When a Northern Ireland banking organisation approached VANRATH about a highly specialised AI Solutions Engineer role, they had already experienced the difficulty of finding the right person.
The role required more than strong technical skills. They needed someone who could combine AI engineering, AWS and cloud architecture, commercial thinking and the right personality to fit the team.
Following an initial conversation in the first week of September, Lara McGlinchey (Senior Tech Recruitment Specialist at VANRATH) arranged a detailed briefing with the client the following day.
Rather than simply working from the job description, Lara took the time to understand what the client actually needed, what type of person would thrive in the team and, importantly, what hadn't worked with previous searches. That deeper understanding meant the search could be highly targeted from the outset.
Within one week, interviews had been arranged. Within two weeks, a second-stage interview had taken place and an offer had been made. Before the following weekend, the candidate had accepted, signed their contract and agreed a start date.
The successful candidate brought more than five years' Software Engineering experience across enterprise payments, automotive and local government, alongside a move into cloud-native AI engineering. Their recent experience included RAG platforms, AI agents, Amazon Bedrock and AWS serverless architecture, with measurable results including hundreds of thousands in ROI and a 95% reduction in manual review time.
For the client, the difference was clear. They felt VANRATH had understood exactly the combination of character and technical capability they had been trying to find. For Lara, the success came from taking the time to properly understand the brief before moving quickly on it.
Good recruitment is about understanding what the client really needs, identifying the right person and then moving decisively. If you're hiring for a Tech specialist, difficult-to-find or business-critical role, speak to Lara McGlinchey at VANRATH to discuss how we can help.
Email: lara.mcglinchey@vanrath.com
Phone: 028 9033 0250