Structures
Structures is an Austin-based Structural Engineering design firm that serve Owners, Architects, Contractors, and Consultants to help realize project goals. They were founded in 1990 and operate across a variety of market sectors ranging from Commercial & Mixed-use to Healthcare and Education.
THE REQUIREMENTS.
- 3 x Project Engineers
- 1 x CAD Operative
THEIR CHALLENGE.
Managing Principal, Heidi Cisneros was keen to grow the team to ensure that demand from existing and new business opportunities could be met. However, the challenge of the Austin market during Q3 and Q4 of 2022 was that Licensed Engineers were in high demand and short supply.
Many of the larger businesses in the market had a strong presence and a strong employer brand and whilst Structures had an exceptional proposition, the market was less aware of what that was specifically in comparison to some of the other businesses across the region.
THE SOLUTION.
Heidi had made great efforts to engage the talent market herself given the opportunity that finding quality Engineers would provide in the way of growth. Heidi engaged her network through LinkedIn, used word of mouth as much as possible but very few people responded and there was a distinct lack of quality resumes to review and even less to interview. On the odd occasion where candidates were interviewed and offered, the ability to convert in to an employee was 0. Therefore this was taking significant time without any positive return on that investment.
We provided recruitment support over a 2-month period. It was critical to provide support as the quality of the candidate required was very likely to be gainfully employed and not seeking a new opportunity. In addition, whilst Structures are hugely reputable, we needed to be able to educate much of the candidate market on just how attractive the proposition which would have a positive impact on the employer brand.
Therefore under our Partnership model, we were able to identify a long-lost of 220 Structural Engineers- 80 of whom were Project Managers. This would be the target market for the search taking into account the technical and personal specifications.
The market was systematically head-hunted, contacted and screened across the 8-week period. This was a hugely time-intensive period of video calls, interviews, and reference calls to understand to ensure the quality of the applicants was first class.
THE RESULTS.
- 220 candidates Long-listed
- 8 candidates submitted across 3 PE positions
- 3 candidates submitted for an additional CAD position
- 3 Project Engineers hired
- 1 CAD operative hired
Time to hire: 70 days from assignment inception through to the final candidate starting.
