If you have been following this month's blog posts, you might have noticed a reoccurring theme. August was all about engineering jobs, staffing and recruiting challenges; particularly in the Oil & Gas and other niche industries.

So what is an organization to do when they need great, specialized talent like engineering or aviation? Simply put, the key to moving your recruiting efforts forward is to rely on two key concepts. 

It amazes me when people make sweeping generalizations about how and where candidates in Engineering (or any industry really) look for work. As a whole, Engineers and in fact most working professionals, are a very technologically savvy population. On top of this, far too many staffing firms and HR Departments do not have true visibility into which sourcing channels are most effective for their recruiting needs. The result? Reliance upon assumptions that a particular resource(s) is the bedrock of one’s talent attraction strategy. Don’t believe me?

Let’s address the savvy job seeking population first. The sheer availability of information and access to the net via laptops, tablets, phablets and other smart phone devices is cultivating a very adept group of job seekers who are not limiting themselves to searching more tenured sites like IEEE, CareerBuilder or Monster. Not to mention the variety of social and networking (ahem – LinkedIn) outlets providing a vehicle for sharing best practices and the ability to more readily connect with recruiters.

What do these emerging technologies mean to engineering recruiting efforts? Your go-to job posting site from 2002 (notice I did not say traditional print media) while not in obsolescence, is not the foundation upon which you can hinge your entire hiring strategy – particularly so if you are seeking extremely specialized roles in a talent depleted market like Engineering.

Now, let's talk mobile optimization for job posting and apply functions.  Job seeker behavior is dictating the need to not only support one’s career site to render on the small screen device we all carry around, but candidates also want to be able to apply to jobs directly via their smart phone or tablet. Candidates are the one’s driving changes in how we need to locate and approach them, not the other way around. Don’t let the economy fool you, it’s a job seekers market when it comes to highly skilled and niche professionals.

Key Concept No. 2: Don’t put all your eggs in one basket 

It seems like each day a new app, niche job board, aggregator or new-fangled paid advertising option crops up to provide another vehicle for theoretically getting your jobs in front of the talent you seek. Why? Because candidates want content and jobs tailored to them, and they want it with the least path of resistance both in locating opportunities and applying to them. 

So what can you do? You not only need to diversify the resources you leverage to attract talent, but you need to continue to engage people once you’ve attracted them even if they are not ready to make a career move today or are a match for your current opportunities.

Here's how to move your recruiting efforts into the future.

• Optimize your Career Site for both desktop and mobile
• Ensure your job postings are matriculating to the Organic Results on Search Engines and Job Aggregators.
• Investigate how to leverage current or new technology that will accurately track your online advertising efforts so you can begin to gain true insight into the sources that work for your company.
• Streamline your Apply Process; if it takes more than 5 minutes to apply to your job then you are absolutely losing candidates!
• Don’t start sourcing from square one every time.   When you find great talent continue to cultivate their interest in anticipation of the right time for both parties.
• BONUS: You don’t have to do everything at once, choose one area where you will expand your recruiting efforts and work on it until you are confident and seeing results, then build your business case to continue diversifying and accelerating your recruiting results.

Happy talent hunting!

This blog was written by Cindy Lombardo. With nine years of experience in the staffing industry having worked in the capacities of recruitment, project management, training and marketing, Cindy currently focuses on developing and implementing digital strategies that target and attract talent across all industry sectors for both national and international employment opportunities. She is passionate about following emerging applicant trends as well as educating others about both the growing talent deficit and strategies that can drive better recruitment efficiencies and return on investment. When she’s not working on candidate marketing strategies, Cindy spends her time outside of work running a non-profit opera company, practicing judo and playing with her crazy dog Scruffy.