John wrote:
>
> Kirk,
>
> Here is a starter for you.
>
>
> http://www.paworkforce.state.pa.us/paworkforce/site/default.asp
>
>
>
> Here is the other end of the pipeline of good people looking for good
> jobs.
>
>
> http://www.dli.state.pa.us/landi/taxonomy/taxonomy.asp?DLN …3&landiP-
> NavCtr=%7C900%7C
>
>
>
>
> With the shrinking job market I can't understand why you are having
> such a problem finding good employees. I think you are trying to
> create every employee in your image.and in the long run you are
> letting a number of potentially good employees get away from you..
> Many of your job requirments are bs as with a lot of big
> corporations. As long as I think the employee is able to do one job
> and make the company money I would hire him or her. I would not try
> to cram a bunch of useless math and other struff on them but make
> them want to advance on their own effort.
>
> As far as age, if you limit you ages for hiring you also limit your
> source of good talent. I have one person working who is 69 years old.
> He has work habits better than most people and is an asset to my
> company. I have a couple of other people I know getting ready to
> retire at some other companys and want to work part time for me when
> they retire. They have the training, experience and good work
> ethics that will make the company money, and isnt that the object of
> hiring someone.
>
>
> I sense a negative attitude that all young people are selfserving
> juviniles, yes a lot of them are but there are gems out there that
> you have to find without discouraging them before they take an
> interest in the machining industry. If you want someone to clean the
> toilets or the floor, advertise for a janitor. If I were put in that
> situation I would clean your crap once and then tell you from then on
> to do it yourself but then that is why I have always had my own
> company. Money is not the major motivation for many people,
> enjoyment of work is a big factor; sense of accomplishment in what
> they are doing.
>
> By the way, your salary offerings are not any better than most bigger
> companys in our area, which is an hour north of you and blessed with
> a lot less expensive cost of living.
>
> good luck,
Thanks for the links, John. I'll check them out tomorrow morning
first thing. And thanks too for your thoughts. You're wrong about the
negative attitude, though. If I felt that way, I'd never have started
this. I LIKE teaching. And I love to see kids learning and growing,
and experiening the things that turned me on when it was all new and
mysterious to me. But I want to do this right, not just have fun at it.
Please understand that this program isn't all we do in terms of
hiring. We run ads constantly on Careerbuilder, Monster, and all the
other major job sites, looking for experienced programmers, operators,
setup people, QC, and more. Look at the "careers" section of
http://www.fitzengineers.com , just for a sampling. And every headhunter
on Earth knows he'll get an instant commission if finds us someone,
rather than having to push and sell candidates like he'd do with
companies that are slow right now, or being conservative. We even pay
serious bounties to existing employees for referrals that work out.
And we certainly don't discriminate about age, or try to find
superheroes when all we need are good skills. In the past year, we've
hired a dozen (literally) people, ages probably from 25 to 50, who had
good looking resume's, and who said they could do the job. Set up a
Mazak Multiplex with a pre-existing program and tooling sheet for a
repeat job. Operate a Star CNC Swiss type that's already making good
parts. Step through a new program that's mostly ready to run, and tweak
it to make five parts for FAI. Change inserts or reamers when they get
dull, and adjust them to get good parts. Load bar feeders and keep the
chip baskets clean. Check parts often enough so the machine's aren't
running for an hour with a broken tap or an oversized groove.
Seriously, that's all we're asking for.
We had one guy, maybe 40 years old, with boatloads of experience on a
Multiplex. Gave him a test, checked his references, and all. We put
him on one machine, day shift, so there's no scrambling or distractions,
and lots of people around to answer questions, or help if he needed
something. In a month, he crashed turrets into both spindles, mashed
one of the tool eyes, spent boatloads of money on fried tools, and
didn't make enough real production to pay for the coffee he drank, let
alone wages and benefits. Had one similar on the Star machines maybe a
year ago. Gave him one machine he said he knew, and a job that he said
he'd done before at another company. It was maybe a 10 hour setup. He
spent four days, crashed the machine so bad I had to do a complete
alignment, and never did make a part that even looked right to the naked
eye. We hired someone in his 30's two weeks ago. Lots of machining
experience; but never worked on a Mazak Integrex or a Matrix control.
So we tried him out for a week, decided he might be worth some risk, and
sent him to Mazak school for this week at our expense. The jury's still
out on him; but we're trying. We really are.
With so little luck, and so many people who just aren't as good as
they think, we've decided to grow our own skill because we have to. The
company is passing up work, and sometimes struggling to do what we
already have, just because we can't find people.
The training program isn't designed to make kids into little
programmable robots. But I'm convinced that that HAVE to spend time on
fundamentals before they can learn the good stuff. You learned to count
before you learned to do arithmetic. And you had to be good at
arithmetic before algebra or trig could possibly make any sense. We're
applying the same logic to machining. I'm not going to hope that
someone knows something. I'm going to make sure. If you need to know
ten things in order to perform a certain job, and you already know five
of them, I'm going to teach you all ten anyway. Not because I want to
bore you or hold you back; but because I don't know WHICH things you're
missing, and you might not either. I can risk boring you a bit with
things you don't need, or I can risk letting you do something you're not
fully prepared for, and watch you crash and burn. A little bit of
boredom is way better than learning things the hard way. NOTHING will
break a person's spirit as quickly as that kind of reality check.
Obviously, we'll move people along as quickly as we can. The sooner
they can fill our needs, the better it is for the company, our
customers, our trainees, and everybody else you can think of. Holding
back has NO benefits. But going too fast, or skipping things, will
waste the students' time a lot worse than a bit of extra careful training.
I won't do it perfectly; but somehow, I'm going to do it and make it
work.
KG