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Ash Madni, in his recent Viewpoint piece in Electronics Weekly (26 April 2023 edition), provided interview tips for graduate engineers. He said, “after three or four years of hard study, you’ve graduated and now the job hunting starts” and he provided some really helpful advice for students.
Employers’ perspective
I know from my eight years leading the UK Electronics Skills Foundation (UKESF) that industry demand for Electronic Engineering graduates is high. Therefore, in this Viewpoint piece, I wanted to look at graduate recruitment from an employers’ perspective.
Of course, it’s great that parts of our electronics sector, such as chip design, are doing well. However, with demand for graduates outstripping supply, it means getting recruitment right is critical and companies need to avoid making costly mistakes. That is why, based on my experience of supporting more than 750 undergraduates through our UKESF Scholarship Scheme, I wanted to share my thoughts about how employers can de-risk their graduate recruitment process.
High demand
Let me start with an obvious but important point. The high demand for graduates the industry is currently experiencing means employers can find themselves in a situation where they are ‘selling’ themselves to prospective graduate engineers.
Attracting the most capable graduates to your business can present some challenges, as there is a lot of competition from within the sector and from adjacent ones too. Engineering graduates have sector-specific technical knowledge but also the transferrable skills sought by many employers in the wider ‘tech’ environment.
The reality is your company may not be as well-known as the tech ‘giants’. There are, however, a number of ways you can compete successfully for graduates.
Motivation
It is important to consider motivation.
More often than not, Millennials are driven by purpose, challenges and work life balance. Their values are intrinsic to their working life.
In particular, we know that engineering students are motivated by interesting challenges and fulfilling work, and they like to ‘make a difference’. Bearing this in mind can help you become an employer of choice for graduates.
We know that some employers favour a structured, formal, graduate development programme for new starters. This traditional approach does have benefits, but it can run counter to Millennials’ desire to make an impact. Therefore, we suggest involving graduates in challenging ‘real’ work and interesting projects early.
Also, new graduates’ benefit from being exposed to as diverse a range of your employees as possible, including top management. Give them the opportunity to ask questions to everyone they encounter will help them to crystallise what it means to work for your company. For instance, “Lunch and Learn” events are great opportunities to share knowledge and to learn from and engage with colleagues from across the company.
Basics
When selecting graduates, it’s important employers don’t just focus on what the prospective employees currently know. Although it is important to cover the ‘basics’, technical questions at interviews should not primarily be a straight ‘knowledge’ test. Different universities have slightly different course structures and module content and there is no common benchmark for a graduate’s knowledge.
At UKESF we advocate that interviewers focus on potential and explore how applicants think and apply their knowledge. Can candidates speculate and extrapolate beyond their current knowledge base? Can they think unfamiliar scenarios through in a logical manner? Importantly, are they curious and intrinsically motivated? These attributes can be assessed by discussing their extra-curricular projects and self-learning beyond their university studies.
Employers
Overall, the best way is to de-risk graduate recruitment is to be proactive and to connect with potential graduates when they are still students, essentially to ‘try before you buy’. This can be done by offering work placements and internships. This enables employers to get to know someone in the work context, over an extended period. To see the ‘real’ person and assess their potential and capabilities and, importantly, to see if they are good fit for your company.
From a student’s perspective, a work placement provides an invaluable opportunity to gain practical experience to complement their academic studies. Therefore, it is a ‘win-win’ situation. However, reaching students can be difficult for employers. Attending careers fairs at universities can be time consuming and inefficient, and ‘open’ recruitment via student careers website may not produce suitable candidates. This is where the UK Electronics Skills Foundation (UKESF) can help.
Scholarship Scheme
For over 10 years, the UKESF Scholarship Scheme has helped industry to recruit bright and motivated students into Electronics. Employers have been fully involved in the design and development of the Scholarship Scheme since its inception, and it has gone from strength-to-strength – this year we had the largest ever number of companies offer scholarships. These range from international, renowned global companies to SMEs, across the whole spectrum of electronics and semiconductors.
The UKESF is able to reach a wider pool of students than individual companies are able to on their own. Companies supporting undergraduates, to gain experience and build their professional skills throughout their studies, are taking positive action to address the graduate skills shortage and build long term relationships with high-achieving young engineers.
Stewart Edmondson is Chief Executive Officer at UKESF.
See also: Chronic skills shortage threatens any semiconductor strategy, warns UKESF
Not to mention that some agencies apply on your behalf without informing you.
Guess how I know that.
And it still rankles after all these years.
I could name & shame but won’t.
I’ve read this and Ash’s article and would like to add some points, especially for any students reading.
1. Decide what sort of company you want to work for. A large company, as typified by the ones my wife used to manage at, offers sensible hours, training courses, good pensions, support in gaining the various levels in professional bodies and so on, but the work is rather predictable. Conversely working for SMEs such as myself the work is all-hours, training is on the job, and if you want to join a professional body that’s up to you. But the work is definitely unpredictable, even from morning to afternoon.
2. Deciding which type of company depends on various factors. Some companies, both large and small, only want team players, whereas others are happy with solitary geniuses. Determine what you are first and give some hint to it in your CV. Saying you are a good team player when you obviously aren’t will soon become obvious. HR departments like team players but R&D managers usually just want the best person for the job. If it’s a huge software project then obviously team players win but if you’re aiming to be an r.f. or power supply designer then you’ll probably be working on your own for months on end.
3. Don’t rely solely on agencies to distribute your CV. Many companies, large (my wife’s) and small (mine) have a ‘no agencies’ rule after a lot of nonsense in the 1990s I won’t go into.
4. Conversely if you are going to send a CV directly to a company, only send it to one person in the company, not to numerous roles. They all end up on the same desk and seeing the same CV five times most likely means they all end up in the waste basket, electronic or otherwise.
5. Also if applying directly, tell any agency NOT to send the CV to that company. Receiving a CV directly and from an agency creates all sorts of legal hassles later on which are best avoided by the delete key.
6. If you get an interview, do your homework on the company. That used to be hard but the Internet makes it relatively easy. Read the website on what products/services the company offers, and also read the company financial statement if available as it often gives things like who their top ten customers are.
7. Have a fairly wide expectation on what work you will be doing. Far too many graduates apply to a company thinking they will be doing high level system design and product definition from day one. You won’t be. Some companies will place you in system test first so that you understand the company’s products and so on. Don’t take this as a negative – Jobs and Wozniak both started doing this and they didn’t do too badly.
8. Be realistic on what salary you are seeking, but don’t quote low and then try to raise it once you have a job offer. And preferably don’t tell your university supervisor what your salary is until you’ve actually started the job. Some of them seem to be scored on the average salary of their graduates and have the audacity to phone up the manager in question to demand a higher offer. I always answer such demands with a two word answer but it then makes you wonder if you’ve hired the right person.
9. I don’t think many companies expect a suit and tie any more (a few do though), but at least arrive at the interview having had a bath and wearing clean clothes. And remove any body jewellery. It will be obvious to the interviewer that you do wear some but what is normal for your generation isn’t necessarily so for the older generations you will be working with and you have to fit in with them, not the other way around.
10. Be enthusiastic but don’t oversell yourself. You’re not the greatest engineer since Brunel, at least not yet. But sounding like you want to aim high is a plus point with most interviewers.
Hi Stu,
It is jolly kind of you to cite my article. I think what you and Neil are doing is great! Keep it up!