What I have learned employing engineers

Or: How can I game the employment process?

Recently, I have been involved in numerous aspects of the engineering hiring process. I have noticed some phenomena and some changes that would be of value to the global engineer. So, in this issue, I am going to share with you what I have learned from my experience in hopes it helps you progress your career more.
Applicant Tracking System (ATS) really do mean there is a vital part of your resume
When I reviewed the resumes of applicants through the ATS (a program designed to make the hiring process easier) for a role I was wishing to fill, I noticed that each time I clicked on the applicant’s link, the ATS showed a preview of the top 1/3 of the first page of the resume. The end result was that I automatically used this to do an initial screening. Therefore, you should ensure that this part of your resume has a summary of your skills and what you have to offer. If a resume had a summary in this section and that summary aligned with what I was looking for, then I was more likely to pass it to the next stage.
Portfolios are great for engineering roles
 Portfolios are usually for roles like industrial design, graphic design, fashion design and other roles where you can assess the skill of the applicant by what they share.
However, in the engineering context, a section that was dedicated to the various achievements that the applicant was most proud of helped phenomenally. An image was good, if confidentiality allowed, but otherwise a descriptive heading so the hiring manager could grasp the nature of the challenge was a great start. Then a description of the nuances and how the challenge was completed.
I didn’t care how much longer it made the resume; this was excellent insight to assess an applicant.
Photos are good in the right context
I recall one applicant who had a photo of himself on the front page of the resume. He just looked like a design engineer. The rest of the team agreed that after seeing his photo, they could easily imagine him sitting in the same department next to the others in the team.
I suspect the photo was taken by a professional who asked him the role and industry he was interested in, then took care of the rest. He had the right clothes, worn the right way and he had an expression that conveyed that mix of creativity and practicality with a strong dose of cooperation that you want in all members of an engineering design team.
There is no substitution for proper assessment of skills in the interview
Many hiring managers still seem to think that they can come up with the ideal questions to assess skill. In my experience, they can’t. I think half the reason is that they don’t actually think about the skills they really need, and instead focus on specific domain knowledge.
I have found that the best way to assess an applicant is by giving them:

• some pencil and paper,
• a relevant challenge described on another sheet of paper, and
•  an hour or more to explore and solve (if possible) that challenge.

You get to see their knowledge, the way they think, the way they formulate new questions for better understanding, how well they communicate with words and pictures, and their comfort with this type of work.
It would be best if you get challenged like this in an interview, but, the fact is, you will likely need to show domain knowledge for the respective role. And it’s hard to say which aspect the interviewer will latch on to – sometimes they ask you about a specific challenge they had the prior week which is not even indicative of their usual work.
AI was a huge help
I used AI in a number of ways:

1. I used it to screen the resumes and rank them based on the attributes I wanted. The great thing about this, is that it read the entire resume looking for evidence of the attributes I was after. Thus, it would find things I would miss – making it fairer on the applicants. Because it also explained why it ranked each applicant the way it did, I was able to refine the prompt if needed and I felt very confident in the findings. This is ideal when you have 100s of applicants – especially if they have extra sections like portfolios in their resumes.
2. Once we had culled the applicants down to about 30, the HR support team was then able to call those 30 for a prelim interview. Because they dictated the answers – likely using AI – we have complete text of their responses. By ensuring the questions asked were aligned with the attributes we were after (things like what’s your favourite engineering design tool or philosophy and why) each answer revealed a lot about their experience and practice. Again, these answers could be put into AI for quick assessment.
3. Developing questions. AI provided great feedback to the questions and assessments I had conceived. It helped me refine them to ensure that there was a minimised chance of misunderstanding and that they indeed assessed for the desired attributes. It therefore helped remove unconscious bias.

I can see it only doing more in the future.
Summary of key points for the global engineer

1. Make sure you have a clear expression of yourself and what you offer in the top third of the first page of your resume.
2. If you are going to do a photo, then consult a professional photographer who understands the goal and purpose of the photo.
3. Consider adding a portfolio (or any other supporting sections). This helps an interested engineering hiring manager learn more about you once they show interest in your application. It also works well with AI systems that can digest a lot of information.
4. Soon AI will become more common, and I can see it making things fairer, but until then, you do need to be ready for idiosyncratic domain-specific questions from employers.