Student assistants has become our pipeline for hiring engineers, and for that reason we’re taking the process of hiring students very serious
Great engineers are in high demand, and that’s true when we’re looking for student assistants as well.
We’ve luckily received some great applications every time we’ve been looking for a new student assistant, and we think it’s because we have high expectations for the students – both regarding what they’re capable of and what they should learn from their student job.
For that reason we’ve started using a pretty comprehensive recruiting technique: we make them solve a design case in 6 hours.
6 hours case-challenge
After receiving some standard applications, we pick the best few and make them solve a case for us.
The challenge for the applicants is to generate ideas and develop it into a concept within a 6 hour time frame. The challenge will be set in an environment we actually work in (office ergonomics or building sites). That way they’ll get a feeling of the job they’re applying for – and we get to know their thought process, how they explore the idea, what tools and solutions they choose and how they document the process.
This way we only get applicants who’re willing to spend a day to be taken into account for the job, and the challenges gives us a solid foundation for the job interview: what methods do they use for product development, can they document the process and can they sell their idea?
Pipeline for future employees
The process might seem a little circumstantial for recruiting a student assistant, but we’ve received nothing but great feedback on the process from our applicants – so far no one has denied to spend the 6 hours on a challenge.
As a small company it’s crucial to get the right people into the team – even if they’re still studying and only spend 2 days a week at the office. They will play a huge part in the projects they’re about to become a part of, so they need to take us as seriously as we take them.
At the same time this has become the pipeline we recruit our full blown engineers from when they’re done studying – as of 1. May this happened when we hired our design engineer Mathies Herskind after 3 years as a student assistant.
