Recruiting technical staff: 3 challenges and solutions

Recruiting technical staff can be quite a challenge. Both experienced technicians and young staff who are eager to learn are scarce. But are you searching in the right way and in the right place? Are you promoting your vacancies in a way that suits your ideal target group? And would it not be much easier to hand (some of) your recruitment work over to a third party? Here you will find three challenges in recruitment in engineering and technology, together with the smart solutions that go with them.

Challenge 1: You can find hardly any suitable technical staff

If you are an employer in the technical sector, you have a target group you will need to work a little harder for when it comes to recruitment. Perhaps you feel you have tried everything, yet you still cannot find anyone who fits your company culture or the vacancy you want to fill.

Solution: Change how you search when recruiting technical staff

Ask yourself: 'am I searching in the right way?' Are you searching in the right place, for example? Technical talent is often found on social media channels such as LinkedIn and Facebook. If you are looking for young staff, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok can be smart places to advertise. Also consider whether you are promoting a vacancy in a fitting and compelling way. Technicians are often drawn in by a clear job description, industry jargon and success stories from current employees. Use images of colleagues in the workshop, too. You can have these made by a photographer or videographer, but you can also have a go yourself. One more tip: always be transparent about the salary range and share it in your campaign messages as well.

Challenge 2: You are looking for younger technical staff

Technical staff can be hard to find. Finding young technicians is often an even bigger challenge. This group is smaller to begin with, because fewer and fewer young people choose a technical education, and those who do often move straight from their internship into their first job. That leaves little young technical staff for many technical companies.

Solution: A training course, learning programme or internship

So finding young technical staff can be tricky, because this target group is often "tied" to a particular employer through a learning programme or internship. Be that employer! Create an in-house training programme, learning programme or internship and promote it in a way that appeals to young technical staff during your recruitment. Think of job marketing campaigns on Instagram or TikTok. Also make sure someone really learns something and feels at home in your company. Make personal guidance a priority and keep an eye on their development. And learn from the mistakes you make during these programmes yourself: that is the only way to do even better next time. Which is exactly what you want when you want to keep someone on. It also creates positive word of mouth among young people.

But... do not underestimate the older target group either! Technicians who are a bit closer to retirement age may cost a little more, but they have plenty of experience and can work independently. That saves time, and time is money. This is a trade-off you need to make together with your HR department.

Once you have found young tech talent, you will soon see that this group has a different way of working. Want to know how best to deal with that? Then download our whitepaper "Dealing with Gen Z in the Workplace".

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Challenge 3: No time to come up with and carry out a strategic plan

Recruitment can be hugely time-consuming. Especially if you want to do it really well, because that takes a strategic plan. Before your recruitment process starts, after all, you need a clear picture of who you are looking for, what you are going to offer them and how you can get in touch with that ideal target group. Finding and talking to candidates can also take a lot of time. Many tech companies have no HR department, or at least no extensive recruitment team to take on this work. Other departments then often take on the recruitment side. And you soon notice that this is not where their expertise lies.

Solution: Outsource recruitment to an interim recruiter

Once you realise you do not have to do all your recruitment work yourself, a huge weight can fall off your shoulders. Outsourcing recruitment is completely normal these days, including among tech companies. Interim recruiters can find and call technical staff. You can also set up a job marketing or employer branding campaign together with a recruitment agency, if your own team has little or no marketing knowledge. That saves a lot of time and stress.