- June 26, 2015
- 7:54 pm
- John Caltagirone
- no comments
Recruiting Talent for the Manufacturing Industry
From the perspective of a recent graduate, the job search can be excruciatingly painful. Between reading through numerous job descriptions, finding one that fits your needs, your wants, and most importantly, one that you can contribute to is almost like blind dating.
I can imagine that this is equally frustrating to employers looking to recruit recent graduates. More than often you hear again and again from employers that “graduates aren’t prepared,” “they aren’t experienced.”
While most industries continue to complain, others have taken matters into their own hands. The Manufacturing Institute, which works with developing talent in the manufacturing industry, have presenting to employers the impact that improvement in the talent pipeline would have in the manufacturing industry.
Jennifer McNelly, the president of the Manufacturing Institute, presented the 3 D’s in manufacturing: dark, dirty, and dangerous. McNelly says manufacturing is innovative, it is the intersection of people and technology. Thus there is an abundance growth in the manufacturing industry, but there is a grand shortage in talent in the U.S. for manufacturing, with 6 out of 10 production positions unfilled.
McNelly suggests manufacturing companies need to branch out to less tradition methods such as looking to where the talent begins, community colleges and technical schools. She advocated for more entry ways into manufacturing internships and apprenticeships that offer value. Moreover, she said that increasing diversity with the workforce by including youth, veterans, and women would be immensely increase their talent pool.
It isn’t that students or graduates aren’t unexperienced or unprepared rather they are misinformed about their options, and manufacturing isn’t an industry that jumps out to recent graduates. I also agree that increasing the diversity of the workforce maybe just what companies are looking for. Diversity leads to innovation and innovation usually always leads to success. Many of these suggestions just maybe the game changer in finding the right talent in manufacturing.
-Riti Patel, Assistant, Supply and Value Chain Center
Source:
http://www.supplychain247.com/article/building_the_manufacturing_talent_pipeline