4 Tips for Hiring Electrical Engineering Staff

Hiring is difficult at the best of times, but companies that need electrical engineering staff face even greater obstacles than standard firms do. Electrical engineers are in high demand, so the best candidates have the luxury of choice when they apply for positions. If you’re not proactive with your hiring policies, you may hire someone whose skillset and attitude don’t align with your agency. This can delay your projects and lead to high replacement costs. You need to know how to find the right people and convince them to work with you.


This can seem like a monumental task for small firms. You want to attract the best talent, but you may not be able to compete with the salaries and benefits that industry leaders can offer. So how can you make your organization stand out when your applicant pool is limited and your rivals offer more attractive compensation packages? It’s only possible if you have the right information. Read on to find out how you can leverage your company’s advantages to hire top-notch electrical engineering staff.

1. Emphasize Interesting Projects and Opportunities for Experience

Salaries and benefits are important. Engineers know the value of their work and they expect to be paid accordingly. But money isn’t everything. Electrical engineering staff will compromise on their compensation demands if they stand to gain valuable insight and experience. After all, why take a mid-level position that pays extravagantly when you can develop expertise in an area and demand an even higher salary down the road?

Industry leaders have prestige on their side, but they can make engineers feel like cogs in a big machine. Small firms offer leadership opportunities and innovative projects that can stimulate workers and jumpstart careers. When you draft job postings and interview candidates, emphasize the exciting work your company has done. If an engineer believes that your agency can accommodate their interests, they’ll be more likely to choose you over a bigger competitor.

2. Use Your Company Culture

Recruitment is no longer a linear process. Companies must constantly look for candidates who they can hire at a moment’s notice. This means that hiring managers must take different approaches to source and hire talent. Increasingly, they’ve relied upon their company’s culture to attract desirable employees.

This makes sense from a worker’s perspective. No one wants to work in a humdrum office that doesn’t foster growth or value its employees’ feedback. Hiring managers need to portray their office’s culture in recruitment materials. Use testimonials from satisfied employees, or take prospects on tours of your office. Engineering candidates want to see that your office is a vibrant, encouraging place, so put it at the forefront of your campaign.

3. Experience Is Important, but So Are Soft Skills

Electrical engineers need to have strict qualifications to do their jobs. Sometimes hiring managers can overemphasize these requirements at the expense of soft skills. That can be a costly mistake.

It’s not always easy to tell if a worker will be a good fit based on their resume and an interview alone. You need to get a sense of their personality, their ability to learn and their teamwork skills. Only then will you know if a candidate can thrive in your workplace.

4. Work with a Recruiter

These steps will help your recruit better electrical engineering staff, but they also require extensive strategies to work. If you’re unsure of your priorities or you’re pressed for time, you may not be able to make those plans. In those cases, outsourcing to a qualified recruitment agency can help you make the right decisions in both the short and long terms.