Case Study: Tech Recruitment for Continental

About Continental

Continental is a German multinational company primarily active in the automotive sector, manufacturing a wide range of motor vehicle parts and electronic devices. Their operations extend from automotive electronics to tires; they are also at the forefront of advancing autonomous driving technologies.

Continental places significant emphasis on research and development, especially in areas of electromobility and connected mobility solutions.

About Bluebird

Bluebird, operating in the United States and Hungary, is a tech recruitment and software development company providing recruitment, candidate selection, and software development services to firms in the IT and technology sectors. We focus heavily on thoroughly assessing both the professional backgrounds and personalities of IT experts.

Thanks to this approach, the professionals we provide don’t simply meet technological requirements but are also great fits for your company culture.

The Objective

Continental had decided to expand its IT team, with a particular focus on scaling its embedded development team. Their challenge? To recruit a large number of experienced IT professionals in a short amount of time. Continental needed external assistance, and they contracted Bluebird as their IT staffing partner to achieve their goal.

Positions that needed to be filled (including but not limited to):

1
Scrum Master
2
AI DevOps Engineer (System Engineer)
3
AI Infrastructure DevOps Engineer
4
Algorithm Developer (Radar) - 80% Embedded C, 20% Python
5
C++ Developer (Computer Vision Software Engineer)
6
CUDA / OpenCL Engineer for Automated Driving
7
Lead Hardware Engineer
8
Lead System Engineer/ System Architect
9
Medior/Senior Embedded Software Engineer (C)
10
Project Safety Manager
11
Software Test Engineer (CANoe, C, Python)
12
Test Automation Engineer (Python)
13
Value Engineering Manager

Stages in Our Collaboration with Continental

Our cooperation was smooth from the get-go. This is how the process went:

1
Assessment of Continental’s needs and requirements: Initial meetings to discuss the open IT positions the Bluebird staffing team would fill: AI DevOps Engineer, Algorithm Developer, CUDA/OpenCL Engineer, Lead Hardware Engineer, Lead System Engineer, Senior Embedded Software Engineer, Software Test Engineer, and Test Automation Engineer, among others.
2
Detailed position discussions: As part of this phase, we examined the details of each role individually. Continental and Bluebird experts reviewed the tasks and responsibilities associated with each position, as well as the technological and skill-related expectations that were important to Continental.
3
Presenting the recruitment process: The two teams came together to review the recruitment process. Our experts introduced our recruitment methodology and tools, focusing on candidate evaluation—with emphasis on technical background checks, cultural fit assessments, and identification of relevant soft skills.
4
Search and interviews: Bluebird launched the search for highly suitable candidates based on the agreed criteria, using our own carefully maintained internal database, LinkedIn, and other channels. The search was conducted by senior IT recruiters and IT sourcers. When finding matching profiles, they organized interviews with the experts. After each interview, the Bluebird team created detailed assessments for the Continental team to review. The last step in this phase was Continental’s own interview rounds with the candidates.
5
Job offers: Continental made offers to candidates who were a good fit both professionally and culturally, with Bluebird supporting the offer process.

Results Achieved

300 Candidates Presented

30 Offers Accepted

Continental successfully hired 30 IT professionals as employees through Bluebird's recruitment efforts, including senior software developers and IT leaders. Each of these experts has substantial professional knowledge and experience, and they add true value to Continental's business operations.

After listing the positions, Bluebird was able to provide candidates within an average of one week, even for the most specialized IT positions. We hand-picked, interviewed and presented nearly 300 candidates in total.

10% of the candidates were selected by Continental. The quality of the selection process is evident from the fact that they kept all employees after hiring; the team did not have to part ways with any of the experts we provided. The experts we placed are highly satisfied with Continental as their new employer, feeling that they provide exciting professional challenges, a state-of-the-art technological stack, and a friendly, youthful work environment.

During the recruitment process, there were two main challenges: one, the fact that the automotive market in Hungary is very limited, and second, that the required technological stack was highly specialized. Cuda and Autosar narrowed down the number of potential candidates, but our team was nearly always successful in recruiting for these challenging positions.