Graduate software, engineering, and IT recruitment

Many IT recruitment agencies will require a candidate portfolio, such as a GitHub, to showcase projects.

We believe it’s important to take the time to look carefully at candidates’ portfolios. It demonstrates their ability to be proactive, and gives you the opportunity to see examples of their work before hiring engineers or developers.

Current IT recruitment trends show high levels of competition for software staffing. So, if the candidate doesn’t stand out to an IT employment agency, then they won’t stand out to a team of developers.

Therefore, we encourage our graduates to clearly demonstrate projects, coding, walkthroughs, and readmes so that they can show their thought processes and their ability to code.

For more information on technology recruitment trends or IT, engineering, and software recruitment patterns, visit our graduate employment statistics archive.

Our IT recruiters advise:

“When you are looking to hire a team of developers, it is worth looking at graduates who have an academic background in software development.

When you hire a programmer, 3 years of study will nearly always give better experience than someone who’s come from a STEM background and done a coding course.

Our Software Developer recruiters with strong experience in information technology recruitment suggest this is one of the most important considerations when you hire developers.

However, there are many benefits to hiring graduates from STEM subjects like computer finance and engineering. Give A Grad A Go have incredible access to fantastic candidates at a really high level.

So, for businesses looking to hire developers or IT employees straight out of university, an academic background that can be moulded may be more beneficial during your IT talent acquisition. Either way, Give a Grad a Go has the capacity to make this possible and help you find the perfect candidate.”

Thinking about future engineering recruitment for your business and looking for engineering recruitment tips? We’ve put together our top tips for finding perfect engineering candidates for your business.

Or, if you’re looking for an engineering recruitment agency, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve helped thousands of businesses with their engineering hires, and we’re ready to help a thousand more .

Get in touch today to find out more about our award-winning hiring services.

Have a well-written engineering job description

The key to efficient engineering recruitment is having a well-written, accurate, and detailed job description.

Make sure to give your engineering role an accurate and industry-recognised job title. Be specific about the number of years experience required, as well as the skills/software you require experience in.

We know engineering roles require specific skills and experience, so listing these in detail on your job description will allow you to find perfectly matched applicants.

Ask targeted questions during the interview

Engineers need to have excellent problem-solving abilities and technical and analytical mindsets.

In your interview, ask insightful and targeted questions that will help highlight if a candidate possesses the necessary skills for your engineering role.

For more advice, visit our blog for employer interview questions to ask candidates.

Sell your opportunity to candidates

If you’re recruiting for a senior engineering or a more specialised engineering role, candidates will be highly skilled and might be more particular about the type of role and company they’re looking for.

To attract top talented candidates to your engineering role, it’s essential to be proud of your company. List interesting benefits, any stimulating projects they will be working on, training opportunities, company perks, and the full, competitive salary.

Use experienced engineering recruitment agencies

A great way to hire talented engineering candidates for your business is to partner with engineering recruitment agents.

If you’re looking for engineering recruitment agencies in the UK, Give a Grad a Go is the UK’s leading graduate recruitment agency with years of experience hiring for engineering roles.

With a database of exceptional engineering graduates, we can help add talented engineering candidates to your company quickly and efficiently.

Want to utilise the reach of our agency without using our managed service? No problem – our job posting platform allows you to advertise to our audience without any recruitment service strings attached!

Looking to recruit engineers and hire software engineers for your company, and wondering what makes a good engineer?

An important part of your engineering hiring process is knowing the exact qualities to look for in an ideal engineering candidate.

This will allow you to confidently make the right hires for your business and get the most out of your engineering new starters.

Here’s our guide of the top civil engineering qualities, technical engineering skills, and engineering qualities to look for in potential candidates:

Excellent problem-solving abilities

One of the top skills of an engineer is excellent problem-solving abilities.

Engineers will face problems throughout their day-to-day tasks, so it’s essential that your potential applicants have the ability to assess a situation.

Seek a candidate who can meticulously study a problem, apply their analytical skills in a methodical way to identify the root of the cause, and then find a way to solve the issue.

Ability to communicate effectively with a variety of people

As well as having excellent analytical and technical skills, it’s important for engineers to have great soft skills.

An important interpersonal characteristic of an engineer is being able to effectively translate technical issues and jargon to people at many different levels.

Candidates who have the ability to communicate in a clear and concise manner, and change their language depending on audiences, are key to look out for when hiring engineers.

Pay attention to detail

Working in the world of engineering, the slightest error may cause a system to malfunction, structure to fail, or software to glitch.

Your potential engineering applicants should have excellent and precise attention to the smallest of details.

They should be detail orientated and understand that, when working in engineering, nothing is too insignificant to double-check.

Creative thinking

A skill that you may not think is essential to your engineer hires, but is important to look for, is creativity.

Successful engineering candidates should not only have great mathematical and analytical abilities, but be able to also think dynamically.

The best engineering hires for your business will be candidates that can bring new creative solutions and big ideas to the table to improve the overall efficiency of existing systems and processes.

Hiring Software Developers for your business and wondering how to write the best software developer job description?

The key to making the right hires for your business is an effective job description. As one of the best graduate recruitment services, we know how to write successful job ads.

We’ve put together our example Software Engineer job description, software job description examples, and IT job description examples to help with your hiring needs:

Let candidates know the seniority, requirements, and type of Software Developer role from the beginning

To attract the right candidates to your role, it’s key to instantly show a candidate what you’re looking for.

In your job overview start with a statement such as “we are looking for a driven and switched-on Junior Front-End Developer”. This clearly lets a candidate know the type of Software Developer you are hiring, the seniority level, and a quick insight into your expectations of the role.

Follow this with an attention-grabbing statement about your company to excite a candidate and prompt them to carry on reading your job description: “You’ll be joining a growing FinTech startup who have recently gained funding and are ready to take the industry by storm!”.

Be clear about the role requirements

The key to qualified applicants applying to your Software Developer job vacancy is listing the role requirements and experience in detail.

List which web frameworks, relational databases, and programming languages you require experience in, and if you require a certain amount of years experience in any.

If it’s a more junior role, add if a certain degree is necessary. And, if it’s a more senior role, include if you require management experience and specific previous positions held.

Include a competitive industry average job salary

Providing a strong base salary for your Software Developer roles will ensure you find the very best talent when hiring for your developer team.

For Software Developer job descriptions and salary examples, visit our graduate employment statistics to see what other companies are paying Software Developer graduates.