I remember when my daughter was a toddler she would play with a shape sorter, one of those plastic cubes with holes in them, each one different; a star, oblong, triangle, crescent, square etc, etc. She would have to work out where each piece fitted correctly. Some of the pieces would fit in different holes, but her task was to get them into the right holes. The hand clapping and sense of achievement, when she completed the task, was warm and wonderful. That often is the feeling recruiters get when we solve a hiring challenge for a client.

Project Managers come in all shapes and sizes, and this can make finding the right one harder than you might at first think.

We had a brief from a technology design company to recruit a Project Manager who was experienced across a range of projects covering ideally different technologies and end products. The role was both attractive and challenging as it would handle several projects concurrently, so context switching capability was key, as well as demonstrating high levels of organisation, and efficiency with experience dealing with small- and large-scale projects both in terms of team size, budget, and size and structure of the client. The challenge was that finding someone with the right balance of experience who was not so senior / corporate that they had outgrown the role or were too settled in large corporate structures was difficult. We could see what we wanted but could not attract them for various reasons desire to work remotely discounted many as the willingness to collaborate in person was key to the client. Whilst competitively remunerated in terms of salary there were overall pay structure challenges, for example, Project Managers in Semiconductor design teams were often too expensive for the role, not so much in base salary but definitely when accounting for the “golden tether” of shares. Project managers in smaller companies or pure software companies may lack range and volume of experience.

This role was important to the client as it was a key customer-facing role but also would carry significant influence setting the tone for the team as well as simply by the impact of communication and collaboration with the team. The cultural match is as important as the technical and career match.

We considered some very strong aspirational candidates who had worked in product design and had excellent project management qualifications and criteria, we considered project managers from software companies and even people who had worked in smaller companies in project management and operations roles.

The right candidate was found and had an excellent balance of having developed their career in a larger technology enterprise working in various divisions of the company but also having experience with technology start-ups and consultancies. The role was an excellent, attractive, and exciting fit for the candidate but also their own cultural values matched the client. Tellingly the candidates themselves were highly motivated to find a role where they would work in the office spending time collaboratively supporting the various teams and individuals in person. They were super enthusiastic about embedding themselves into the company both professionally and personally.

That felt like and was a win!

Our client was delighted to hire someone who had the experience, skills, and track record but also importantly the motivation and desire to positively impact the internal team as well as the clients!

Enigma People Solutions is an award-winning technology recruitment consultancy. We find technical leaders for the emerging and enabling technology industries. Visit our services page for more information. Visit our job search page for the latest vacancies in photonics, electronics, semiconductor, software and IoT in Scotland and the UK. Check out our blog page for the latest in the technology industry. You can get in touch with us hello@enigmapeople.com or call us on + 44 131 510 8150