How to Hire the Best Talent for Your Manufacturing

By Ray O’Donnell

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Hiring the right talent is important for all companies. However, it is especially difficult to find talent for a manufacturing business, given the current talent shortage.

According to a 2021 survey conducted by Deloitte, 83% of manufacturers find it hard to attract and retain talent. 

Also, 58% of respondents feel that the industry offers limited career prospects but they could be persuaded to join if there was a clear career progression and good training opportunities.

Also, candidates are happy to join companies that have Employer Identification Numbers, SIS IDs, and other employees' welfare registration and schemes.

Image via Deloitte

This means that it’s possible to hire great talent for your manufacturing business; you just have to try harder and provide better opportunities. You can review the cover letter and resumes of the prospective candidates to prepare the best candidates for your hiring. Cover letters and resumes help recruiters to find relevant prospective candidates for their opening and it decreases irrelevant candidate selection.

How can you do that?

That’s what this post is all about. In this post, you’ll learn some of the best ways to attract and hire the best talent for your manufacturing business.

So, let’s get started.

1. Build a Positive Brand Perception

The best tip anyone can give you on how to hire great talent for your manufacturing business is to build a good brand image.

The general perception about manufacturing companies is that they don’t provide a safe work environment or pay well. Manufacturing jobs are also considered repetitive and strenuous.

You need to change the perception by marketing your company as a safe and friendly place to work. Build an image of a brand that cares about its employees and provides the best possible work environment. One good way to create a positive brand perception is by sharing great-looking visuals on social media. You can do this with the help of lineart brushes procreate.

How can you do that? 

Here are some tips:

  • Share employee testimonials on social media and job boards
  • Publish behind-the-scenes pictures and videos of employees at work or participating in team-building activities using adobe after effect templates to enhance the visual appeal
  • Clearly mention the safety and employee well-being policies of your company
  • Always be transparent about the exact job role and compensation for any position
  • Foster a sense of community and build a strong company culture, and flex about it on different communication channels
  • Also, you can record and share a video message with prospective candidates.
  • An online background check tool serves as an invaluable resource, facilitating the selection of the most suitable candidate.

You need to change the perception of both your company and the manufacturing industry as a whole to attract and hire the best talent. You need to create a strong buyer persona that makes a difference from your competitors in the market. It helps your business to boost brand awareness with good returns.

Pro Tip: Hire a professional full-service marketing agency that can design and run a multi-channel branding campaign to improve your brand awareness and image.

2. Write Clear and Detailed Job Descriptions

Writing clear, transparent, and detailed job descriptions helps your prospective employees evaluate whether they’re interested in a position. Describe your pre-hire assessments processes such as problem solving test, Mensa IQ test, and terms in detail that helps candidates to understand and perform well.

Providing more information about a role will help you generate targeted leads who are genuinely interested in the role. 

There’s no point in attracting a lot of candidates with false promises and having them refuse your job offers at a later stage. It’s better to set the right expectations from the start and only attract people who are a good fit. 

Also, always be transparent about compensation. This helps you avoid instances where someone goes through the interview process but refuses the offer due to low compensation.

Top industrial recruitment agencies recommend including the following things in your job descriptions:

  • Job title
  • Type of job - full time or part-time
  • Job location and timings (if fixed)
  • Day-to-day responsibilities
  • Chief OKRs (objectives and key responsibilities)
  • Necessary and preferred qualifications
  • Required skills and qualifications
  • Working conditions and safety policies

Check out this detailed job description by Evernote, a popular note-taking application, which clearly states what kind of candidates they’re looking for. It clearly mentions the roles and responsibilities, required qualifications, and other qualities they want in an ideal candidate.

Image via LinkedIn

Pro Tip: Use the opportunity to boast about your employee-friendly best practices and great company culture to win extra brownie points.

3. Offer Incentives Other Than Salary

While great compensation is the primary factor for job selection for most prospects, so you need to offer more than that to attract great talent.

If you want to hire the best talent for your manufacturing business, you need to offer incentives like corporate gift schemes, health/life insurance, great training opportunities, flexible timings, opportunities to learn new skills via a robust knowledge management platform, and more.

These incentives offer quality-of-life improvements and non-monetary benefits that highly-skilled people will look for when selecting a company.

Also, don’t forget to clearly communicate these benefits to your prospects through social media, job sites, and job listings.

Check out this job listing by Corner Industries where they clearly mention all the benefits and incentives they provide to employees. Things like these provide that extra nudge to candidates to join your company.

Image via LinkedIn

4. Leverage Different Recruiting Platforms

While LinkedIn is great, it’s not the only platform you should use, especially for manufacturing jobs.

If you want to hire the best talent for your manufacturing business, you need to expand your search radius by using multiple platforms. This includes big job sites like Monster, but should not be limited to these.

Also, you can use SMS messaging software to send reminders automatically by scheduling them for the right time.

You should also find niche local job sites that are known for posting manufacturing jobs. If you can find a manufacturing-specific job site, then that’s even better.

Also, share your listings or let people know you’re hiring through social media. Add a link to the job listing to drive leads from social media to your job listings. 

You can also use AI tools like ChatGPT for social media post writing. If you are wondering how to use ChatGPT, you can enter a topic and generate a social media post for you.  

You can also host job fairs to educate people about manufacturing jobs and conduct mass hiring.

5. Start an Employee Referral Program

The best way to convince people that your manufacturing business is a great fit for them is by letting your employees promote your brand.

When an employee says great things about their place of work, people believe them more than a company claiming to be great. Use the power of employee advocacy to inform, educate, and attract talent for your manufacturing business.

Start an effective referral program that offers great incentives for them to bring in new talent. You can offer a fixed amount of money for each referral or other incentives like extra leaves.

Check out the employee referral program of Fiverr, the freelance jobs platform which offers monetary compensation to employees for referrals.

Image via Fiverr

You can also use gamification as companies do for loyalty programs, where employees get better rewards when they cross certain levels. Basically, get creative and make it worth their while to refer your company to their friends and families.

6. Proactively Reach Out to Colleges and Educate Students

As mentioned earlier, the manufacturing industry is infamous for monotonous, repetitive, and often unsafe jobs. 

Although many individuals acknowledge that the manufacturing sector is crucial to any economy, they may not be particularly inclined to pursue careers within it. This reluctance often stems from a lack of accurate information or awareness regarding the available job prospects. Utilizing an electronic signature or a paperless onboarding system simplifies the process of obtaining a new employee's signature and commencing the necessary paperwork promptly!

How can you change the narrative?

By reaching out to the younger generation and educating them before they make up their minds about what jobs they want when they graduate.

Hold educational events in schools and colleges to raise awareness about the opportunities of working in the manufacturing industry. You can host job fairs, offer tours of your facility, and conduct training and skill-development workshops. Also, companies organize onsite training to provide product knowledge to the new joiners, especially to the new trainees who joined as a fresher.

Also, you don’t always need to find highly-skilled employees. Instead, you can hire young professionals who are highly trainable and can upskill to meet your requirements.

Hire talent right out of college and train them for specific roles from supply chain management roles to assembly line workers.

7. Build Talent Pipelines for Future Needs

Don’t wait till you have a job opening to find talent and build a rapport with them. Be proactive and build talent pipelines that you can use for any future talent needs.

What does that mean?

It means that you should have a ready list of candidates for any hiring needs. Here are some ways to do that:

  • Use online forms to collect the contact information of your site visitors and ask them to sign-up for your brand communications.
  • Connect with relevant people on LinkedIn and create lists of prospective candidates for specific roles.
  • Build a strong email list and send regular emails on the latest job listings, company news, or any other important information.
  • Use staff augmentation platforms to build augmented teams that you can utilize when there’s a need for more talent and cut off when not needed. 
  • Send thank you email with an effective email template to the prospective candidates who apply for your job opening.

Pro Tip: Form relevant connections on platforms like LinkedIn and keep them engaged through great content to improve your brand image and keep the brand top of your prospects’ minds.

Ready to Hire Great Talent for Your Manufacturing Business?

Finding and hiring the right talent for your manufacturing business can be challenging. But with the tips and tricks mentioned above, you can overcome that challenge and hire the best talent for your manufacturing business.

Remember, the key is to think from a candidate’s perspective and clearly communicate why they should join your company.

What is it that you offer that other companies don’t? What kind of work environment, compensation, and benefits do you provide? 

Tell them how much you care about their safety and well-being and what measures you take to ensure a safe and attractive work environment. Better yet, let your current employees speak about what a great place to work your company offers.

Change the age-old perceptions that stop people from getting manufacturing jobs and you’ll overcome the biggest challenge for manufacturing companies—hiring the right talent. All the best!

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