Our challenge: Tech Recruiting

Recruiting at Engel & Völkers is challenging. There are areas in which we are benefitting of our strong brand so much, that we get several thousand applications for one position. And there’s tech recruiting. In the first weeks after we published the new job profiles, we only received a few applications. This is an unusual experience for us, but an important one.

Tech recruiting is an area in which we can and should present ourselves in another way. We used these first weeks to analyse the biggest optimisation potential and were able to define these top 3:

1) We are almost invisible for our target group. 

The fewest techies are associating the name Engel & Völkers with an interesting Tech employer with a strong vision. Let’s face it: We seem old-fashioned, conservative and no one believes we create real cool technologies and digital products. We should work on that.

2) Know who you're looking for. 

What is a frontend engineer? Why is automated testing important and was does clean code mean? We’re only skimming the surface with these examples (play on words alert!) - but basically it is about internalising the job profiles, identifying the WHAT and understanding WHO we are looking for.

3) Are we even really looking? 

Up to this point we were used to being found! :-) We have to change the whole recruitment process from the initial contact up to the final decision in order to meet our target group’s needs (optimise the HOW). Which way of approaching people do we have to choose, how many steps and which participants does our process include, will there be a coding challenge ?? - these are all questions we should settle as soon as possible.

Apart from the many challenges, we have two significant advantages: Our story is unique! Our tech team is as well. We just have to make ourselves well-known in the fieldsand share this with others. One first step is this blog on which anyone can read about our experiences. Tech recruiting will also be part of this and we are looking forward to provide insights into our professional routine!