How much do aerospace engineering recruiters cost staffing agencies? The employment market has never been an uneventful place. There are always the transactions of job seekers wanting to get employed and employers needing workers to keep their respective businesses up and running. Even when one party needs the other, they might not have the chance to sit together and properly discuss potential employment opportunities that mutually benefit them. This is where professional recruiters truly shine as they come in to help bridge the communication and fill in the little gaps missing from both sides.
Some recruiters function as vocational and career counselors who provide job-related advice or guidance for workers. In contrast, others are headhunters who help employers find the right talents for open positions in companies or organizations. There isn’t a clear distinction between the two types, as many recruiters offer services to both groups. Large companies are leaning more towards hiring headhunters specializing in talent and job matchmaking practices.
Cad Crowd’s work with veritable aerospace companies such as NASA and Jet Propulsion Laboratories has given us great insight into the inner workings of finding the best talent for aerospace. This article dives into those insights and strategies your company can use.
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Since an established organization usually has its human resource division to handle hiring processes for entry-level positions, recruiters are often assigned the task of finding qualified candidates for mid-to-high-level managerial or executive positions. On the other hand, smaller companies frequently partner with the more generalized staffing agencies that cover a wider range of talent acquisition matters to help discover fresh job seekers or moderately experienced aerospace engineering professionals looking for new opportunities.
Recruiters can work with companies of any size, from startups to international corporations. Most employers find them especially helpful when the open position requires a highly specialized talent with a specific skill set. For example, an aviation company or aircraft manufacturer may have difficulties finding an experienced aerospace engineer to replace a retired one or to join an already established rotorcraft design team. It might take months until the company can produce a small list of potential candidates, but recruiters will be able to present at least several qualified talents within a week or two.
Aerospace engineering recruiters’ rates
While some recruiters charge a flat fee for their services, most are paid a commission from a percentage of the candidate’s first-year salary, assuming the candidate is placed as a permanent staff member. The typical rate for recruiters in the United States is 15% to 35%, but the industry average is closer to 23% of the annual pay.
Permanent hire
According to the BLS’ latest data (May 2022), the median wage for aerospace engineers is $126,880 annually or $61.00 per hour. Therefore, the average commission for every placement is:
| Annual Salary | x | Commission Percentage |
| $126,880 | 23% | |
| Total commission: $29,182.4 per permanent post | ||
Bear in mind that the employee still receives the full salary, as the payment is not deducted from the amount. All charges for the services recruiters provide are billed only to the clients (employers), not the employees.
Contract/temporary hire
Things are different for contract/temporary workers. A contracted employee is kept on the recruiters’ internal payroll; in other words, the recruiters hire the employee to work for the client’s company. While the recruiters pay the employee, the wage and service fee are billed to the client. The commission, sometimes called markup, ranges from 25% to 100% of the employee’s hourly wage. If the recruiters and client agree on a 50% markup, the overall rate is:
| Hourly rate | + | Markup of hourly rate |
| $61.00 | $61.00 x 50% | |
| $30.5 | ||
| Commission: $91.50 per hour | ||
The client pays the recruiters $91.50 per hour for the contract duration, $61.00 of which goes to the contracted aerospace engineer. Another thing to remember is that the median wage is the salary that splits the workforce right in the middle. Half of the workforce earn more, and the other half earn less. Median wage is merely a practical measure to see the typical (instead of the average) salary for a design engineering professional in general. If you partner with recruiters to find a candidate for a senior position, such as a C-suite executive or key professional, you may end up paying more money to them.
Alternative payment structures
Not every recruiter charges a commission based on a percentage of a candidate’s salary. Some agencies are known to use simpler payment structures such as:
- Flat fee rates: a one-time payment that covers all services. The rates vary from $15,000 to $50,000 per candidate hired.
- Retained search fee: The client pays a percentage of the flat fee upfront to secure recruiters’ services. The remainder must be paid when a candidate is hired.
- Hourly rate fee: This is typically used when the candidate is meant to fill a highly specialized role or executive position. The hourly rate offers more control over the cost regardless of the candidate’s salary. It is different from the commission-based payment structure for contract/temporary candidates.
- Subscription-based fee: some recruiters also offer a Pay-as-You-Go payment structure in which you pay a certain amount of monthly or annual subscription for staffing services. Rates vary from $150 monthly to $1,700 for the yearly plan. The payment structure may be a good choice if you are hiring for multiple positions quickly.
Although the hourly rate remains the standard payment structure in most professions, it is gradually disappearing from recruiters’ line of work. Scouring the workforce market for an elusive talent does not guarantee a positive result, so many clients avoid hourly rates. There is also a possible conflict of interest if the recruiters are incentivized to prolong the process unnecessarily.
Work environment
Much of recruiters’ work involves discovering and locating qualified engineering design candidates for clients. Recruiters must be able to keep up with the trends in the labor market and understand what types of skills are required for various occupations to improve their chances of finding the right talent each time. Recruiters also most likely maintain a database of active job-seekers nationwide.
The database may even include passive talents; they are probably already employed but might want to consider a better offer, given the opportunity. When a client comes to recruiters’ assistance to fill a job opening, they must be aware of every important detail about the available position. In addition to basic information like qualifications and roles, the employer often has specific requirements such as educational backgrounds, special training, professional certifications, experiences in related fields, and maximum salary expectations.
Recruiters usually need help to operate independently and must collaborate with the client’s internal hiring manager to determine every parameter and requirement a candidate should meet. Such planning ideally takes place in advance before there is even any job opening, but that is not always the case. Frequently, headhunting must be completed within a strictly limited period, further complicating an already challenging task of finding a good match. The part of the job that involves the hunt for talent is primarily about establishing communication with the candidates.
Before communication, recruiters must identify which candidates to call because not all can be the ideal match for employment. One of the first things recruiters do is filter through their resume database. For example, a particular project may need an electrical engineering professional with extensive experience in aerospace. They might turn to online job boards or attend job fairs if no potential talent is found. After finding several possible candidates, the recruiters must make plenty of cold calls and discuss the new employment opportunity. The discussion usually requires the recruiters to promote the client’s company and convince the candidates to apply for the job.
Just because recruiters ask those candidates to submit their resumes, it doesn’t mean everyone will be hired. The next step in the process is screening the applicants. Depending on the client’s orders, the screening may involve more than standard reviews and preliminary interviews; it may also involve complete reference and background checks. Candidates who pass the initial screening are presented to the client for another series of reviews by the internal hiring division. However, recruiters remain involved throughout the entire procedure until a candidate is selected.
Why partner with recruiters?
Good recruiters are not cheap, but their services will pay for themselves when the best possible candidate fills the job opening. While it is true that the main point is to find an ideal match between the talent and the position, third-party recruitment professionals also bring other advantages.
Time-efficient hiring
Over the past several years, great talents have become more challenging to find, especially for a highly specialized profession like aerospace engineering. Also, hiring is not always a quick process. A typical recruitment by an internal human resource division requires a manager to review résumés, make follow-up calls, and conduct interviews, all while keeping up with the day-to-day operations. Partnering with specialized staffing and recruiters like Cad Crowd can help ease the challenge because they handle the preliminary screening part of the job, which may include background checks and cross-references.
Thanks to recruiters, the manager can still focus on role-specific duties and will interview only the candidates considered fit for the role. If the position is meant only for someone with a particular skill set and unique qualifications, recruiters help the client discover the hard-to-find candidate. This means that a large chunk of the headhunting process, at least the early difficult portion, can happen without disrupting the workflow of the company or organization. The hiring process can be more time-efficient because recruiters specialize in finding ideal job candidates.
Solving the “skill gap” problem
One of the main reasons behind organizations’ struggles to fill an open position is the skill gap problem. An open position in a company may attract dozens of candidates, but there is no guarantee that they have the qualifications required for the role. Since you cannot afford a trial-and-error experiment, you may have to wait until the right person comes up, which can take months, if not longer. Recruiters are active talent seekers. Instead of waiting for an ideal candidate to apply for the job, they search for a niche worker.
For example, let’s assume you are looking for an experienced aerospace engineer specializing in parts design of drones. Of all the applicants sending their résumés, only a handful can demonstrate an in-depth understanding of the field, but none have the work history you need. Working with recruiters helps avoid this exact problem. Their search includes active job-seekers and passive candidates likely to welcome better employment benefits. More importantly, the candidates they bring have already passed the preliminary screening procedure, so every single one of them will likely meet the requirements.
End notes
Hiring for a highly specialized position can be time-consuming and costly, considering all the steps you must take to find potential talents and screen through a pile of applicants’ résumés. Professional recruiters can ease the burden so you can focus on your core operational duties within the organization. Their services cost money, but the fee is worth every penny if you partner with reputable recruiters capable of handling the talent acquisition process within a relatively short period and end up getting an ideal match for the position.
Whether or not you decide to work with recruiters should depend on business needs, recruitment objectives, budget, and urgency to fill an open role. If you choose to partner with recruiters, you still have the authority to determine the extent of their involvement. Good recruiters should function as an extension of your hiring division rather than an entirely separate team without input.
They do maintain a degree of independence in doing their tasks, but you always have the oversight to make sure that the collaborative effort is run in accordance with your demands and in a proper professional fashion to optimize efficiency and maximize the outcome.
How Cad Crowd can help
Cad Crowd has a broad network of aerospace and related engineering talent that can set your project apart from the competition. Our extensive work with NASA, JPL, and other aerospace companies has enabled us to curate and vet skilled professionals that can be part of your team today. Contact us for a free quote.
