Searching For Young Talent: Understanding Industrial Recruitment Practices For Hiring Engineering Degree Apprenticeship Students

This study aims to investigate industrial companies’ recruitment practices and standards for hiring their engineering degree apprentices. We examine (1) how they find their future engineering degree apprentices, (2) their recruitment standards and (3) to what extent organisational characteristics shape their recruitment decisions. To answer these questions we have carried out an online quantitative study, comprising exclusively closed questions, with the participation of workplace mentors of engineering apprenticeship students (n=70). Subsequently, we have conducted a descriptive statistical data analyse on SPSS. Our results indicate that industrial companies find their engineering apprentices by means of students’ speculative applications or via engineering schools which have already conducted their academic recruitment process. Surprisingly, technical knowledge or transversal competences have a limited influence on their recruitment decisions, but students’ motivation and personal attitudes (e.g.: personal engagement, perseverance, adaptability) have a very marked, nearly decisive influence on their hiring choices. In addition, we have identified some slight differences between large international and domestic industrial companies’ and SME’s recruitment decisions. Based on our results, we highlight the importance of collaboration between industrial companies and engineering schools in order to develop a more inclusive engineering apprenticeship recruitment process.