SF₆ engineering recruitment for Power Engineering Services
This SF6 engineering recruitment case study shows how Power Engineering Services filled a specialist Field Service Engineer vacancy within one month.
Ad Talent used targeted role positioning, multi-job-board advertising and regular campaign boosts to reach both experienced SF6 engineers and candidates with transferable HV and MV skills.
The campaign cost £429 and saved the client an estimated £7,059 compared with a traditional recruitment agency fee.
About Power Engineering Services
Power Engineering Services, known as PES, provides specialist engineering services within the electrical power sector.
Based in Leeds, the business supports customers through a combination of workshop engineering and UK-wide field service work.
PES needed to recruit a Field Service Engineer with practical electrical and mechanical experience. The successful candidate also needed the flexibility to travel throughout the UK and work across both workshop and customer sites.
The SF₆ engineering recruitment challenge
This was a highly specialised engineering vacancy.
PES needed someone with practical electrical and mechanical engineering experience, alongside the ability to work confidently in a field-service environment.
Direct SF₆ experience was highly desirable, but limiting the campaign only to existing SF₆ engineers would have created an extremely small candidate pool.
The business therefore needed to reach both specialist SF₆ engineers and people with transferable HV or MV experience.
The challenge was not simply generating applications at launch. PES needed the vacancy to remain visible throughout the campaign so it could reach suitable engineers as they entered the market.
Traditional recruitment agencies could potentially access the same limited pool, but their percentage-based fees would have created a substantial cost for the business.
What Ad Talent did
Role positioning
Ad Talent created a job advert that presented the technical requirements clearly without making the criteria unnecessarily restrictive.
The advert targeted engineers with direct SF₆ experience while also appealing to candidates from adjacent HV and MV electrical, mechanical and field-service backgrounds.
This widened the available talent pool while keeping the advert relevant to the practical and technical demands of the role.
The campaign also explained the balance between workshop responsibilities and UK-wide field work, helping applicants understand the position before applying.
Candidate attraction
We promoted the vacancy across multiple leading UK job boards to increase its visibility among specialist engineering candidates.
The campaign targeted both active jobseekers and engineers with transferable skills who may not have searched specifically for an SF₆ vacancy.
This helped PES reach a broader but still relevant engineering audience.
Campaign management
We monitored the campaign throughout and used regular job-board boosts to maintain visibility.
This was particularly important because the relevant candidate market was small and fragmented. Suitable engineers were unlikely to enter the market at the same time.
By refreshing the vacancy throughout the campaign, we kept it visible beyond the initial launch and continued attracting candidates as they became available.
The results
The campaign generated consistent applications from engineers with direct SF₆ experience and candidates with transferable HV or MV backgrounds.
Applicants closely matched the technical, practical and field-based requirements, which made the screening process more efficient.
PES appointed a suitable Field Service Engineer within one month.
The successful candidate could support both workshop operations and field-service responsibilities, giving PES the practical mix of skills it needed.
The client invested £429 in the recruitment advertising campaign.
Based on an hourly rate of £20, equivalent to approximately £41,600 per year for a 40-hour week, a traditional recruitment agency charging 18% could have cost around £7,488.
This gave PES a highly cost-effective alternative to traditional recruitment while still reaching a specialist engineering audience.
Why the campaign worked
The campaign succeeded because it balanced technical accuracy with a realistic approach to the available candidate market.
Rather than limiting the search to engineers who already held direct SF₆ experience, the advert also engaged people with relevant HV, MV, electrical, mechanical and field-service skills.
This expanded the candidate pool without weakening the core requirements.
Multi-job-board advertising increased exposure, while ongoing campaign boosts kept the vacancy visible as new engineers entered the market.
Together, accurate role positioning, targeted candidate attraction and sustained campaign visibility helped PES make a successful specialist engineering hire within one month.
Related insight
Specialist engineering recruitment can become expensive when employers depend solely on traditional agencies, particularly when the role requires a rare combination of technical and practical experience.
A carefully positioned advert can widen the candidate pool by identifying transferable skills without attracting irrelevant applicants.
Read our guide to engineering recruitment advertising for UK employers for more advice on reaching specialist and hard-to-find candidates.
Need to recruit a specialist engineer without paying agency fees?
Ad Talent provides expert job advertising, targeted candidate attraction and optional screening support for one clear fixed fee.
We help UK employers promote engineering and technical vacancies across multiple job boards without charging a percentage of the successful candidate’s salary.
