Aerospace: The true cost of recruitment

Demand is high in the aerospace sector. Between Boeing and Airbus there is estimated to be over 17,000 aircraft orders on the books. At the current rate of production, it could take these companies almost 10 years to fulfil these orders, and with each passing year, and each air show, orders continue to build. While such high demand presents significant opportunity for the supply chain, there is a chronic lack of resource plaguing the sector. In fact, research conducted by Gattaca’s specialist engineering recruitment brand, Matchtech, brought to light that three- quarters of engineers working in the aerospace sector believe there is a skills shortage. With the skills required throughout the supply chain being increasingly difficult to find, hiring managers are struggling to source the right talent to meet the ever-increasing demand.

The challenges of managing increasing recruitment activity

In the past, many aerospace employers have managed to get by without a well-defined resourcing structure in place. Today these same companies are finding that their resourcing or HR infrastructure cannot cope with the increase in recruitment activity. For highly skilled and specific positions across the aerospace sector, such as those within quality engineering, composite engineering and environmental test/development engineering, recruitment can take months and time to hire is becoming a major burden on smaller companies. Feeling the growing pressure, many companies turn to recruitment agencies for help. However, choosing the wrong recruitment agency, or agencies, can end up being an expensive decision and demand even more of your time in the long run. A recent report by the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC), suggested that a poor hire at mid-manager level with a salary of £42,000 could cost a business more than £132,000 in reality (Perfect match: Making the right hire and the cost of getting it wrong).

Some companies choose to work with multiple recruitment agencies in the hope that this will help them find the people they need, fast. Whilst this approach may widen the candidate pool slightly, in reality, these companies often find themselves spending a larger proportion of their time managing multiple agencies and dealing with the complexities this approach can bring. Add into the mix the inevitable risk that these agencies could be sending out mixed messages to the market about your company (without you knowing it), and you could find that working with multiple agencies could have a long-lasting, detrimental effect on your company’s employer brand.

For those who choose to undertake their own recruitment, many find they are thrown into the world of recruitment marketing and tasked with making difficult decisions on how to spend the budget. From high volume job board usage to expensive web and social media ads, many will make costly marketing decisions in the hope that these methods will result in quality job fills. Often these companies are not adequately equipped with enough people, time, budget or skills, to address their immediate recruitment needs through marketing and ensure their employer brand is successfully positioned to attract the people they need in the market.

Once a vacancy is filled, there is also the hidden cost of ‘time to productivity’ to consider. It‘s often difficult to find a candidate who is wholly qualified and ready to work at the level expected from day one, and as such, the time that it takes for this person to reach full productivity should be viewed as a cost. If you consider that many of the best candidates are already in a job and not actively engaged with the market, you can see how reactive recruitment marketing approaches can sometimes lead to poor-quality appointments. This is something which many can relate to as the REC’s recent report found: 85% of HR decision makers admit their own organisation has made a bad hire. This can impact business output or even lead to the business starting the recruitment process all over again within a few months, increasing the ultimate ‘time to productivity’.

Taking a sustainable approach to recruitment by building your employer brand

All of these outlays are sometimes just accepted as the costs of recruitment. However, it is possible to reduce them. If the industry is to fulfil the growing need for talent, businesses in the supply chain need a more sustainable approach to recruitment. Few SMEs have sufficient budget to build an extensive HR/recruitment function, so working with an outsourcing partner who can utilise a more proactive, brand-led, talent pooling approach can offer a cost-effective, efficient alternative.

In the current market, it is increasingly important for companies to understand and be able to consistently communicate what their company can offer an employee; and this is about more than pay rates and benefits. Matchtech’s and Networkers’ independent Voice of the Workforce research showed that aside from good pay and benefits, engineering and technology professionals want to know that their work will be interesting and meaningful, and that they will have good career prospects.

Having a partner who is able to help you communicate why your company is great to the candidates you want to recruit, will help you to engage with more people who are right for your business. If you can consistently use your employer brand to provide a positive experience and engage with these people through the whole recruitment process, these individuals can also become ambassadors of your brand, whether they join the business or not. A well-defined and effective employer value proposition can not only help with attraction and engagement but also retention of staff. Creating a positive working culture is a key part of this – a negative culture is a major influence in the decision to leave an employer for 41% of engineering and 44% of technology professionals according to the aforementioned Voice of the Workforce research.

If this is well managed, this approach will not only provide you with a long-term strategy for attracting and engaging talent, it will help ensure that the capability and culture of your company is championed within an increasingly competitive sector.

Recruitment challenges in the aerospace sector are profound, with technology and demand racing ahead of the traditional supply chain. But whilst it’s tempting to employ reactive recruitment tactics, spending time putting a more sustainable resourcing process in place now could well save you time and money in the long run.