C++ Developers for a reservoir modelling software company: 45 hires in 5 years

Request and constraints

The client develops software for integrated reservoir modelling and works with oil and gas companies around the world. This is not a one-off search but ongoing hiring support for one specific request: steadily hiring C++ Developers with solid commercial development experience and an understanding of the equations of mathematical physics. Partnerships like this are talked about less often than headhunting stories, but they are what gives a company a steady flow of candidates while it grows.

Why it was hard

How the client's selection works

Instead of several stages, the candidate is invited straight to the office to talk to the CTO and complete a test assignment of 2–4 hours, sometimes up to 6 hours. This makes hiring easier — the candidate has fewer stages — and harder because interview slots are rare.

"This kind of interview is less a formal interview than a professional acquaintance. The director goes about his own work and from time to time comes over to the candidate doing the test assignment, asks something, answers questions. The candidate does not have to solve the task completely. What matters to the manager is understanding how the candidate thinks, what questions they ask, and whether their coding culture fits the company."

Lena Platonova, Senior IT Recruiter NEWHR

How we searched

Over 10 years different NEWHR recruiters have worked on this search. Lena Platonova, Senior IT Recruiter at NEWHR, described her approach.

We set up selection so the client did not need its own screening

Over the years of the partnership the agency studied the client's request and criteria in depth. As a result, the client received relevant candidates without screening on its side and could invite them straight to the CTO. Over 10 years NEWHR recruiters made 2,250 contacts across all of the client's roles and presented no more than a hundred CVs. Two thirds of the candidates presented received an offer.

Plenty of applications, only a handful of fits: most were screened out

"The vacancy is great: it's a completely applied thing, interesting tasks, and it's oil, an industry that is always growing, so there were plenty of applications. But far fewer relevant ones."

Lena Platonova, Senior IT Recruiter NEWHR

What experience we looked for and whom we did not send to the client

Lena chose candidates who had built complex interfaces, worked with large data sets and had experience of applied programming in science-intensive fields.

"A search like this is always a balance between education, experience, understanding the client's request and a recruiter's instinct.

For example, if a person had developed only military software and graduated from an average university, I didn't send them to the client: I knew they wouldn't be selected anyway. But if a candidate from a top technical university had the same experience, we got to know them, because that university is rated highly. Or the other way round: a candidate without the most prestigious degree, but who had worked on a product with a lot of extensive and deep mathematics, was also invited to an interview."

Lena Platonova, Senior IT Recruiter NEWHR

We learned about candidates' experience in conversation, not from CVs

Far from every developer from a science-intensive field can describe the complexity and scale of their work in a CV. At screening Lena often had to literally "pull out" the information she needed. This brought into the search candidates who would have been rejected on their CVs.

"Mathematicians are often people who are a bit out of this world. They have no polished self-presentation or neat CV. My job is to ask the kind of questions that get these candidates fired up, so they talk about their work with a sparkle in their eyes."

Lena Platonova, Senior IT Recruiter NEWHR

We kept in touch for years with candidates who were not looking

The pool is narrow, so a recruiter may correspond with a potential candidate for several years until catching them at the moment they change jobs. A continuous search let us keep track of the whole pool of people who match the role's narrow criteria.

"Sometimes people who weren't looking for a job before, or those who had been poached by competitors, 'ripened' for our vacancy. The main thing is not to give up and to be ready at that moment."

Lena Platonova, Senior IT Recruiter NEWHR

We rotated the responsible recruiters so the search did not turn into a template

A difficulty of long searches that is rarely discussed is recruiter fatigue. Especially when the role has strict filters and little room for manoeuvre. There is a risk that at some point the recruiter starts working by a template — this applies to agencies and in-house recruiting alike.

It is easier for an agency to change the person responsible for a project and assign a colleague who will look at the search with fresh eyes. That is why Lena was not the first NEWHR recruiter on this project: several agency employees worked on the role to avoid the stereotypes that inevitably form over a long search.

Funnel

Data for the 10-year partnership across all of the client's roles.

Result

Over 10 years of partnership NEWHR filled 60+ of the client's roles. In the last 5 years alone 45 candidates from NEWHR joined the company — the vast majority of them Senior C++ Developers in a narrow science-intensive niche who meet very specific education and location criteria.

What this means for your hiring