Automotive

Insights Into Automotive Recruitment

The automotive industry is a significant industry across the world, driving the global economy. As the demand for vehicles grows, organisations expand, or new ones are set up, all looking for highly qualified and skilled engineers to facilitate growth and production. The industry is estimated to employ around 198,000 people in manufacturing and 813,000 across the wider automotive sector, making it a huge recruitment challenge.

Those looking to hire new engineers and technicians are often faced with a few challenges during their recruitment process due to a shortage of qualified candidates, a need for technical knowledge and an evolving industry.

At Arden White, we are a specialist recruitment team for the automotive industry, helping companies grow with the ideal candidate and helping candidates find the perfect team for their skills and values. Whether you are looking for permanent, temporary, executive search or international recruitment, our team of qualified engineers and recruitment specialists will use strategic techniques to help you.

As automotive specialists, we understand the challenges you face, so in this blog, we discuss those issues and share our recruitment techniques for your industry.

Key Challenges in Automotive Recruitment

As with recruiting in any industry, there are some challenges.

No matter whether you are recruiting for your research and development team, part of your production team or a management role, you need people with specialised skills, training and qualifications, not to mention experience too.

This is currently a sticking point for the industry as there is a small candidate pool that meets all these requirements, so there is an ever-growing list of positions for the same list of people.

A lack of talent available leads to another challenge in the automotive industry; the landscape is highly competitive. As each company is trying to appeal to a small group of qualified engineers, their job descriptions are very competitive, something you need to match or exceed with your job.

The industry is currently in a position where it is looking for leaders, bringing yet another challenge. When hiring someone to lead a team, they need to know and understand the complexities of the industry, your products and your organisation, all while being able to manage a team, motivating and inspiring them.

A final challenge in your industry is the pace at which it is evolving. The development of electric and autonomous vehicles means the landscape within the sector is changing, and companies and employees need to keep up with it and develop new understanding and knowledge.

So, what can you do to combat these challenges and recruit the best candidates for your vacancies?

Strategies for Hiring Technical Talent in the Automotive Industry

Thanks to the difficulties faced within the industry, general recruitment strategies don’t always work. You need to be more precise and actively work to address some of the issues with recruitment.

Write Precise Job Descriptions

Engineers and technicians are precise. They work with clarity and specificity, so when looking at potential jobs, they want those things.

Don’t fill up job descriptions with unnecessary language. Make sure you get to the point quickly and clearly so candidates understand what you are looking for.

Your job description and specifications are important parts of your recruitment process. They are usually the first point of contact with you, so they need to share who you are as a company, what you are looking for in a candidate, and the job responsibilities.

This can be tricky because you need to come across as exciting but keep it short and to the point.

Networking

The saying “It’s who you know, not what you know” is never more appropriate than in the recruitment industry.

When you are searching for a candidate in a small pool of potential applicants, meeting those in the industry is a great way to attract talent.

They might not even know they are looking for a new position until they meet you and hear what you have to say about your role and company.

Attending networking events opens doors to finding and getting to know applicants so you can build a relationship with them while recruiting.

Partnering with Arden White

Choosing to work with a specialist automotive recruitment service offers many benefits.

Our team is built with qualified engineers who have worked in the automotive sector and recruitment specialists with extensive automotive industry experience. Together, they offer unique insights and experiences that help you target the type of candidate you are after.

When choosing to work with a team such as Arden White, you can let go of the stress of recruiting and focus on running your business with confidence that we will find candidates that meet your requirements and fit your company culture.

Utilising Technical Assessments

A final strategy you can use throughout recruitment in the automotive industry is using technical assessments.

When hiring for a job that requires specific skills and knowledge, you want to be confident that your candidate can meet them.

Asking candidates to complete an assessment or task gives you an opportunity to review their work, knowledge, skills and process so you can be confident when hiring them.

This is also a great way to whittle down candidates too.

How to Recruit for Automotive Management Roles

When recruiting for leadership and management roles, you might want to implement more specific strategies to ensure you are finding candidates that truly fit your company and can fulfil your expectations of the role.

  1. Define leadership competencies - Clearly outlining desired leadership qualities both internally and within your job descriptions allows you to confidently employ someone who meets them.
  2. Evaluate cultural fit - leadership goes beyond getting people to work and merges into creating a culture. Assessing cultural fit with your company is vital so they can develop it and use it to motivate and support their teams.
  3. Use behavioural interview techniques - using behavioural interview techniques, you can assess how the candidate is likely to respond to certain situations.
  4. Emphasising long-term strategic thinking - as a rapidly moving industry, management teams need to be looking forward and thinking for the long term, so you should emphasise this throughout the recruitment process to avoid short-term placements.

Automotive Recruitment With Arden White

Recruiting in the automotive industry can be challenging, which is why partnering with a recruitment firm can be helpful.

At Arden White, we’re specialists in the field we work in. Our team comprises ex-engineers who have first-hand experience, bringing both cultural and knowledge insights to our process.

We also have recruitment specialists who create strategic recruitment plans to attract top talent with the right experience for your available positions.

Overall, the team offers 75 years of recruitment experience and 50 years of direct engineering experience - a wealth of knowledge you won’t get anywhere else.

We have a network of engineering contacts built-up through our 50 years of work within the engineering sector, which gives us access to passive candidates, and we also have a global network, allowing us to source candidates from around the world.

If you are interested in our team helping you recruit for your automotive company. Don’t hesitate to get in touch. Whether you are looking for permanent, contract, international recruitment or executive search, we are the best team for the job.

Contact us today by calling 01202 862777 or completing our online contact form to request a callback.

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