Despite last month’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report of the smallest jobs increase in the last three years, American manufacturing is scrambling to find qualified workers. Unlike service sector jobs, which offer only menial pay, manufacturing pays very well and offers a lot of benefits!
After a decade of jobs declines, the U.S. manufacturing sector is booming, including the auto industry, which is experiencing its best year since 2007. Furthermore, growth in manufacturing has extended to key suppliers. As a result, many skilled workers including fabricators, machinists and CNC operators are in high demand and short supply. This shortage has also carried over to engineers, scientists, IT and technical personnel with Six Sigma, Continuous Improvement, Kaizen, Lean Manufacturing, JIT and industrial automation expertise. All are highly desired skills in today’s exceedingly automated manufacturing environment.
Unfortunately, several factors have contributed to skilled workers shunning manufacturing, including the allure of Silicon Valley startups and the misperception that manufacturing is dirty, dangerous and not as rewarding as other fields. As a result, our technical recruiting firm recommends three steps to improving your technical recruitment prowess in manufacturing.
Step 1: Promote
Your company needs to engineer a unique and decisive public relations campaign to persuade potential hires that your job openings are stable and rewarding. This does not have to be too extensive or costly. It can be as simple as developing a short video touting the virtues of your company. Then hand out the DVD at job fairs and during interviews. Include as many of your top workers in order to help convince prospects that yours is the company of choice.
Step 2: Brainstorm
Include key internal technical personnel and management recruiters from your company and external executive recruiters. Focus on: a) ways to streamline the interview process b) key evaluation metrics and c) unique selling propositions or USP’s that your company has to offer versus your competitors. Work and rework your ideas into a top five list. Then after reaching consensus on the top five, codify them into a one-page sheet to distribute to all hiring managers to ensure synergy in the recruiting process.
Step 3: Training
Train all your hiring managers on your top five key recruiting attributes developed in step #2. Use videotaped mock interviewing and recruiting sessions to ensure there is consistency among all members of your executive recruitment team. This will ensure fewer mistakes and better executive recruiting efforts. Especially in securing technical, scientific, manufacturing, IT and engineering talent that is in high demand and short supply in America’s growing manufacturing sector.
