Building a Winning Team: Recruiting Talent for Advanced Engineering Start-Ups & SME’s

By Andrew Ellis, Principal Search Consultant

As Advanced Engineering businesses grow, whether that be via product innovation, external investment, geographic expansion or similar, invariably one of the most significant challenges that organisations have is hiring.  Or rather hiring the “right” people.

All too often, I’ve seen businesses delay their hiring, often for one of the below key reasons;

• It’s difficult and takes time – If there’s nobody internally to run a recruitment process (particularly if it’s a position that requires a significant amount of leg work to get to the right person), then invariably it won’t sit at the top of anyone’s priority list until absolutely necessary.  And if “necessary” is the point in time when you go to market, then when the candidate actually starts, businesses are invariably 9-12 months where they need to be from a hiring pattern (once recruitment process, notice periods etc are taken into a account).
• Market conditions – We’re in unstable times and it currently feels as if society is lurching from crisis to crisis every 6 months or so.  Obviously, this is going to impact on businesses and there’s always a mindest creep; “Do we hire now?”, “Can it wait until things are a bit more stable?”. I’d say if there’s not a fundamental reason not to hire, then earlier is better – particularly in highly competitive or niche growth markets.
• What we want isn’t available to us – Not as true as perhaps during 2020-2021.  I’ve noticed a sizeable shift in the market of candidates wanting to take on roles within organisations that are innovative, offer career development and companies, generally where there is a collaborative culture.  In some instances this has meant proverbial “Big Hitters” being willing to reduce their fixed compensation packages in order to realign their personal lives or to get involved in an organisation during an exciting growth phase where there are longer term benefits.  

At Delve Search we work closely with clients to understand each of their own needs and requirements and get a feel for what makes each business unique. To discuss our services further you can reach out to me on [email protected].

Linkedin – Andrew Ellis