It can be daunting to begin the hiring process for highly technical positions. Competition can be fierce. Many types of engineers are in high demand, and you may have to act fast to hire that perfect candidate.
To make it through the hiring process efficiently and find the best candidate there are a few adjustments you may have to make to your hiring process for other positions. It may require more planning, but in the end, you will find the candidate that is the best fit for the company and their new department.
There are a few steps you can take early on to make the hiring process for an engineer easier for yourself, the department hiring, and the candidates.
Decide who will sit on the hiring committee.
For less technical positions, you may have smaller hiring committees or perhaps only one person from the department you are hiring for. In order to find the ideal candidate, it will be important to have someone with the knowledge the position will require in each step of the hiring process.
This means it will require an experienced engineer to sit in on interviews, the evaluation stage, and, most importantly, the initial screenings. Requiring someone with the knowledge this position will require to help screen resumes will allow you to more easily and quickly narrow down the applicant pool.
Know exactly what you’re looking for.
Even when you have help screening resumes, you will need to know exactly what you’re looking for in a resume. Be sure to ask plenty of questions of the department lead to find out what kind of experience they are looking for. If it’s a software engineer, what kind of software? Do they need someone with a wide range of experience or a specialty? What are some keywords that you should be looking for? By acquiring this knowledge up front, you will be able to weed out the applicants whose experience doesn’t fall in the range you’re looking for.
Create an evaluation step.
The most vital step in hiring an engineer may be creating an evaluation step for the specific position. This will be required of the department you are hiring for and will require extra planning and attention on their part, but it will save time in the long run. You can administer the evaluation before the final interviews with department heads in order to further narrow the pool of applicants.
In the midst of all the extra planning in hiring for your next technical role, don’t forget the final step: a comprehensive background check. Order a sample background check today.