We spoke to the Talent Acquisition team at Raytheon Technologies about why they are partnering with Haystack for their UK tech talent acquisition.

Company Overview 

At a global level - Raytheon Technologies businesses employ 100,000s people across the world and are thought leaders across various industries. In the UK - Raytheon UK employs over 1,700 people and supports over 9,000 jobs, contributing an estimated £700m each year to the UK economy.

Here, we are focusing on Raytheon UK’s National Security Cyber (NSC) Division which is at the forefront of all the latest technologies and innovations, whether it be artificial intelligence or machine learning. Described as the game changer, this business is helping to implement tomorrow’s technologies, today.

Their mature cloud native engineering capability includes rapid prototyping, DevOps service delivery and large-scale data processing systems.

They work in partnership with customers to deliver secure, mission-critical systems and offer unique capabilities in the design and development of high-assurance software for bespoke systems, with security built in from the outset.

Additionally, they design, build, test and deliver complex data analytic business processes and applications that enable their customers to turn raw data into actionable information that improves decision-making.

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Why did you partner with Haystack?

Beth Price: We partnered with Haystack to reposition Raytheon within the tech community. Raytheon has many different areas in the company and Haystack gives us the space to elevate our employer branding within our National Security Cyber (NSC) Division and highlight the exciting parts of our tech projects directly to techies.

What challenges were you facing?

Beth: Raytheon has big plans for growth - striving to expand our tech team by over 200 in 2023. This covers multiple areas including software development, DevOps, testing, security and architecture. We have a great talent team, covering this growth across different areas of the UK. The challenges that come along with growing on this scale are finding the talent who fit our tech stack, are security cleared and tapping into the tech talent that can’t be found through other traditional platforms.

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What has your experience been of Haystack so far?

Amelia Smith: Sign-up and onboarding was efficient and seamless and we soon had our company profile and all of our roles live on the app. We had an onboarding call with our customer success managers, Harriet and Neil, who helped us get started and we have regular monthly reviews to keep the momentum. This means we can stay up to date with the Haystack roadmap and influence the direction of the platform, as well as how to maximise our performance on the platform.

To date, we have hired multiple people through Haystack, in DevOps and Software Development. With the new updates to be released this year and the collaborations we have planned, I am excited to see what further success we can achieve through our partnership!

What challenges were you facing in DevOps?

Tom Cotton: I cover Raytheon’s hiring for DevOps and Systems Engineers. These roles are challenging to fill, being highly in demand in today's market. It is difficult to get directly in front of suitable candidates and start those conversations about what Raytheon has to offer.

How did you overcome this with Haystack?

Tom: I have been utilising the Finder feature that Haystack offers so that I can proactively search through and contact candidates who are open to new opportunities and who are a good match for my live roles. This allows me to find new profiles I haven’t seen before on other platforms such as LinkedIn and have direct and open conversations with techies who actually want to be contacted - which is what happened with Chung, our successful DevOps Haystack hire!

Chung’s experience on Haystack:

“I’ve always got my jobs through recruiters in the past. After some positive reception in my tech circle regarding Haystack, I decided to download it and see what it was all about. Needless to say, I wasn’t on it long – that’s probably a good thing as Haystack was immensely helpful! It was clear the UI design was well thought out and clearly tailored to make everyone’s experience intuitive. Setting up a profile was easy with no hassle. I could easily connect to companies accurately tailored to my needs and profile.”

What challenges were you facing in Engineering?

Matt Thomas: I cover some of the hirings for our Software Engineers at Raytheon, which can prove difficult to find developers who are open to learning new technologies and taking on our agnostic tech approach. Most developers are inundated with messages from agency recruiters and other companies which makes them hard to reach and cut through the noise.

How did you overcome this with Haystack?

Matt: On Haystack, I advertised my Engineering roles so that they were matched to relevant engineers according to tech stack, seniority and location. The hidden salary feature proved useful for our listings so that we could be matched to those who aligned with what we can offer and give confidence to anyone wanting to apply. Ross applied directly to my role, so I knew he was keen and matched what we were looking for, which cut out those initial steps and saved time for both myself and Ross!

How has your success on Haystack influenced your hiring strategy for 2023?

Beth: In 2023 our team has a stretching target of over 200 roles within UK tech. Our partnership with Haystack will play an important role in helping us to hit this target. After our initial success, we will be extending our partnership with Haystack through events and webinar collaboration to help us to reach new tech talent. All of our 200+ roles will be live on the Haystack platform so keep an eye out and join our talent pool!