Engineering & Industrial
Engineers and technical specialists for industrial and engineering companies where experience with products, technologies, processes or sector environments carries significant weight.
Engineering & Industrial →
Recruitment in Spain for international companies
Akens\Nordburg supports international companies in the search for specialists and qualified professionals when the profile is difficult to find, the relevant market is narrow or conventional channels are not producing enough suitable candidates.
We work from Spain with an international perspective and particular depth between Spain and Germany, Austria and Switzerland (DACH).
As a specialist recruitment agency, our focus is not high-volume hiring. We work on assignments where the combination of requirements, market context or access to candidates makes a more targeted search necessary.
When a search becomes difficult
A position can appear reasonably broad until all the requirements the company considers important are combined.
Experience in a particular sector, a specific function, seniority, technical knowledge, languages, location, working model and compensation can narrow the market significantly when they all need to come together in one person. The problem is not always that professionals do not exist; sometimes the difficulty lies in the intersection of requirements.
This happens frequently when the profile has been defined at headquarters before being tested against the Spanish market. In those cases, it is useful to understand which requirements are genuinely essential, where some flexibility may exist and which adjacent career paths could provide the experience required.
Market Calibration before expanding sourcing
When a search is particularly restrictive, simply increasing sourcing activity does not always solve the problem.
We use Market Calibration to test the specification against market reality: availability of profiles, seniority, compensation, location, languages, sector experience and potential transferability from adjacent sectors or functions.
The purpose is not automatically to lower requirements, but to understand what actually exists and where the main trade-offs sit before investing months in a search that is too narrow.
Direct Search beyond active candidates
For specialist profiles, an important part of the potential market is not actively looking for a change.
Through Market Mapping and Direct Search, we identify companies, teams and career paths where the required experience may be found and contact professionals directly when they may fit the mandate. Early conversations also help validate how the market perceives the role and whether certain elements are reducing interest or availability more than expected.
That feedback forms part of the search and allows the strategy to be adjusted when consistent patterns emerge.
Specialist recruitment areas
Our specialist recruitment work in Spain covers different functions, with particular depth in the following areas:
Technology & Digital
Technology and digital profiles, particularly where the mandate combines technical capability with business knowledge, sector context, languages or a specific working model.
Technology & Digital →Technical Sales & Business Development
Commercial profiles for products and solutions where technical understanding, sector knowledge or the ability to develop a market is central to the mandate.
Technical Sales & Business Development →Finance & Corporate Functions
Finance, Controlling and selected Corporate Functions profiles for international companies, particularly when functional requirements need to be combined with international experience, languages or a specific organisational context.
Finance & Corporate Functions →When the position concerns general leadership, management of a subsidiary or a particularly important executive decision, the search normally sits within our Executive Search practice.
Executive Search →Selected assignments completed successfully
Supply Chain & Procurement Specialist — Barcelona
Search for the Spanish subsidiary of an international German group for a Supply Chain & Procurement specialist with experience in an industrial environment and the ability to work within an international organisation.
The combination of functional experience, industrial context and local market required Market Calibration and Direct Search to concentrate the search on genuinely comparable profiles. The assignment was completed successfully.
Sales Engineer — Iberia
Search for a European company managed from headquarters in Germany for a Sales Engineer with commercial responsibility across Spain and Portugal.
The profile needed to combine commercial experience, understanding of technical solutions, relationships with customers and distributors and the ability to operate within an international organisation. The combination of market, product and territorial responsibility required a focused search using Market Calibration and Direct Search. The assignment was completed successfully.
When a search has already been open for months
A failed search already contains useful information. Candidates who came close to fitting, requirements that proved most restrictive, compensation expectations or the reasons certain profiles rejected the opportunity all help explain what is happening in the market.
Before relaunching essentially the same search, we review what the company has already learned, which parts of the specification remain valid and whether the problem lies in market access, profile definition or a combination of both.
Why some recruitment searches fail in Spain →Do you have a difficult-to-fill position?
If you need to hire a specialist with a specific combination of experience, sector knowledge, languages or international context, we can review the mandate and the reality of the market before deciding how to approach the search.