EMS Recruitment and Service Sector Parallels

Most manufacturing firms I know (both EMS and precision engineering) are hiring right now. In many labor markets, that can be difficult. I continue to wonder how much of this is that the right applicants aren’t available versus that the right applicants don’t know manufacturing is a career option. Like many of you, I’ve sometimes beaten my head against the wall trying to explain to young people why factory work is great career option both in hiring back in my corporate days, and to friends and relatives entering the job market. My favorite example was when I was interviewing marketing manager candidates in Florida and one applicant looked around my rather spartan, windowless office and told me he really wanted a job that had a nicer office. Fortunately, the next applicant went out on the manufacturing floor and was amazed by the prospect of being able to work in a place that built electronics. SMT placement machines fascinated her. It was the same type of excitement that brought me to EMS in 1981–it is pretty cool to work in a place where you see new products ahead of the rest of the world.

That said, the message in my latest Circuits Assembly article is that the best “target” applicants may be mid-career folks looking for a change. The service sector (particularly hospitality) typically hires people with required skills rather than trains and promotes from within for supervisory and management positions. It can be physically demanding work. The end result is a pool of workers with little advancement potential looking for better options. The challenge is that those workers may not be looking at manufacturing jobs. Their vision of a factory may be a dark, dingy, noisy workplace. They may have heard that manufacturing jobs will all be replaced by robots (although in many cases they are more at risk of being replaced by kiosks in their current jobs–thanks to the fight for $15). They may simply assume that they don’t have the skillset to work in a factory. Or, they may not have a clue that these jobs exist.

The benefit of looking at this segment of workers is that they are experienced enough to appreciate concepts that younger workers may not. Where a younger worker overestimates their value; an older worker appreciates seeing a framework for advancement. Where a younger worker is looking for a cool workplace; an older worker appreciates benefits like health insurance, paid vacation and predictable hours. In short, workers who have enough work experience to understand the realities of their current career choice have the understanding to appreciate much of what a career in electronics manufacturing has to offer. Read the full article here.

EMS and Employee Recruitment

I wrote an article that focused on TeligentEMS’ teaming efforts with Tallahassee Community College (TCC) to develop an educational program for SMT operators in SMT Magazine in May. I really enjoyed writing this article for two reasons. First, as much as the Gator alum in me hates praising anything in Tallahassee, TCC really has its act together. It is helping to change lives as well as provide an education to folks who either don’t have the time or the money to spend on a four-year degree. Second, I was able to interview a production worker who had changed her life by taking advantage of SMT training at TCC and then going to work at TeligentEMS. Much of that interview is in her own words and I think in many ways she reflects the sentiments of many 30-something workers who are trapped in service sector jobs and looking for a path to a job with advancement potential that doesn’t involve a long period of unemployment and retraining in order to make the switch. For EMS companies facing challenges in recruiting production employees, this article highlights a formula that seems to be working.