Engineering Recruitment: 5 Lessons for Defining Hiring Requirements

We reviewed several recent engineering position intake meetings and the accompanying job descriptions to see how closely the written requirements matched the actual work. In some searches, we also considered what became clearer when the first candidate profiles reached the hiring team.

We did this because the brief shapes the search. An unclear title can point a recruiter towards the wrong profiles. A trainable software skill listed as essential can exclude a technically relevant engineer. A minimum experience threshold can conceal very different expectations of responsibility.

The review highlighted five lessons for hiring companies. Each offers a way to define the role more precisely before deciding whom to approach or exclude.

1. Assess leadership experience through responsibility and complexity

One engineering management brief required at least five years of project management or leadership experience. During the intake, we examined what the company actually needed the person to manage.

Two managers with five years of leadership experience may have handled very different responsibilities. One manager may run an autonomous team of senior engineers; another may need to direct daily work, develop junior colleagues, and resolve technical issues. Team size, decision-making authority, and the balance between operational work and higher-level management also change the demands of the role.

This makes the depth and complexity of responsibility more useful assessment criteria than a standalone number of years. Before setting the requirement, establish:

• How many people will the new hire lead, and how experienced are they?
• How independently does the team operate, and how much daily direction does it need?
• Which technical, staffing, resource, and project decisions will the manager own?
• How much of the role involves hands-on operational work?

Define the required seniority through those responsibilities and assess comparable evidence from previous roles. This gives the recruiter a clear basis for screening and the hiring team a shared basis for interviewing.

2. Make software knowledge essential only when the work requires it at joining

For one senior electrical design role, EPLAN knowledge appeared among the requirements. The intake established that the company could help a technically suitable candidate learn the program. A lack of existing EPLAN proficiency therefore did not need to exclude an otherwise relevant engineer.

Another search exposed the opposite mismatch: the description said EPLAN and/or AutoCAD, while the actual expectation was proficiency in both. That distinction needed to be clarified before the search could accurately reflect the role.

To illustrate what software filters mean in practice, we compared four simple LinkedIn searches for electrical engineering and design keywords, with the location set to Hungary. We kept those terms unchanged and varied the required software keywords:

Source: Swonder LinkedIn search snapshot. Counts represent keyword matches, not verified proficiency, suitability, or willingness to change jobs. Results can change when the search is repeated.

Adding Revit to the AutoCAD search reduced the results from 273 to 38, approximately 86% fewer matches. Requiring AutoCAD, Revit, and EPLAN returned 18, approximately 93% fewer than the starting search. AutoCAD and EPLAN together returned 82.

The decision for employers is whether each additional software requirement is necessary from the first day. If the company can support learning through internal guidance or funded external training within the time available, existing proficiency may be better treated as an advantage.

Before making a program a mandatory filter, ask: which immediate responsibility would the engineer be unable to fulfil without it? Avoid narrowing your candidate pool with a requirement the role does not need at joining.

3. Define relevant experience through the engineering challenge

Several searches began with a request for relevant or same-industry experience. In a search for data centre construction roles, including project management and design, recruiting only from other data centre construction companies would have restricted where we could look.

We broadened the search and assessed which engineers could be technically suited to the work. This included people with HVAC design and project management experience, electrical engineers from large infrastructure projects, and engineers who had worked on manufacturing facilities.

We looked for the engineering overlap: the systems involved, operating requirements, coordination between disciplines, and responsibility for delivering complex work. Specialist data centre knowledge still needed assessment.

• What makes experience relevant to your projects?
• Which comparable systems, constraints, or delivery responsibilities could demonstrate it?
• Which industry-specific knowledge is essential before joining?

Use the answers to decide which backgrounds to include. “Same industry” should have a clear connection to the work before it becomes an exclusion rule.

4. Use a job title that tells candidates and recruiters whom you need

In one search, we received a job description titled “Mechanical Engineer”. The actual vacancy was for a refrigeration design and modelling role. Initially, the title did not make the client’s need clear to us either.

After the intake, we clarified the position title to describe the specialism and the work. “Refrigeration Design Engineer and 3D Modeller” gives candidates and recruiters a much more specific starting point than “Mechanical Engineer”.

The description should then explain:

• Which systems the engineer will work on.
• What they will design, model, or prepare.
• Which tasks and decisions they must handle independently.

Check the title and opening paragraph together. Could a suitable candidate recognize their own experience in them? Could a recruiter explain the target profile without relying on the broad discipline alone? If either answer is unclear, the advertisement needs more precise wording.

5. Use early candidate feedback to make hidden expectations explicit

Some requirements became clearer after the first profiles were presented. Hiring teams could see how the written criteria translated into actual candidates, and where the available combinations of experience differed from what they had imagined.

For that feedback to improve the search, it needs to name the gap. “Not senior enough” leaves several possibilities open: independent design, team leadership, software proficiency, or knowledge of a particular system.

• Which responsibility would this candidate be unable to take on?
• Was that responsibility clear in the original brief?
• Is the capability essential at joining, or is there a realistic route to developing it?

When the answer changes the target profile, update the brief and agree what it means for sourcing. The next candidates should be assessed against explicit criteria that reflect that feedback.

Review the requirements before they become search filters

Choose the three requirements most likely to exclude candidates from your current vacancy. For each, identify the responsibility it supports, the evidence you would accept, and whether it is genuinely essential at joining. A requirement you cannot explain precisely needs further discussion before it guides the search.

At Swonder, we use position intake meetings to connect a company’s hiring expectations with the engineering work and the experience available in the market. That helps us define which profiles to approach and explain why a candidate deserves technical assessment.

If your engineering search has stalled, or you are preparing a new hire, let’s review the role together. We can clarify which requirements are essential, which need more precise wording, and where relevant candidate backgrounds may be overlooked.