped up quickly. If you’ve found someone who is a good fit, don’t hesitate to make contact and offer them the job.

6. Kill it at onboarding

Creating an effective onboarding plan is essential when it comes to retaining the best candidates. Given the demand for engineers, businesses cannot afford to have a lack of forethought towards a new hire’s first few months – if feeling unsupported, top engineers will not struggle to find a more positive alternative.

A new employee onboarding process, along with a solid new employee orientation plan, will enable your new hires to be fully integrated into your company and will equip them with everything they need to get settled into their new role and drive your company’s growth and success!

Businesses with the best onboarding processes start their proceedings when a candidate accepts their offer, continuing the onboarding throughout the candidate’s first year to help nurture and develop talent. In doing so, such businesses are helping promote a positive company culture that makes space for increased productivity of new hires and increased retention.

Conclusion

As we said at the start, finding an engineering candidate that perfectly fits your company culture, meets your job specifications, and is passionate about your industry, can be time-consuming and difficult to source, not to mention expensive if you get it wrong!

The one another option is to always outsource your resource requirements to an agency like Carnera, where we not only help you with the candidates, but add value throughout the process with Specialized Account Managers, Hiring Advice & Consultation, personalizing the Hiring Process for your requirements, and help with Onboarding & Aftercare Check-ins.

Find out more about outsourcing your requirements to us here.

Want to learn more about what you can accomplish together? Reach out below. 

- Written by Nick AJ

Nick is an industry veteran and the CEO at Carnera. He comes in with expertise in Customer Success, and Team Management and has worked with companies like Macy’s, Nike, and Western Union to help them grow and succeed in their multi-year IT initiatives.