Manufacturing is one of the leading industries in the country, bouncing back strongly from the Great Recession. This is great news for the US economy, but like other major industries, there’s a widening gap between the jobs that need to be filled and the skilled talent pool capable of filling them.
This skills gap is making talent acquisition in the manufacturing industry more competitive than ever before — especially when it comes to campus recruiting. As senior-level Baby Boomers begin to retire and new technologies emerge, talent acquisition teams at manufacturing companies are looking to younger candidates. This shift in focus is forcing recruiters to expand beyond traditional recruiting methods and tailor their strategy to attract and engage Millennial and Gen Z talent.
At Yello, we work with recruiting teams every day — and manufacturing companies represent 15% of Yello clients, including several members of the Fortune 500. Here are some of the most common pain points reported by early talent recruiters at manufacturing companies.
1. Difficulty attracting qualified candidates, combating the shortage of skilled labor.
Finding and hiring qualified candidates starts with a stand-out experience at recruitment events. Before career fairs, manufacturing companies can get a head start by engaging candidates before the event even starts. Using event pre-registration drives candidates to your booth during the event, then streamlines check-in and follow-up for a better candidate experience — all while keeping you one step ahead of competitors.
Solution: Pre-Event Registration & Marketing
Proactively showcase your brand with recruitment event marketing tools — including event promotion, pre-registration and personalized communications and follow-up.
- Events board & pre-registration pages
- Email and text campaigns
- Automated event reminders
- Personalized communication
Solution: Digital Event Check-In
Put candidates first and eliminate paper resumes with a mobile-friendly check-in portal to capture candidate data which can easily be filtered and sorted post event.
- Digital resume and candidate profile capture
- Evaluate candidates in mobile recruiting app
- Instantly advance candidates to next steps
- Personalized candidate follow-up
Plexus saved 17.5 full work days of recruiter time by eliminating paper resumes at career fairs due to Yello’s digital resume and candidate profile capture. They no longer need to manually scan and organize more than 4,200 paper resumes for compliance purposes every year.
2. Difficulty appealing to younger generations due to increased competition for talent and industry stereotypes.
Competition for younger talent is fierce, regardless of industry. But research shows that candidates often have perceptions of the manufacturing industry that may make it even harder for recruiters to attract top talent. Current college students who grew up during the post-recession era may be more likely to think of manufacturing jobs as low-paying or insecure. Employers can set the record straight by prioritizing their employer branding and candidate engagement strategies.
Solution: Candidate Engagement
Engage candidates instantly, building awareness and driving action with personalized, mobile-friendly campaigns that appeal to younger generations and ensure candidates never feel ignored or left behind — while keeping your employer brand top of mind at every step.
- Fully-branded email and text campaigns
- Targeted pipeline criteria and keywords
- Campaign automation and scheduler
- Measure campaign performance
A Fortune 100 manufacturing company leverages Yello at diversity events to capture STEM talent. For example, they use Yello’s texting capabilities to offer students the option to “skip the line” at NSBE — making for a better student experience, while ensuring they don’t miss out on candidates. More than 15% of event attendees pre-registered via the text campaign, which included links to their careers page and more.
3. Keeping up with candidate expectations and competitors, while leveraging outdated recruiting methods.
As recruiters in the manufacturing industry adjust their strategies to more effectively engage Millennials and Gen Z candidates, they’re finding that traditional tools aren’t built for recruiting in the new era. To hire early talent, manufacturing companies need to adopt tools that leverage automation and efficiency — helping them create a better experience for staff and candidates, ultimately hiring quality talent faster than competitors.
Solution: Interview Scheduling Software
Stay ahead of the competition at career fairs and high-volume hiring events — accelerate your process with an on-the-spot interview scheduling app that integrates with events management.
- Candidate self-scheduling
- Automated text confirmations
- Interview invitation management and RSVPs
- Automated post-event actions and follow-up
“Customer Service is #1!”
“Scheduling was one of our biggest pain points. Yello has alleviated that concern.”
Tina W | Human Resources (Automotive Manufacturing)
Bottom Line: Recruiting Results
Ultimately, manufacturing companies can meet growing demands by attracting new generations of skilled workers, modernizing outdated hiring processes and strengthening their employer brand to stand out from the crowd on campus and beyond.
