Why HVDC engineers liked our video assessments
The assessment problem in deep technical roles
There are fewer than a handful of engineers in any given country who can model HVDC converter dynamics with genuine depth, validate the results, and communicate the findings to a client. They are all employed. Most are not looking. And when one of them does consider a move, they have options, which means a slow, generic hiring process does not just lose time, it loses the candidate to a competitor who moved faster and asked better questions.
That scarcity changes what good assessment design has to do. The people best qualified to judge a candidate are rarely the people who need to make the hiring decision. The Principal Power Systems Engineer who can assess EMT modelling depth is usually billing on a project and deeply reluctant to spend three hours in first-round interviews with candidates who may not be at the level. Properly designed video assessment resolves this. Communication, problem framing, and credibility are judged by a wider group, while technical depth is validated separately and only for candidates who have already earned the senior engineer's time. Everyone's afternoon stays intact.
What each side gets out of it
For the client, non-technical stakeholders can assess clarity, composure, and presence from the recording alone, while the specialist only reviews candidates who have already cleared the communication bar. On average our process cuts senior engineering time in first-round interviews by around 70%. For a team that is almost always mid-study, that is not a small thing.
It was the first time our hiring team had ever had a meaningful opinion about a power engineering shortlist.
— A TalSource client
For the candidate, the experience is meaningfully different from a traditional process. HVDC engineers typically spend early rounds fielding calls from recruiters who cannot engage technically, with no visibility into who is actually reviewing them or why. Here, their recording goes directly to the engineering manager, often the person they would report to. Candidates tell us consistently that this matters. They know their answer on EMT versus phasor simulation is being heard by someone who can appreciate it, not someone checking whether the word PSCAD appears in the transcript. Several have said it was the first time in a job search they felt evaluated rather than filtered. The asynchronous format helps too: engineers actively delivering studies record at a time that works for them, not mid-project at 11am on a Tuesday.
How we design the HVDC assessment
Questions need to be specific enough to surface real depth but framed to reveal communication too, because an HVDC engineer who cannot explain findings to a non-specialist client is only half as useful as one who can. We are not testing for the ability to recite tool names. Anyone can do that.
Simulation methodology
We ask when they would use EMT versus phasor simulation, and why. A strong candidate explains the physics, cites specific study types, and names the limitations of each. A weak one calls both useful for different things and stops. The gap is immediate, and frankly, so is the awkward silence.
Tool proficiency
We ask about PSCAD, EMTP, or DigSILENT experience, then push past the tool: the most complex model they built, the challenges, how they validated it. Genuine practitioners answer in granular detail. Those who used the tools within a team tend to speak in abstractions and hope no one notices.
Results communication
We present a scenario: a converter interacting with a weak AC grid producing unexpected oscillations, and ask how they would investigate it and present findings to a mixed-background team. Analytical rigour and communication, assessed at once.
Grid code context
We ask about applying simulation outputs to compliance. This shows whether they understand the regulatory picture or simply produce files that others interpret, which matters considerably more at senior levels.
The efficiency case
A traditional HVDC search runs 8 to 12 weeks. Ours: AI-sourced longlist, structured assessment, single technical interview, offer, runs four to six. The pool is thin, the best people are employed and not looking, and the window to engage them is shorter than most hiring managers expect. The only way to win them is to move faster than competitors while demonstrating you take technical rigour seriously.
The video assessment does both. And it does it for both sides of the table, which is the only way it works at all.