Wish You had a List of Talented Minnesota Engineers Open to Switching Companies?

You’ve been trying to find what you need on your own for some time. You’ve…

• Asked around
• Posted the openings numerous places, including LinkedIn
• Looked at resumes on job boards like Monster and CareerBuilder
• Done some candidate interviewing

…but all to no avail after weeks, if not months of effort.

And the worst part of this frustrating experience is that you’ve gone through this process before with similar results. You’re frustrated for sure.

So what does a good local recruiting firm have that you don’t?

A high-quality technical recruiting company that’s on their game (i.e., worth their service fees) has on-going relationships with hundreds of engineers at all times. Some of these talented, good-fit engineers that you’d like to approach on your own (if you knew who they were) are already working in the local area on projects similar to yours, perhaps just down the road, but they’re invisible to you because they’re not actively posting resumes or seeking interviews right now. However, they’ve made it known to the local staffing firm’s recruiters that they’re open to switching companies if the right engineering opportunity were to come along. And, if they’re a good fit for both you and the engineer candidate, the local recruiter will know the best way to approach them on your behalf because the recruiter already has a relationship with them. The recruiter already knows them on some level, has talked with them, and exchanges email with them. If youwant to talk with them, the recruiter can help set that up.

A recruiter with 1) a database of ‘passive’ engineering candidates that they keep in contact with (i.e., engineers that are presently working and not actively looking) and 2) who are also skilled at using the industries latest tools and techniques for building their passive talent pipeline is 3) typically the fastest link between you and the candidates you wish you were interviewing today!

Maintaining a list of ‘passive’ engineering candidates is a full time job, and you already have a full time job, right? That’s why you need a recruiter.

Many large companies have an internal recruiting staff. Most if not all mid-sized companies do not. That’s why working with a local recruiting firm is so important and cost-effective. Good engineers don’t grow on trees and are probably not knocking at your door in droves if you’re like most typical mid-sized companies. In fact, there is a shortage of good engineering talent in many if not most engineering disciplines today.

Here’s just one example of that. According to WANTED Analytics™ (a leading source of real-time business intelligence for the talent marketplace): software developers were reported to be the most in-demand tech job last year, reaching new highs in April 2013.

The 10 most in-demand software developer job titles include:

1. Software Engineer
2. Senior Software Engineer
3. Software Development Engineer
4. .NET Developer
5. Java Software Engineer
6. Applications Engineer
7. Senior Software Developer
8. Principal Software Engineer
9. Senior Software Engineer Java
10. Application Developer

Java, which is mentioned in 2 of the above titles, is the most commonly required skill in Application Software Developer jobs. Other skills that are often specified in job ads are Structured Query Language (SQL), C# .NET, and JavaScript.

If you’re trying to find good Java developers, you probably need some professional recruiting help as just described above.

LinkedIn® tools and skills are Indispensable for developing a living database of passive engineering job candidates.

With LinkedIn tools and skills, a good recruiter can build, track, and nurture a large database of passive engineering candidates for hire right now or sometime in the future. However, the tools and skills needed to do this right can cost you 10’s of 1000’s of dollars a year. That’s one reason why only larger companies can typically cost-justify the tools and their own recruiting staff for their own internal hiring needs. And that’s one reason as well why you should look for a local recruiting firm that’s expert at passive recruiting with LinkedIn (in particular) and other related tools as well.

WARNING:

If a recruiter that is courting you for business spends all their time on Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com, Dice.com, and other traditional job and resume posting sites, and does not eat and breathe LinkedIn tools and techniques instead, I would have major question marks about them if I were you looking for a recruiter in today’s competitive engineer recruiting environment.

A recent LinkedIn study concluded that, “Close to 80% of today’s working professionals may be considered passive candidates, but the truth is an overwhelming number of them are open to exploring new job opportunities.”

And when comparing actively-searching-for-a-job talent with passive talent:

PASSIVE TALENT is 33% more likely to want challenging work

PASSIVE TALENT is 120% more likely to want to make an impact

PASSIVE TALENT is 21% less likely to need recognition for their contributions

So the advice here is to only engage with local recruiters who work daily on building and nurturing their passive talent database.