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How do you go about recruiting technically qualified sales engineers?


Howard Venning, MD of Aspen Electronics, explains the problems in recruiting technically qualified sales engineers to help drive the RF & Microwave industry further forward. “Wireless systems, and the use of RF &


Microwave technology, is expanding at an incredible rate. Not only do we have more mobile phones in the UK than people but, when we consider Bluetooth or wireless LANS and other wireless enabled items, we typically have 3 to 4 times as many wireless systems at home or at work. Within industry the use of wireless technology is vast. The telecommunications industry, together with sectors such as broadcast and satcom, are designing more and more systems using higher and higher frequencies - the latest WiFi systems operating at 60GHz is a good example. Then there are the new adopters, such as the automotive, security & medical industries, joining onto the ever expanding list of those interested in wireless applications.


The good news is that the RF &


Microwave industry is full of engineers who have a wealth of experience based upon many years served at the bench or in the field. This knowledge is invaluable as the use of “wireless” technology continues to grow. However, the bad news is that many of these engineers are getting near to retiring age - that is if they can afford it, but that’s another story!


For a company like Aspen Electronics Ltd, primarily a sales organisation, we recognised a number of years ago that if we were to maintain our position in the market we would need to recruit technically qualified staff, and they needed to be technically trained sales staff as well. These would typically be younger people rather than someone near to retirement. Our recruitment strategy is therefore focussed on looking for technically qualified graduate engineers who would like to become sales engineers. Whilst our industry has its roots firmly in technology, the basics of which hasn’t changed much in 100 years, it is a rapidly developing industry and therefore offers excellent prospects as well as opportunities for travel as sales engineers discuss applications with customers all over the country. Whilst that sounds easy, in reality it is


like the recruitment equivalent of the Grand National, not so much a few hurdles to get over but great big obstacles


New website: Farnell has launched a new micro site that is dedicated to sensors and sensing applications. The site not only gives access to over 4,000 products, but will also provide design resources including application notes, white papers and product training videos to help keep engineers involved in this rapidly evolving sector up-to-date with the latest technologies and methodologies. “There has been significant growth in the demand for sensing devices,” said David Shen, Group SVP & Global Head of Technical Marketing at Premier Farnell. “The new micro site will provide a valuable additional resource to engineers seeking a one-stop location for detailed technical information when designing their sensor based applications.”


Distribution contract: M2M specialists Adaptive Modules have been awarded a distribution contract for the full line of Telit modules and terminals. The move follows the acquisition of Motorola’s M2M division by Telit. The appointment will provide Adaptive Modules with more than 40 new lines to source opportunities in the rapidly growing M2M market. Products include GPRS, UMTS, GPS and Zigbee modules as well as short range RF modules in the 868MHz and 433MHz bands.


Award: The electronic component distributor, Alan Butcher Components has been presented with a “Supplier of Excellence Award” by Seaward at their 2011 Supplier Awards event in Peterlee. ABC Director, Paul Butcher said “We look


forward to developing the strong partnership we have with Seaward and thank them for acknowledging us as one of their top suppliers. We place great emphasis on supplying our customers with high quality products and work hard to ensure we support this with excellent customer service and technical assistance”.


to tackle. The first is finding engineers who want to be salesmen, the second is addressing the idea of engineers in business (something which is doomed to failure, if you listen to Lord Sugar). In short, engineering and sales are two skill sets that are typically mutually exclusive. I’ve been an engineer in business for over 30 years and believe there is always an answer out there if you look hard enough and have an open mind, and sure enough there was.


About five years ago my searches lead me to a specialised recruitment company. Their USP was finding graduates that wanted to work in sales. Their methods are relatively simple; hold an assessment day during which prospective candidates are put through their paces undertaking all sorts of interviews, tests and tasks. They found that 70-80% would be successful and go on to become a candidate that they felt confident they could find employment for. Once employment was found for the candidate, he or she would undertake a series of sales training courses provided by the recruitment company


within their overall recruitment package. This process typically produces around 5000 candidates per year. Just one problem though, the number of graduates with a technical degree is less than 1%, and those having a degree in electronics or a closely related subject less than 0.1%! Whilst thin on the ground though, we were able to interview candidates from this innovative method of recruitment and we found a suitable candidate. This has been repeated a number of times over the last few years and we now have three graduates, with good technical degrees. All are working as Aspen sales engineers after the aforementioned period of sales training, plus relevant product training by us. Our latest recruit has just started his position as a sales engineer responsible for test equipment sales.


This strategy is something we feel passionate about as we introduce new recruits into the world of RF & Microwave confident that it will provide them with years of worthwhile employment and job satisfaction working with some of the very latest technologies.”


Irish market: Power supply manufacturer TDK- Lambda Corporation has signed a distribution agreement with Futura Electronics which will significantly extend its reach into the Irish market. Under the terms of the agreement, Futura will have access to the whole of TDK-Lambda’s power product offering, which ranges from tiny board- mounting DC-DC converters to multi-kilowatt power supplies, and will support them directly to its Irish customer base. Steve Read, Sales Manager of TDK-Lambda in the UK and Ireland, said “Futura Electronics has the ability to augment our customer base further in Ireland. Their broad range of diverse services and technical capability are extremely impressive and this is topped by their in-depth understanding of the Irish market.”


6 September 2011


Components in Electronics


www.cieonline.co.uk


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