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Engineering Central - Employer Help

If you are an employer or recruiter, this is where you can get help. However, if you can't find the answer to your question, please contact us by email or phone (toll-free at 1-877-210-4747).

New Customers - please see the FAQ page if you are not an existing customer of Engineering Central. The FAQ answers many of the questions prospective customers have. Feel free to email or call us (toll-free at 1-877-210-4747). We are always happy to hear from prospective customers!

Existing Customers - click on the relevant link:

Posting and managing your jobs

Job Levels (Standard, Priority, and Hot - what are they?)

There are 3 levels of jobs on Engineering Central - Standard, Priority, and Hot.

Posting a Hot Job

Hot Jobs have the highest priority on the website. Click here for an explanation. The cost for posting a Hot Job is $100. The job will be displayed for 60 days. Resume access is included with the cost of the ad for no extra cost. To post a Hot Job, log in to your account and click on Post Ads. This will take you to the Job Submission form. On that form, you will be able to select whether the job is to be posted as Hot or Priority. You may decide to use the advanced form if you need more options. In this case, there will be a delay before the job is posted since it will have to be reviewed by our editor. For more information on the reasons for this, Click here.

Posting a Priority Job

Priority Jobs cost $63 for 60 days. Resume access is included for no extra cost. To post a Priority Job, log in to your account and click on Post Ads. This will take you to the Job Submission form. On that form, you will be able to select whether the job is to be posted as Hot or Priority. You may decide to use the advanced form if you need more options. In this case, there will be a delay before the job is posted since it will have to be reviewed by our editor. For more information on the reasons for this, Click here.

Posting a Standard Job (under a posting plan)

You can post Standard Jobs only when you have a posting plan (e.g., the Nickel Plan or the Bronze Plan). Click here to find out about starting a posting plan. The Nickel Plan costs $150 per month and allows you to post up to 10 Standard jobs.

To post a Standard Job, log in to your account and click on Post Ads. If you have an active posting plan, the system will check first to see if you want to post the job as part of your posting plan. If you do not have an active posting plan, you will go straight to the job submission form and the only option will be to post a Hot or Priority job.

You may decide to use the advanced form if you need more options. In this case, there will be a delay before the job is posted since it will have to be reviewed by our editor. For more information on the reasons for this, Click here.

Viewing a job as job seekers would see it

To see what your job ad looks like to job seekers, log in to your account and click on "Job management - view and work with your current jobs." This will take you to your Job Management page. Click on View under the job you want to see as a job seeker would see it. When you view the job, you will also be able to see the statistics on the job - i.e., how many times job seekers have seen it.

Editing a job

You can make changes to any of your jobs on Engineering Central. Log in to your account and click on "Job management - view and work with your current jobs." This will take you to your Job Management page. You will see a table of the current jobs you have running on the website. Click on the Edit button under the job you want to edit - a form will come up with all the current information in it. Change the relevant information and then click on "Submit Changes".

Updating a job

Updating a job is different from editing a job. When you edit a job, you make changes. When you update, all you do is put today's date on the job so that job seekers will see that you are still actively seeking a candidate.

Job seekers are generally more eager to apply for jobs with a more recent posting date. Also, the jobs are generally sorted by date - so the jobs with the most recent date go higher on the page. This makes your job more visible to job seekers.

Updating a job does not affect the date when the job will expire. It will still expire on the same date it would have if you had not updated it. There is also no extra cost for updating the job. Updating just shows job seekers that you have recently come to the site and are actively working on filling the job.

Jobs can only be updated every 14 days. If you try to update a job and it was edited or updated less than 14 days ago, the date will remain the same. To update a job, log in to your account, click on "Job management - view and work with your current jobs," then click on Update beneath the relevant job.

Replacing a job

You can replace your Hot or Priority jobs on Engineering Central. You can also replace your Standard jobs if your posting plan is active. For more information on how posting plans work, Click here.

To replace a job, log in to your account and click on "Job management - view and work with your current jobs." This will take you to your Job Management page. You will see a table of the current jobs you have running on the website. Click on the Replace button under the job you want to replace. You will see a confirmation page first, then you will be taken to the job submission form. The new job will have the same level as the original job (e.g., if the job you replaced was a Priority job, the replacement will also be a Priority job). The new job will also expire on the date that the original job would have expired.

Deleting a job

To delete a job, log in to your account and click on "Job management - view and work with your current jobs." This will take you to your Job Management page. You will see a table of the current jobs you have running on the website. Click on the Delete button under the job you want to delete. A page will come up to confirm that you really do want to delete the job. After you confirm the deletion, the job will be removed from the website and will not be available to candidates. However, the job will be kept in your Old Job Box in case you want to repost it later.

After deleting a job, you will have a Blank Ad. If you deleted a Hot or Priority job, you will see an entry in your Job Management table that says Blank Ad. You can use this to post a new job. Just click on the Use It button. If you delete a Standard job and you have an active posting plan, you have one more job that you can post under your plan. To use it, click on Post Ads.

Renewing a job

When a Hot or Priority job is about to expire, we will send you an email to give you the opportunity to renew it. Click on the link in the email to renew the job. You may need to log in to your account if you are not already logged in. You will have to go through the payment process to renew the job. If you are not looking at the renewal email, you can renew jobs from your account page. Log in to your account, then click on "Renew expiring job ads." In the renewal table, click on the Renew button - this will take you through the payment process to renew the job.

The jobs that are eligible for renewal are those that are within 2 days of expiry or expired less than 7 days ago. 7 days after expiring, jobs are moved to the Old Job Box. However, you can still repost these ads - Click here for more information.

If you renew a job before it has actually expired, the renewal will start from the date the job would have expired, not from the date you renewed it. If you renew after the expiry date, the renewal will start from whenever you renew.

Reposting an old job

If you delete a job or it expires, it is not lost forever. All deleted and expired jobs go into your Old Job Box. From there, you can repost your jobs. In your account page, click on "Repost old job ads (Old Job Box)." This will take you to your Old Job Box. You will see a list of all your old jobs. You can view the job as job seekers would see it by clicking on the View button, or repost it with the Post button. If you want to permanently delete the job, click on the Delete button. Please remember that once you delete a job from your Old Job Box, it will no longer be available for reposting.

Getting job statistics (how many times has it been viewed?)

You can see how many times your job has been viewed by job seekers in the last 3, 7, 14, 30, or 60 days. Log in to your account, then click on "Job management - view and work with your current jobs." This will take you to your Job Management page. You will see a list of your current jobs. Click on the View button under the job you are interested in. You will then see the job ad as candidates would see it, except that there is a table at the top of the page with the statistics in it (job seekers would not see this).

Posting Plans

Starting a posting plan

To start up a new posting plan, log in to your account. On your account page, click on "Purchase a posting plan." You will be taken through the payment process to get you started!

Renewing a posting plan

To renew a posting plan, log in to your account. On your account page, click on "Renew a posting plan." The system will check your present posting plan status. If you renew a posting plan before it has actually expired, the renewal will start from the date the plan would have expired. If you renew on or after the expiry date, the renewal will start from the date that you did the renewal.

Posting jobs under a posting plan

Log in to your account. On your account page, click on "Post ads." The system will confirm first that you want to post your jobs under your posting plan. Then you will be taken to the job submission form. You may decide to use the advanced form if you need more options. In this case, there will be a delay before the job is posted since it will have to be reviewed by our editor. For more information on the reasons for this, Click here.

How posting plans work

When you purchase a posting plan with Engineering Central, you get 2 things: the right to post a set number of jobs and access to the resume database. Posting plans are renewed on 30-day basis. For instance, the Nickel Plan costs $150 every 30 days. The jobs run for 30 days from the day you post them and resume access lasts for 30 days from the day the plan begins.

Let's say you start a posting plan on April 15. You post 2 jobs on April 15, 5 jobs on April 28, and 3 jobs on May 10. On May 13, you receive an email from us asking if you want to renew your plan. Different things will happen depending on whether you renew your posting plan or not.

Posting plan prices

For more information on how posting plans work, Click here. Here are the current prices for our posting plans:

Resumes

Who can search resumes

Not everyone who has an account can search resumes. One of the following conditions must apply for the resume database to be available to you:

  1. You have placed a Hot or Priority job within the last 60 days or
  2. You have purchased a posting plan within the last 30 days or
  3. You have purchased resume database access on it's own within the last 60 days.

If your job or posting plan has expired, that may be the reason you cannot access the resumes. If you have any questions about why you are not able to access the resumes, please email or call us (toll-free at 1-877-210-4747).

Starting a search

Log in to your account, then click on Search Resumes. You will be taken to the main resume search page.

How to search

You do not have to fill in something in all the fields. If you only want to search by keyword without specifying a location or citizenship or years of experience, you can do that. If you only want to see all the engineers listed in a certain State, you can do that. If you only want to see all the candidates with a BS Chemical Engineering who are US Citizens, you can do that.

In fact, we recommend making your search as wide as possible to start with. For example, if you are looking for a Mechanical Engineer with a BSME who lives in Wyoming, try just inputting those parameters to start with. Select "BS Mechanical Engineering" under Degree and "Wyoming" under State. Don't bother putting in a bunch of keywords or selecting US Citizen or any of the other parameters until you see how many candidates you are dealing with. If it turns out there are only 3 such candidates in Wyoming, you don't need to narrow your search any more. If there are 100, you may want to revise your search - click on "Revise Search" from the Search Results page.

  • Keywords - enter the keywords or a phrase you would like to search for. In the drop-down box, select Any Keywords, All Keywords or Exact Phrase.

    • If you select Any Keywords, the search will find all resumes with any of keywords in them. For example, if you searched for mechanical hvac, all resumes with mechanical and all resumes with hvac in them would be found, even if both words were not in the resume.
    • If you select All Keywords, the search will find all resumes with both mechanical and hvac in them - both words must be in the resume.
    • If you select Exact Phrase, mechanical hvac must be found in that exact order. The search would not find mechanical engineer with HVAC experience or HVAC Mechanical Engineer.

  • Candidate location & citizenship

    • Country: If you select Any Country, all candidates from all countries will be shown. This is the default setting. Otherwise, select USA only, USA and Canada, or Canada Only.
    • Area code: enter the area code where you want to search for candidates. Please remember that many candidates do not give their phone numbers, or enter their phone numbers incorrectly, or make their resumes confidential. In all these situations, searching by area code will not find the candidate.
    • State: you can choose up to 4 by clicking while holding down the Control key. If you don't choose any State, candidates from all States will be found.
    • City: enter the name of the city. Please note that only exact matches will be found. For example, if the candidate entered Oakland as the city and you enter San Francisco, the search will not find that candidate.

  • Candidate Qualifications

    • Type of degree: You can select up to 4 degrees by clicking while holding down the Control key. For instance, if you want someone with either a BSEE or MSEE, select both of these in the list. If you only select BSEE, you may not find someone who has an MSEE, but whose undergraduate degree is in Computer Science.
    • Certifications: select the certification you require from the candidate (PE, EIT, or Registered Land Surveyor are the only options).
    • Date on resume: you can choose to only view resumes submitted or updated within a certain time period. The default is 90 days. However, we keep the resumes for 180 days - so if you select "All resumes" you will see all the resumes back to 180 days ago. You can also choose to only view the resumes submitted or updated in the last 24 hours, 3 days, etc.

  • Saving search as an agent - You can save your resume search as an agent. This means that our system will do the search again for you on a regular basis and email you if there are any new resumes found. Say you are looking for a Mechanical Engineer in Illinois with a BSME, a PE, and 15 or more years of HVAC and plumbing experience. Let's assume you do the search and find there are no appropriate candidates. That's today, but a candidate with the qualifications you are looking for might add his or her resume anytime - later today, tomorrow, next week, or next month. Of course, you could come back to the website every day to check, but it's easier to set up a Resume Agent that will email you when such a candidate posts a resume.

  • A couple of things to remember about searching:

    1. Remember that candidates do not always use the keywords you are looking for when they input their resumes. For instance, your job title might be "HVAC Engineer." However, not all the candidates with significant experience in HVAC would necessarily have the phrase "HVAC Engineer" in their resumes. They might have a phrase like "results-oriented Mechanical Engineer with 8 years' experience with HVAC" or "I have extensive experience designing systems for heating, ventilation and air conditioning." If you searched for "HVAC Engineer" as a phrase in the first instance, you would not find either of these resumes. If you searched for "HVAC" as a keyword you would not find the second one. So you need to put yourself in the candidate's shoes and imagine what wording they might have used in the resume.
    2. Candidates often make mistakes when they input their resumes and this can impact your search. For instance, they might misspell the name of the city they live in. If they input "Atlnta" and you are searching for "Atlanta" the resume will not be found.

Saving Resumes

There are 2 ways to save resumes for future reference: you can save them in your account on Engineering Central or you can save them on your own computer.

  • Saving a resume in your account on Engineering Central - at the top or bottom of the resume, click on "Save this resume." The resume will be stored or saved on your Resume Page. You can store as many resumes as you want to. However, please remember that these resumes will only be available to you if the resume stays in the resume database and if your access to the resume database is active. If the resume expires or the candidate deletes it from the database, it will no longer appear in your list of stored resumes. Also, if your access to the resume database is not active, you will not be able to view your stored  resumes. Click here for an explanation of this.

  • Saving a resume on your own computer - there are several ways to do this, but let's look at a couple:

    1. You can save the resume as an HTML file on your computer. In your browser, click on File, then Save As, then assign a name to the file and select the folder where you want to save it.
    2. You can save the resume as an MS Word document. Select the entire resume by doing Control-A (hold down the Control key then press A). This will select the entire resume in your browser. Then do Control-C. This will copy the resume to the clipboard on your computer. Then transfer to MS Word, open a new file and do Control-V. This will paste the resume into the new file in MS Word. Then save the file in MS Word as you normally would - click on File, then Save, then assign a name and folder to the file.

Limitations of the resume database

We always stress that it is very important for customers to place job ads and not just rely on searching resumes in the database. This is because only a minority (about 1 in 7) of the engineers visiting Engineering Central put their resumes in the database. Experienced engineers in particular are often less likely to add their resumes to online databases because of concerns about confidentiality and because they are not working that hard at finding a job. They probably already have a good job and may just be browsing on the Internet looking to see what's "out there." These are often the passive candidates you want to access, and you may not access them through the resume database. It is a bit time-consuming to post jobs and manage them, but our experience is that you have a much better chance of getting results that way.

Resume agents

You can save your resume search as an agent. This means that our system will do the search again for you on a regular basis and email you if there are any new resumes found. Say you are looking for a Mechanical Engineer in Illinois with a BSME, a PE, and 15 or more years of HVAC and plumbing experience. Let's assume you do the search and find there are no appropriate candidates. That's today, but a candidate with the qualifications you are looking for might add his or her resume anytime - later today, tomorrow, next week, or next month. Of course, you could come back to the website every day to check, but it's easier to set up a Resume Agent that will email you when such a candidate posts a resume.

There are 2 ways to set up a Resume Agent. You can save a search as an agent or you can set up a Resume Agent directly from your Account Page:

  1. If you want to save a search as an agent, just check the box at the bottom of the Resume Search form that says "Save this search as an agent."
  2. If you want to create a Resume Agent from your Account Page, click on "Create a new Resume Agent" in the Resume section of your Account page. You can also edit, delete and run your Resume Agents from your Resume page. Running a resume agent means that the search will be run right now and you will see the current results.

Frequency - you have the choice of your Resume Agents running daily or weekly. You will only be notified of new resumes that have been posted since the last time the search ran. So, if you have selected a daily frequency, we will run the search every night for you. If there are any resumes posted within the last 24 hours that meet your search criteria, our system will send you an email. You can click on the link in the email to view the resumes. You may need to log in to your account if you are not already logged in. If there are no new resumes, we will not email you.

Accounting and Payment

Ways to pay

You can pay your account with Engineering Central by credit card, by check, or through PayPal. Here is a summary of these options:

  • Paying by credit card - at present, we can only accept credit card payments over the phone. We do not have an online credit card payment system. We accept Visa, MasterCard and American Express. To make a payment over the phone, please call us toll-free at 1-877-210-4747.

  • Paying by check - mail an ordinary check in US dollars to the following address:

    Engineering Central
    10451 Southgate Rd.
    Richmond, BC
    Canada  V7A 4Z8

    If you are mailing a check from the USA, you will need to put 69 cents on the envelope since we are in Canada. Even though Engineering Central is a US job board (almost all our job ads and resumes are in the US), we are geographically located in Canada. This makes no difference on the Internet. Unfortunately, it will cost you a few cents more for your stamp when you mail us a check!

  • Paying through PayPal - if you already have a PayPal account, you can send us your payment that way. Go to PayPal's home page at https://www.paypal.com - log in with your email address and password, then send the amount required to payments@engcen.com. We do not recommend using PayPal if you do not already have a PayPal account.

Checking your payment status

From your Account Page, click on View Invoices. This will take you to your Invoice Page, where you will see your outstanding invoices (i.e., the invoices that are not yet paid) as well as invoices that have already been paid. If an invoice's status is "Outstanding" it has not yet been paid. If the status is "Overdue" the invoice is more than 60 days old and should be paid as soon as possible.

If you have any questions about your account, please do not hesitate to contact us by email or phone (toll-free at 1-877-210-4747).

Paying an invoice

From your Account Page, click on View Invoices. This will take you to your Invoice Page. To pay one invoice, click on "Pay this invoice". To pay all of your outstanding invoices at one time, click on "Pay all outstanding invoices." At present, we do not have an online payment option, so clicking on either of these links will just tell you the options for payment - either paying by credit card over the phone or mailing us a check. If you want to pay by credit card over the phone, please call us toll-free at 1-877-210-4747. If you would prefer to mail us a check, Click here for more information.

Printing or saving an invoice

From your Account Page, click on View Invoices. This will take you to your Invoice Page. Then click on View under the invoice you are interested in. The invoice will come up in your browser. To print the invoice, click on File in your browser, then Print. There are several ways to save the invoice on your own computer, but here are two possibilities:

  1. You can save the invoice as an HTML file on your computer. In your browser, click on File, then Save As, then assign a name to the file and select the folder where you want to save it.
  2. You can save the invoice as an MS Word document. Select the entire invoice by doing Control-A (hold down the Control key then press A). This will select the entire invoice in your browser. Then do Control-C. This will copy the invoice to the clipboard on your computer. Then transfer to MS Word, open a new file and do Control-V. This will paste the invoice into the new file in MS Word. Then save the file in MS Word as you normally would - click on File, then Save, then assign a name and folder to the file.
    3.

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