5 ways to connect with the top-tier engineering talents to drive your industry 4.0 goals

Over the years, as industries have embraced technology and become more software-driven, the demand to engage a premier engineering workforce has increased exponentially. This change is felt across sectors and industries. The core engineering sector, in particular, has been grappling with an aging workforce and intense competition for talent. The focus in these sectors is now on enhancing the engineering team’s efficiency, fostering innovation and igniting growth to keep pace with the advancements in technology and business markets.

Keeping pace with the intelligent industry

Core engineering products and services are undergoing a significant transformation in recent years, with increasing focus on the 'intelligent industry'. The intelligent industry is about customized mass production or intelligent production using connected, cyber-physical systems, including IoT, cloud technology and big data. Industry 4.0 has enabled organizations to transform data into actionable insights by encapsulating the bleeding edges of the digital and engineering worlds. Organizations in the energy and utilities, manufacturing and mining, oil and gas sectors are increasingly looking at scaling their products, operations and services by leveraging the synergies that the intelligent technologies have to offer. However, in an increasingly dynamic and agile business environment, whether enterprises are planning to overhaul the organization's complete IT infrastructure, build a technology solution or design a new product leveraging these technologies, skilled engineering talent is pivotal to success.

With the war for engineers on the rise, organizations must take a dedicated approach to attract top-tier engineering talent. According to a McKinsey survey conducted on over 1,500 global senior executives, 87 per cent believe their companies are not adequately prepared to handle the skill gap. The intelligent industry demands workers to upskill and reskill on data modelling and evaluation, statistical learning, conceptual thinking, distributed computing, programming knowledge, software engineering and system designing. The intelligent industry has automated most HR processes and applications, transforming traditional HR into human resource 4.0. Industry 4.0 and human resource management have greatly influenced the decision-making process related to hiring and workforce management. The tech talent in industry 4.0 want to meet with technical workforce solution experts with customized engineering capabilities in order to have their industrial skills assessed for relevant roles.

Competing to engage the right talent

The continuous surge in the demand for talented engineers across verticals has made it challenging for technical talent sourcing agencies to optimize hiring processes and tap into the best talent on their teams. According to a Business Insider report, merely 1.5% of engineers possess the required skill sets for new-age jobs as of 2020. The unique sourcing methodology lies in segregating engineers based on their industrial skills and qualifications instead of having a homogenous pool of candidates. Lack of candidate information during the sourcing stage can weed out some of the best talents or misrepresent a candidate's skill. Increasing competition and fast evolving talent trends in a volatile market call for in-depth industrial knowledge and the most up-to-date technology to meet business goals and objectives.

Winning the talent game for your business

With thousands of resumes in your inbox, building a skilled engineering talent pipeline requires a strategic and specialist in-market approach to recruitment. This includes a holistic approach to establishing a digital talent engine dedicated to hiring, onboarding, managing the employee experience and continuously upskilling and reskilling the workforce. Here, we delve into five approaches organizations can take to attract the best engineering workforce and help drive business forward:

1:5 selection ratio in the engineering domain: The selection ratio is an important metric for data-driven hiring and recruitment and helps to evaluate and optimize the engineering recruitment process. The selection ratio is influenced by candidate availability, proper advertising channels, employer brand, compensation and source of applicants. Maintaining a 1:5 selection ratio helps to hire engineers with appropriate skill sets in the market while exercising a stringent engineering recruitment process.
Expertise in differentiating between regular and niche engineering mandates: Recruitment is a dynamic sector that must adapt to market trends and tailor services as per requirement. Expert technical recruitment staff can provide better perspectives on the roles and channel the process in the right direction to create a focused talent pool. Niche engineering mandates require a lot of industry knowledge and effective advertising and are likely to incur higher costs. A team of expert recruiters in the engineering job consultancy firms can fill the skill gaps effectively and save time, while finalizing on candidates who meet the requirements.
Timely delivery of engineering JDs and on-job engineers: Partnering with a technical recruitment agency with the flexibility to identify and deliver appropriate engineering JDs and source relevant talent across verticals is crucial. The vast resources available to the engineering job consultancy teams enable them to pick the right JDs and choose experts from a larger pool of candidates on time, every time, reducing your time to hire and resulting in a better quality of hires.
Effective and efficient team of hiring recruiters: A team of effective and efficient hiring recruiters can improve the pace of quality engineering recruitment aligned to the organization’s requirements. Extended recruitment cycles can be detrimental to a company’s image and hinder opportunities to drive revenue.
Handling both contractual and client payroll engineering recruitment mandates: The massive transformation in the employment ecosystem calls for effective management of contractual and client payroll hires. The increasing changes in the recruitment models plus the hefty price tag of specialized skilled employees need proper allocation of resources to fulfil the project requirements of the small, medium and large enterprises.

Dynamic talent allocation across industries

With a shrinking industry-specific candidate pool, recruiting engineering talent demands engineering job consultancy firms to gain knowledge and expertise across engineering sectors like aerospace, automotive, civil and architecture, mechanical, electronics, mining, telecom, etc. As employers continue to look for skilled talent who can contribute in a meaningful way, candidates struggle to access the right platform to uncover suitable opportunities. For example, the automotive sector is undergoing a huge disruption due to the change in buying behavior, business model and technological transformation.

As per McKinsey’s report, only 30 per cent of the companies surveyed have the right skilled professionals to respond to today’s automotive requirements. Civil engineering as a discipline, is constantly evolving with the increasing population. Manu Santhanam, HoD of Civil Engineering, IIT Madras, in an interview with Times of India, claims that civil engineering is no longer a ‘brick and mortar’ profession and goes much beyond field practice. With the introduction of new technologies and innovations, the civil engineering community needs some of the brightest minds to handle some of the nation’s pressing challenges.

Partnering with an engineering workforce solutions leader is pivotal to success

Randstad Engineering has been a solutions leader for nearly 30 years.

Evolving technologies and innovations have driven rapid change in the engineering employment market. To latch on to the right talent, you need to plan impactful recruitment strategies amidst the increasing demand for the workforce. Serving clients across core engineering sectors and fulfilling their talent recruitment mandates across the country, Our technically qualified recruiters provide contingent, permanent and project-based solutions to meet your business requirements. Our customized engineering capabilities make way for a robust and seamless recruitment process. Experience the difference with Randstad Engineering solutions.