Staffing in 2004

By all objective indicators, it seems that the worst of the recession has past us like a tsunami.

Although we can expect companies to hire engineers  in progressively larger numbers by Q2 2004, this will be done with extreme caution and thrift.

References will be checked thoroughly, academic achievements will be verified with the institutions in question, and interviews will be extremely technical and rigorous.

Third party search firms and contract recruiters are going to be out of luck if they hope this improvement in the tech sector will benefit them however.  Most companies are still reeling from the incredibly high prices they paid from 1997 to early 2001 for contingency search fees and contract recruiting (very often, these people we charging $100.oo per hour and were essentially glorified paper pushers) fees.  From our perspective, high tech companies are going to hire these new people by working smart, and using internal resources wisely.  

The line managers actually have a significant advantage over recruiters when it comes to hiring.  After all, they understand the technology and they know how to pick out personality quirks that may not be beneficial to the specific dynamics of their respective teams.  Additionally, technical line mangers are much more effective in persuading, or dare I say it "selling" the candidate on  the job.  (Let's face it, engineers don't report to recruiters...they report to engineering mangers.)

With the proper staffing plan, and a little coaching, engineering team can efficiently (and of course, cost effectively) do much of the hiring on their own without using third party search firms.  The key lies in working smart, and using technologies to filter and / or eliminate unwanted resumes.