Engineering & Manufacturing

Engineering and manufacturing is where Brennan Hale started, and it remains the largest desk in the business. We recruit for the people who design products, run production lines and hold quality to a standard: design and development engineers, CNC and CAM programmers, controls and automation specialists, process and manufacturing engineers, and the quality and continuous improvement people who keep it all honest.

Most of our clients are mid-sized manufacturers between 50 and 800 people, plus a number of tier-one suppliers into automotive and aerospace. They tend to have small internal HR teams and no dedicated technical recruiter, which is precisely where we are useful. We are also comfortable with the reality that a good production engineer will not apply through a careers portal, and most of our placements come from direct approach rather than advertising.

The dominant constraint in this market is automation skills. Every manufacturer we speak to is trying to reduce reliance on manual process, and there are simply not enough engineers who can specify, program and commission a cell. We spend a good deal of time persuading clients that a strong mechanical engineer with genuine PLC exposure is a better hire than waiting nine months for a perfect match.