Five Talent Trends for the Automation Industry in 2015

What will be the top talent trends in the Automation workplace over the next year?

As a Managing Partner and Senior Recruiter for the Automation Industry, I see a strong growth trend making our Industry hot! That means the need for top performers and executive talent will be highly competitive and great candidates will find themselves in positions of strength. From my perspective, the following are the five key talent trends to watch in 2015.

  1. Executive Leadership on the Market

With a growing economy comes mergers and acquisitions activity and an increase in leadership changes at the top of organizations.  With these changes, companies take new directions and create new visions and consequently, not everyone will be on board.  As a result, we’ve seen a significant increase in high level executives looking for their next career challenge.  If you’ve made a significant change recently, take the time to communicate with your executive leadership team and make sure that everyone is on board and ready to move forward together.

  1. Talent Poaching Through Cyber Attacks

The talent war heats up as aggressive recruitment of superstars invades your workplace. Today’s continuous advancements in technology and the wide reach through multiple platforms including social media make cyber talent poaching possible. You can’t stop it, even if it’s happening on company time.  Combining technology’s wide reach with current surges in growth and hiring, it becomes open season on your best employees. Your only defense is to bolster your employee retention programs. Give your team a better future with your company than they would have elsewhere.

  1. Speed in Hiring

Organizations are realizing that excessive interviews and indecisiveness are causing bottlenecks and delays that ultimately lose high quality candidates since top talent doesn’t stay on the market for long. To remedy this, companies are deleting unnecessary steps and thinking outside their standard recruiting methods to include rewards for fast hiring, special hire teams to expedite key searches, creating a “most wanted” list to build a pipeline to top talent, and using third party firms or outside recruiters for challenging high level searches.

  1. Counteroffers on the Rise

With more job openings and career opportunities created in 2014 than we’ve seen in the past 6 years, hiring managers and HR executives are expressing concerns over losing top performers. As a result, many employers have increased their use of counteroffers. Counteroffers may come in the form of a salary increase, additional company benefits or a promotion, and is a last ditch effort to retain top talent rather than lose them to a competitor and bear the expense of replacing them.

  1. Video Interviewing & Skype More Popular

The use of remote face-to-face interactions such as video interviewing and Skype is on the rise.  Advanced technology is giving hiring managers a way to review candidates and their personalities prior to meeting them in person. In addition, it can help shorten the interview process often effected by travel, schedules, vacations, etc.  Plus new hires meet the team before they even step in the office.

For more details, visit http://www.directrecruiters.com/practice-areas/automation-and-sensors-controls

Robert Cohn is a Managing Partner and Senior Recruiter with Direct Recruiters, Inc. He specializes in the Sensors & Controls, Robotics, Packaging, and Material Handling industries.

Contact Robert:

Tel: 440-996-0595

Email: [email protected]