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You’ve accepted a new engineering job, handed in your notice and your current employer suddenly offers you more money to stay. It’s a situation I see regularly, particularly when somebody has skills that are difficult to replace, and it can leave candidates wondering whether moving was the right decision after all.

There isn’t one answer that applies to everybody. Sometimes a counter-offer genuinely can be worth considering, and I’m certainly not going to tell somebody they should leave a job simply because I’ve introduced them to another one. What I do suggest is going back to the reason you started looking in the first place, because that’s usually the most useful place to begin.

One of the quickest ways to make a difficult engineering vacancy even harder to fill is to insist that every candidate must already have worked in exactly the same industry. Sometimes that’s absolutely necessary. There are roles where specific sector experience, regulatory knowledge, security requirements or technical standards genuinely matter, and in those circumstances previous experience can quite reasonably be an essential part of the brief.

But sometimes “must have automotive experience” really means “the last person had automotive experience”, and those aren’t quite the same thing. When the market for experienced engineers is already tight, automatically excluding everybody who hasn’t worked for precisely the right type of company can reduce a potentially interesting candidate pool to almost nobody.

Salary can sometimes be the slightly awkward part of a recruitment conversation. Candidates don’t necessarily want to tell a recruiter what they’re earning, employers don’t always want to reveal their absolute maximum and everybody can end up dancing around the question in case somebody gives away too much information.

From my point of view, I’d much rather have an open conversation about it at the beginning. If you’re looking for £55,000, telling me you’d “consider something around £50,000” doesn’t really help either of us. Equally, if a client has a genuine maximum that they simply cannot exceed, I need to know that before I ask somebody to invest their time in two interviews.

We read a lot of engineering job descriptions. Some are excellent, some look as though they were written ten years ago, saved somewhere on the company server and dragged out every time somebody leaves, and some are essentially a shopping list. You must have this qualification, you must have that experience, you will be responsible for this and you will be expected to do that. Then, right at the bottom, perhaps there are two lines explaining why anybody might actually want the job.

That approach might have worked when employers could reasonably assume there would be a queue of suitably qualified applicants waiting to apply. In many of the specialist engineering markets we recruit within, that simply isn’t the reality anymore. If you are trying to attract an experienced engineer who already has a perfectly good job, the vacancy needs to do considerably more than tell them what you expect from them.

If you’ve worked in engineering for any length of time, there’s a reasonable chance you’ve received a call from a recruiter about a job that has absolutely nothing to do with what you actually do. A keyword somewhere on your CV has triggered a search result and, before you know it, somebody is enthusiastically telling you about an “exciting opportunity” that makes no sense whatsoever.

I understand why engineers can become slightly cynical about recruitment calls as a result. When I contact somebody about a vacancy, I want there to be a genuine reason why I think the conversation is worth having. That doesn’t mean every person I call will ultimately be right for the job, or even interested in it, but there should be more behind the call than the fact that a computer found the right word on their profile.

There is a slightly unfortunate rule in recruitment: the more urgently somebody needs a new member of staff, the harder it often becomes to recruit them properly. We see it particularly in engineering, where a project has been won, production needs to increase, somebody has unexpectedly resigned or a customer has suddenly brought a programme forward. The phone rings and the message is usually some variation of “we need somebody yesterday”. We understand it, and sometimes circumstances genuinely couldn’t have been predicted, but urgency inevitably changes the recruitment process and not always for the better.

There are more ways to contact candidates than there have ever been. LinkedIn messages, emails, texts, job boards and recruitment platforms all make it possible to reach somebody without ever actually speaking to them. They all have their place and I use most of them, but when I’m recruiting for a specialist engineering role, I still think there comes a point where nothing beats picking up the phone and having a proper conversation.

A CV can tell me where somebody has worked, what their job title is and, hopefully, something about the projects they’ve been involved with. What it can’t necessarily tell me is what they actually enjoy doing, why they might consider leaving their current role or what would make the next move worthwhile. That’s the information which often makes the difference between simply finding somebody who matches a specification and finding somebody who might genuinely be right for the job.

One of the conversations we regularly have with engineering clients starts with a fairly simple question:

“How quickly can you find someone?”

The answer, unfortunately, is usually another question: who exactly are you trying to find?

Because recruiting a CNC machinist, an experienced test engineer, a quality engineer or a specialist automotive development engineer is very different from recruiting into a role where there may be hundreds of potentially suitable candidates within commuting distance.

In technical recruitment, the candidate you want quite often already has a job.

And that changes everything.

If you’ve been with the same engineering business for ten, fifteen or even twenty years, finding yourself back in the job market can feel surprisingly daunting.

You may have a huge amount of experience and an excellent track record, but the last time you attended an interview could have been when smartphones were still relatively new. It’s completely understandable if you feel a little rusty.

The first thing I’d say is that your years with one employer aren’t a disadvantage. Long service can demonstrate loyalty, stability and an enormous depth of knowledge. The challenge is making sure you explain how you’ve developed during that time rather than allowing twenty years of experience to appear as one line on your CV.

There can sometimes be a perception that contractors are what you use when recruitment hasn’t gone to plan. A project is behind schedule, somebody has unexpectedly left or a permanent vacancy has been open for months, so eventually somebody says, “Can we get a contractor?”

In my view, that rather misses the point.

Used properly, a flexible workforce can be a strategic resource rather than an emergency measure. Engineering businesses frequently experience peaks and troughs in workload. New projects start, development programmes move through different phases and customer demand changes. Building your permanent headcount around the busiest period you might experience isn’t always commercially sensible.

One of the challenges with engineering recruitment is that job titles can mean almost anything.

I’ve spoken to people called Design Engineers who spend much of their time managing projects, Project Engineers who are extremely hands-on technically and Maintenance Engineers whose responsibilities range from straightforward planned maintenance through to complex fault finding, PLC work and continuous improvement.

That’s why simply putting your job title and dates of employment on a CV doesn’t always tell us very much.

Engineering recruitment is often driven by an immediate need. A new contract has been won, production needs to increase, a project is falling behind or somebody with a critical skill has handed in their notice. Suddenly, finding another engineer becomes urgent.

That’s perfectly understandable, but I think there’s a danger in recruiting purely to solve the problem sitting in front of you today.

When you’re adding someone to an engineering team, particularly in a permanent role, there’s value in thinking about what the business is likely to need from that person in two or three years’ time. Technology changes, customers change and projects evolve. The engineer who joins to solve today’s requirement may eventually be working on something quite different.

One of the questions I’m often asked is whether it’s better to work on a contract basis or take a permanent position.

The honest answer is that neither is automatically the better option. It really depends on what you’re looking for at that stage of your career.

Contract roles can offer excellent rates of pay, the opportunity to work on a wide variety of projects and the chance to build experience across different businesses and industries. Many contractors enjoy the variety and flexibility that comes with moving between assignments.

Why would someone leave their current job to come and work for you?

It sounds like an obvious question, but it’s one that surprisingly few businesses stop to consider.

When an engineering company has a vacancy, the natural instinct is to focus on what they’re looking for. The job description is updated, the list of skills is reviewed and the advert is published.

But what does the candidate see?

Most interview preparation focuses on answering questions.

That’s understandable, but the questions you ask can be just as important.

An interview isn’t simply an opportunity for an employer to decide whether you’re right for the role. It’s also your chance to decide whether the company is right for you. After all, if you’re successful, you’ll hopefully be spending the next few years working there.

When businesses discuss the cost of recruitment, the conversation usually centres around salaries.

Can we afford to pay another £5,000 a year?

Will increasing the salary attract better candidates?

How do we compare with our competitors?

They’re all valid questions, but in my experience they’re not the most important ones.

The biggest cost often comes from hiring the wrong person.

It’s a situation that catches many people by surprise.

You’ve handed in your notice, accepted a new opportunity and started looking forward to the next chapter of your career. Then your current employer asks what it would take for you to stay.

Sometimes it’s a pay rise.

Sometimes it’s a promotion.

Occasionally it’s a promise that things will be different.

One of the biggest mistakes engineering businesses make is assuming recruitment only begins once a role becomes available.

In reality, the most successful hiring often starts months beforehand.

Whether you’re replacing a retiring engineer, expanding a design team or preparing for a new contract, the businesses that plan ahead almost always have more options available to them than those recruiting under pressure.

One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that many engineers are surprisingly modest when talking about their achievements.

Ask them what they’ve worked on and the answer is often, “I was just part of the team.”

Ask what they improved and they’ll say, “Nothing major really.”

For years, I’ve heard employers say they’re waiting for the recruitment market to “return to normal”. The problem is, I’m not convinced it ever will.

Engineering has faced skills shortages for decades. As experienced engineers retire, there simply aren’t enough people entering the profession to replace them. Add advances in automation, renewable energy, manufacturing technology and infrastructure projects, and the demand for skilled technical professionals continues to outstrip supply.

That means employers need to think differently about recruitment.

When people think about changing jobs, it’s natural to compare the obvious things first.

Salary. Commute. Job title. Benefits.

They’re all important and nobody should pretend otherwise. But after many years recruiting engineers across a range of industries, I’ve found they’re rarely the reasons people stay in a role.

The engineers who are happiest a year or two after moving are usually the ones who looked a little deeper before accepting an offer.

One of the things I enjoy most about recruitment is that no two days are ever quite the same. One day we might be helping a client find a specialist design engineer for a long-term project. The next, we’re talking to a contractor who’s spent twenty years in the industry and is looking for a new challenge after a project unexpectedly comes to an end.

What always strikes me, though, is how often people think recruitment is simply about matching a CV to a job description.

If only it were that easy.

If you’ve worked in engineering for any length of time, you’ll probably know someone who never seems to be looking for a new job, yet somehow opportunities keep finding them.

They aren’t necessarily the loudest person in the business, they don’t spend their evenings polishing their CV and they’re certainly not applying for every vacancy that appears online. Yet recruiters call them, former colleagues recommend them and hiring managers ask whether they’re available.

It’s rarely luck.

When I’m talking to clients about a new contractor, the conversation often turns to rates. That’s hardly surprising. Every business has a budget, and every hiring manager wants to know they’re getting good value.

What I’ve learnt over the years, though, is that the cheapest contractor is very rarely the cheapest person to hire.

Most hiring pressure starts long before recruitment begins

In many engineering environments, recruitment only becomes a priority once pressure is already building. A programme ramps up, a key phase approaches, or an unexpected gap appears, and suddenly the focus turns to finding people quickly enough to keep delivery on track.

That approach is understandable. Most programmes are operating under tight commercial and operational pressures, and hiring often competes with dozens of other priorities.

The difficulty is that by the time recruitment becomes urgent, the market has usually already moved.

There’s something I’ve noticed repeatedly over the years, both when I worked in engineering and now from the recruitment side of the industry.

The engineering teams that actually deliver consistently are often not the ones that look the most impressive on paper.

On paper, it’s easy to be drawn towards big CVs, major brands, niche technical skills, and individuals who stand out. And of course, those things all have value. But when you look at projects that run well over a sustained period of time, particularly in automotive and high-performance engineering environments, there’s usually something else going on underneath.

The real cost usually appears later

When businesses think about the cost of hiring, the conversation often starts with salary or contractor rate. That’s understandable, particularly in engineering environments where budgets are tight and programmes are closely managed.

But in reality, the financial cost of a technical hire is usually the easiest part to measure.

The harder costs to quantify are the ones that appear later. Delays to delivery, loss of momentum within a team, rework, increased management time, and the impact on wider programme confidence. In high-end engineering environments, those secondary effects often outweigh the original hiring cost surprisingly quickly.

One thing you learn very quickly in engineering is that projects rarely go exactly to plan. On paper, everything looks clear. Timelines are mapped out, resources are allocated, and the path from start to finish feels well defined. But once things get moving, reality has a habit of getting in the way. Priorities shift, challenges emerge, and what looked straightforward at the outset becomes far more complex.

That’s just the nature of engineering, and it’s something I think often gets overlooked when it comes to hiring.

It’s rarely about volume

If you ask most engineering hiring managers what they want from a recruitment partner, the answer is usually quite simple — they want the right person, at the right time, with the least amount of disruption to the programme.

What they don’t tend to ask for is volume.

In fact, too many CVs often creates more work rather than less. Time gets pulled away from delivery, decisions become harder rather than easier, and the process slows down rather than speeds up.

What most hiring managers are really looking for is a small number of well-considered options that genuinely fit the requirement, both technically and in terms of how the individual will operate within the team.

One of the things that always stands out to me at Le Mans is how much of what actually matters… you don’t really see unless you’re looking for it.

From the outside, it’s easy to focus on the cars, the lap times, and the headline performance. But if you spend any time trackside, you start to notice something else entirely. It’s the way the teams operate behind the scenes. The coordination, the communication, the small decisions being made constantly to keep everything moving.

A noticeable shift in contractor priorities

For a long time, contract work in engineering was often associated with flexibility above all else. Shorter engagements, quick transitions between projects, and the ability to move where the work was most interesting or best paid.

That hasn’t disappeared entirely, but there has been a noticeable shift in recent years — particularly at the higher end of the market.

More contractors are now looking for longer-term opportunities, even when they still choose to remain in contract roles rather than move into permanent positions. It’s not about giving up flexibility, but about finding a better balance between movement and stability.

I’ve always found Le Mans more interesting than Formula 1. Not because it’s more exciting on the surface, but because of what it represents from an engineering point of view.

Formula 1 is about speed, iteration and marginal gains. Le Mans is something different entirely. It’s about endurance, reliability, and systems that have to perform consistently over a sustained period, under pressure, with very little room for error. And from where I sit now, working with engineering teams across automotive and high-performance sectors, that difference is more relevant than most people realise.

When speed becomes the strategy

In most engineering environments, hiring starts with a genuine need. A deadline is approaching, a key phase is about to begin, or a gap has appeared that needs to be filled quickly. The intention is always the same — keep the programme moving and avoid unnecessary delay.

But in some cases, speed stops being the response to a problem and starts becoming the strategy itself. Roles are filled quickly, decisions are made under pressure, and the focus shifts to immediate availability rather than long-term fit.

On the surface, that can feel like progress. The role is covered, the pressure eases, and the project continues. But it doesn’t always take long for cracks to start appearing.

One of the most common things I hear from hiring managers at the moment is that there’s a “talent shortage”.

Good engineers are hard to find. The market is tight. Candidates are difficult to secure.

And to a point, that’s true.

But having worked in engineering before moving into recruitment—and now working closely with teams across automotive and high-performance sectors—I don’t think that’s the real issue.

There’s a lot of pressure in engineering businesses right now to move faster on hiring.

Projects are tight. Deadlines are tighter. And when a critical role opens up, the instinct is often to speed things up—shorten the process, skip stages, and get someone in the door as quickly as possible.

On the surface, that makes sense.

But in reality, we’re seeing more businesses run into problems not because they moved too slowly… but because they moved too quickly.

We’re really pleased to welcome Rebekah French to the ASL Technical team as we continue to grow our specialist engineering recruitment offering.

Rebekah joins us with a strong track record in technical recruitment, and from the moment we started speaking it was clear she shares the same values that underpin how we work — honesty, quality, and genuinely understanding the industries we support.

I watch a lot of Formula 1.

And not for the reasons most people do.

I’m far more interested in what’s happening behind the scenes than I am in who’s standing on the podium. Because if you’ve ever worked in engineering, you quickly realise that performance is rarely about the headline name—it’s about everything underneath it.

The pressure to move quickly

In most engineering environments, hiring rarely happens in a calm, controlled way. It tends to be driven by need. A project ramps up, a gap appears, timelines tighten, and suddenly the priority becomes getting someone in place as quickly as possible.

That pressure is completely understandable. When delivery is at stake, speed matters.

But it often creates a familiar tension — the idea that you can either move quickly or hire well, but not both.

A quiet shift is happening

Over the past few years, most conversations around contract hiring have been dominated by IR35, compliance, and how businesses adapt to it. That hasn’t gone away. But underneath that, there’s been a quieter shift — particularly in high-end engineering environments.

More organisations are starting to move back towards PAYE-based contractor models.

Not across the board, and not always deliberately. But it’s happening often enough to be noticeable. And in many cases, it’s not being driven by policy, but by what actually works in practice.

The assumption is usually complexity

In most high-end engineering environments, delays are typically put down to complexity. Tight tolerances, evolving specifications, integration challenges, supply chain disruption — all the usual suspects tend to take the blame. And to be fair, those things do cause problems. But increasingly, they’re not the reason projects are slipping. More often than not, the issue is something much simpler, and slightly less comfortable to acknowledge: the right people aren’t in place when they’re needed.

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