Choose one who only works in controls and automation and can talk through your platforms and projects on the first call. They should send three to five resumes you’d interview rather than thirty you have to screen, and they should put the fee and the replacement terms in writing before a single engineer is approached.
Most integrator owners and engineering directors who call us have tried a generalist first. The role went to an engineering agency that also covers mechanical, civil and IT. Resumes came back within days, matched to the keywords in the spec, and the hiring manager spent a week screening out people who’d supported a PLC but never written the code or commissioned a system. Three months later the role is still open and nobody is reading the emails.
The first call tells you most of what you need to know. Ask what they’ve placed in the last year on your platform and in your region. Ask what a senior Rockwell or DeltaV engineer is earning right now and how that changes when the role needs travel. Ask which companies they’d go to first for the engineer you want. A specialist answers with names of platforms, projects and numbers. A generalist tells you about the size of their database.
Ask for their resume to interview ratio. It’s the clearest measure of whether anyone was screened before being sent. We send 1.2 resumes for every first interview our clients run, against an industry norm of around 2:1, and the difference is hours your hiring manager gets back.
Ask who’ll be speaking to the engineers. Whoever makes the calls needs to understand the job well enough to tell a candidate the truth about the travel, the platform and why the last person left. Engineers can tell within a few minutes whether a recruiter knows the work, and the good ones stop taking the calls of those who don’t.
Ask whether they’ll approach your own team. Some agencies fill your role while marketing your engineers to your competitors. We don’t approach engineers at the companies we work for.
Get the terms in writing before the search starts. That means the fee, how and when it’s paid, the replacement period and what happens if you hire someone you found yourself. The model matters as much as the fee. Retained fits the hire you can’t get wrong, contingency fits a single role where you want help without commitment and contract fits work with an end date. Our guide on hiring models goes through each one.
Be wary of a recruiter who sends resumes before they’ve spoken to you about the role, who can’t give you a salary range or who’ll take any role on any terms. If a role can’t be filled at the salary on offer, a good recruiter tells you on the first call.
Use one recruiter per role where you can. Four agencies on the same role means four people sending the same handful of active jobseekers, and none of them putting in the hours it takes to find the engineers who aren’t looking.
CandidTalent recruits controls, automation, MES, SCADA and DCS engineers for systems integrators, machine builders and manufacturers across North America, on retained, contingency, embedded and contract terms. We’ve filled every retained search we’ve taken on and we reply to every inquiry within 12 hours. If we don’t think we can fill your role, we’ll say so on that first call.
