What a recent Elixir search taught me about hiring for scarce skills without the process dragging on for months.
Hiring hard to find engineers has a reputation for being slow and painful, and in a niche stack it often is. The talent pool is small, the best people are already employed, and a job advert tends to bring you either silence or a stack of CVs that miss the mark. It does not have to work that way. A recent search reminded me that with the right approach, even a scarce skill set can be hired quickly and well.
A Founder I have worked with for years came to me with a clear brief. His business is growing fast, and he needed two more Elixir Engineers to keep pace. Elixir is exactly the kind of stack that makes people wince. You could advertise and wait, but you would be waiting a long time, sifting applications from engineers who have never written a line of it. What followed is a useful example of what a focused search can do instead.
Niche stacks reward a different approach
The instinct with any open role is to write a spec, post it, and see who applies. For common stacks that can work. For a niche one, it rarely does. You end up waiting weeks and sifting a pile of applications from engineers who have never touched the language. The people who are actually good at Elixir are a small, deep community. Most are employed, most are reasonably content, and they are spread across Europe rather than clustered in one city. They are not refreshing job boards.
So the first decision on this search was not to rely on an advert at all. It was to go straight to the people, through a network built over years of working in this space. That single choice is usually the difference between a search that stalls and one that moves.
The network is the shortcut
The reason the search moved quickly is simple. On day one I was already in conversation with the right engineers, rather than starting from zero and hoping the right person happened to see a post.
That network reached across Europe, from Spain and Poland to Latvia, Portugal and further afield. Thirteen Elixir Engineers were submitted, all of them a real fit rather than a hopeful guess. It is far easier to run a fast, high quality process when the shortlist is strong from the start.
A clear, well run process keeps everyone moving
Speed only helps if the experience is a good one for everyone involved. Throughout the search I kept both the client and the candidates updated by phone and email, so nobody was left wondering where they stood. Eleven engineers went to first stage interviews, seven reached the final stage, and the momentum held even through a week when the technical interviewers were on holiday.
That communication matters as much as the sourcing. A strong candidate will stay engaged through a busy process if they know what is happening and when. A client will make confident decisions when they can see the whole field clearly. Two offers went out, and both were accepted. Start to finish, three weeks.
The upside of a strong field
The hardest part of the whole search was choosing. Seven excellent engineers reached the final stage and only two seats were available. That is a good problem to have, and it says a lot about the quality of the field.
It also means something useful for other teams. Several exceptional Europe based Elixir Engineers went the full distance on this search and were a near miss only on numbers, not on ability. They are the kind of senior people most teams spend months trying to find, and they are ready to move now.
The takeaway
Hiring in a scarce stack does not have to be slow. Go to the right network first, keep the process clear and well communicated, and a strong field will follow. The result is faster hires, better decisions, and a client who can get back to building.
If you are hiring in Elixir or another stack where the right people are hard to find, or you would like to see profiles of the engineers who are available now, that is exactly the conversation I enjoy having.
Arjun Gillard
Founder, AG Talent
agtalent.co.uk
