CASE STUDY
Help Wanted: “Our Principle Engineer is very sick, we have
no internal replacement and we can not be successful without him.”
Company: Engineering
Firm/Industrial
Position: Senior Mechanical Engineer
Search Start: December
2010
Search End: March
2011
The Challenge: The company had a sudden and significant
problem requiring a delicate but fast solution.
Their Principle Mechanical Engineer, a person who had been with them
from the day they launched, had fallen gravely ill. There was no time frame for how long he would
be out of commission, and no guarantee that he would come back in a full-time
capacity.
The company had also recently won a bid for a large and very
complicated project that meant months of complex engineering work and a
significant amount of revenue for the firm.
A much needed infusion of cash during the height of the economic crisis.
The type of engineer my client needed does not grow on
trees. They needed a Senior Mechanical
Engineer, with a Professional Engineering (PE) license, and significant
industrial engineering experience. Further
complicating the situation is the type of engineering the company specializes
in; process engineering, design/build of power plants, facilities and complex
chemical processes. They needed someone
who could spec out, draft, design, and project manage. Sounds like a typical engineering role, but
in actuality, most of the engineers with the experience they needed (15+ years
under their belt) haven’t touched AutoCAD in years. They usually have an internal resource
drafting/editing designs as needed.
I’ll add one small wrinkle to this situation. They had tried
working with recruiters in the past but with no success. They stated there was no one out there who
truly understood what they did or was willing to invest a great deal of time in
figuring it out. Hiring into their
unique culture and high standards would be a considerable challenge. This would
be my first time working with the firm.
I knew when I left the meeting this was a perfect fit for me.
The Search: Networking into the chemical process design
engineering world is extremely difficult.
Most of the really talented people know each other, or know of each
other, and they are typically gainfully employed or gleefully self
employed. They have little to no
interest in entertaining a move unless they have to. They are also not overtly public about their
profiles. You won’t find them on
LinkedIn or any of the resume sourcing boards.
Getting an introduction is only successful if the engineer candidate
knows the person and is a trusted resource.
The first two weeks of the search brought a few decent but
less experienced candidates. People
definitely worth talking to, but no one who really matched my expectations
relative to the complexity of the projects they worked on, nor the hands-on
design experience my client desired. As
we continued to work together, educating each other on both their perception of
the candidate market, and my knowledge of what the market would bear, further
culling out the must haves from the plusses, I realized that the search
parameters and the geography would have to expand in order for us to find this
rare talent.
Through multiple connections and conversations with other
principal level engineers and hiring managers who also sought these skill sets,
I learned that there were only about five truly dynamic, incredibly talented
and potentially available candidates who would be an ideal match. The tentative position my client was in, coupled
with the possibility the tenured Mechanical Engineer may recover and return
made the position less attractive. What
if they hired someone but didn’t have enough work to keep both busy? Or worse, would there be a power struggle
between the two putting them at odds with each other and the other
partners?
The feedback I received once candidates reviewed the
position summary (‘You’re never going to find someone like this, they just
don’t exist.’) or as I discussed the specifics of the situation was somewhat
negative. Why would anyone leave a full-time
position where they are well paid and work is plentiful for a situation where
they may end up back on the street within the year? Oh, and by the way, have you heard the latest
unemployment numbers?
As the odds got lower, my persistence increased. I continued to drill, discover and identify
candidates through extensive networking, and this included leveraging my many
wonderful contacts turning their network upside down to identify one or two
potentials. A timely conversation with a
local Senior Engineer who had someone in mind recommended I call him
immediately. The candidate lived in
Connecticut and would require relocation, but he was the single most talented
Senior Mechanical Engineer he’d ever worked with, and I would be impressed with
the depth and breadth of his experience.
The Solution: He had 25+ years of industrial and commercial
mechanical engineering experience, on both domestic and international projects,
developing and designing custom solutions for extremely complex, next-to-impossible,
chemical process challenges for demanding multi-national clients. But this was not the only area he had
expertise in…he was also extremely diverse.
In addition to many other areas of industrial design experience, he had deep
experience in consulting on industrial HVAC solutions, a much-needed skill set
for the firm.
Within the first hour of the interview, the match seemed
ideal. My client was also incredibly
impressed with the energy and enthusiasm the candidate demonstrated, and the
willingness he expressed to take on the opportunity. The candidate would not only need to
relocate, but he would also need to shut down his consulting firm which
included breaking a lease and a physical move of both office and
residence. It was a very unusual
situation but both client and candidate seemed satisfied that this was necessary
and each required a time-sensitive response.
Within three weeks of the first meeting, an offer was drafted and
accepted. The candidate began his
assignment in the spring of 2010.
Today: The candidate remained with the firm through
late Spring of 2013. An unfortunate
family circumstance forced his resignation to care for his family. As an expat, he was happy to return home but
sad to leave behind a tremendous career opportunity.
Having a window of three months to prepare for this
transition, I went back out to the market with a new vigor to identify and hire
his replacement. I knew exactly what we
needed and though it would still be a tall order, it was a familiar one. Within a few weeks of launching the search, a
strong local candidate was identified with extensive lead-time. In June 2013, the baton was passed from the
retiring ME to the newly hired ME who was again a unique find in a very limited
field of experts. The feedback so far has
been exceedingly positive and both candidate and client are extremely happy
with the match.
No comments:
Post a Comment