Job postings on corporate career pages are widely considered the best near term indicator for the demand of certain talent. According to Linkup, a generalist job search engine, the number of jobs posted on corporate career sites for the Engineering & Architecture category is up 25% over the last 6 months. ASHRAE Jobs, which has been operating for less than a year, has seen an even more significant increase over that time of 35%.
The supply of engineers does not increase with demand due to the high employment levels in this discipline. Recent surveys have shown that as many as 82% of job searches being run in this category are being done so by fully employed professionals. And, total engineering employment has dropped by only 12% during the recession while overall construction employment has dropped by 28%.
What Can You Do? No one disputes a structural shortage exists of skilled U.S. engineers, or that the shortage will increase as the baby boomer generation moves into retirement. What few people consider, however, is that international outsourcing of engineers can be a logistical and managerial nightmare considering the on-site nature of engineering and construction. Therefore, organizations that recognize engineers are an increasingly scarce and high-impact resource, and move to secure engineers now while they are available, can create a strategic competitive advantage for themselves.
That does not mean you need to hire all this talent and have them sit in waiting for the market to catch-up. Rather, what you can do is gobble up all the names, contact information and resumes of people that are currently on the open market of the type you will be looking to hire later in the year or in 2011. Essentially, you’ll begin building your pipeline for future needs. And, it can be done for as little as $3,000, which is a fraction of what you will have to pay headhunters when you have the needs and don’t have the pipeline to satisfy them. Here’s how:
- Identify the types of positions you know will need at some point
- Highlight positions that historically have been difficult-to-fill
- Create a master job posting and promote it as positions you “are always looking for good people”
- Receive and store applicants and resumes in a place where it will be easy and convenient to retrieve in the future.
- Periodically e-mail these job seekers with information designed to keep them warm such as press releases on new business, changes to your benefits plan, new product offerings, etc
