Friday, August 7, 2009

Hiring engineers now is easy, right?

Wrong!  I’ve run across quite a few people in the past year that have assumed that’s the case, but have found out differently.  Hiring top software programmers and hardware engineers is always a challenge.  Having piles and piles and piles of resumes does NOT make it any easier.


So what’s a hiring manager to do?  Well, the last hire I did for myself (as opposed to the ones that I help our clients with) I had four very clear objective criteria.


1)      The candidate had to have a Bachelors’ degree


2)      The candidate had to have experience with a specific program


3)      The candidate had to have at least 2 years professional experience


4)      The candidate did not require H1-b sponsorship


One of our clients is doing this now with good success.


Now, I know you can make valid arguments against any of those hard and fast rules.  Some of the smartest people I know don’t have college degrees.  In different times I might have made that argument myself (might be good idea for a blog entry next year), but you need some way to get through hundreds of resumes a week.  The nice thing about objective criteria is that a hiring manager can get help – someone to prescreen for him.  So what are your deal breakers?  Knowing that going in will make hiring in these times much easier.


I’m sure all you job seekers out there are saying “That’s not fair!”  You’re right, but as my mother always said, Life’s not always fair.  So what’s a job seeker to do?  Well, I need something to write about next week…