Recruiting new staff successfully

After reading another PM members' latest thread on his recruitment problems ,I thought I would start a new thread on how it should be done.

I come accross plenty of shop owners with stories of disastrous people that they have taken on over the years and it is particularly difficult for small businesses without much experience in this field, but of course there are lots of companies both large and small who grow their businesses very successfully by taking on the right people and keeping them.

I have been through this myself a few times and although they have lasted longer than one day, I have never had a guy really work out.I have never tried taking on a youngster as I would be too worried about health and safety as they always seem half asleep,but I did try someone with no experience and he turned out to be the worst. The others were experienced machinists who were all capable of doing good work but quality varied a lot from day to day and giving work to somebody who can work to half a thou one day and struggles with 5 thou the next is something I found difficult.

It would be particularly interesting to hear from experienced tradesmen who have come from a large employer background that lost their job through redundency ,as there are a lot around and I have interviewed quite a few like this, but it always seems that their attitude stinks ,they come accross as looking down on my shop as it fails to come up to what they are used to, one even told me that I was wasting my time and should give up while the going is good because it won't last ,in my opinion these guys need a reality check as most of them will not find another large employer.

Where is the best place to find staff? I have had people from the job centre but one of the poorest was recomended I never advertised in the paper,does that work?

The next part is ,once you think you have a suitable candidate ,how do you try out their skills ,is it acceptable to give someone a job to undertake before you set them on or perhaps some kind of standard test piece. The problems I can see here is 1.the insurance company won't like it and 2. the guy isn't used to my machines so how to interpret the results.

Is a one week trial in order, and should that be straight into making parts or watching somebody else for a day or two first.

How can the owner or manager go about putting over the quality requirements without upsetting people ,I had one chap who thought I was stupid wanting the parts to look good, he thought as long as it did the job that was good enough but then if I said anything about what he was doing , he complained I was on his back all the time.

And finally for now ,how to keep the good ones ,not just from leaving but keep them improving. I know the big companies spend a fortune on training and creating new tiers of management so that continuous improvement and promotion is possible but a struggling small shop isn't in a position to do this. It seems easy for a guy that's been with you a few months to think he's making you a fortune and should be getting something extra ,when the reality is the shop is only scraping by with the extra mouth to feed.

Things that haven't worked for me,

The Department of Labor or whatever its called in your state, they will send you every idiot that claims to know what a drill press
is or has even heard the word BridgePort, even if they only know Bridgeport, because they picked up a half pound of weed there one time.
That was a huge mistake.

Did a newspaper ad once, with a phone #, Another huge mistake. If you have a secretary in the front that can hand out applications, and
field phone calls, that might work, I didn't have such a luxury.

Its a small community out here, if some guy comes knocking on the door of one shop, and they don't need him and feel he might be an asset,
they'll pass him along. Get to know your local competition maybe?? In a friendly way.

My now business partner, my then boss used to work at the university, he got a few kids from there, and then over the years, word of mouth,
we got some really good kids. We lost them all eventually, they went on to bigger and better things, but they were good while they lasted,
most of them, a vast majority.

I've also had good luck stealing employees. Everybody frequents a place, coffee shop, hardware store, bar, car parts store,
convenience store. At pretty much everyplace there is an employee or 2 that are always friendly, competent and you can tell they work their
ass off, and you know they aren't making shit, you can chat them up, get friendly with them, offer them a job.. part time, extra money. I've
done it with their boss's blessing, and I've just straight out stole them.

The kid that is excited to work at a car parts store or a hardware store that visibly cares about his (or her) job, really doesn't care about their
job. They think its cool to play with bits and pieces and parts. They want to play with bits and pieces and parts and do cool things, but they
don't know how to get there. Hardware and car parts is down the street, they don't even know what we do exists, and car parts and hardware
bits is as close as they can get easily, until someone shows them the way.

I didn't know how to get there, but I was making too much money doing something I didn't overly care for. I almost bought a welding truck,
and I hate welding, but I wanted to play with metal and make stuff so bad that I was willing to go there, just so I could play with stuff, and make stuff.

Right now, if I need somebody to be competent, not skilled, just not an idiot, I've got 2 guys in mind (and I'd steal them), and then there are 2 more
behind those if that fails.


Edit: just throwing ideas out there, anything but a newspaper ad.

I don't claim to have the answer to these questions ... I am reading this thread hoping for some hints myself. We have a horrible time trying to scrounge up enough decent machinists to staff our machines who are dedicated enough to make it at our company. While I am here anyway though, I'll share what has worked for us so far.

On the retention end, that's easy. Share the wealth. Even before our company became an ESOP, we had a decent production bonus / gainsharing plan for all employees. Pay has always been somewhat below average here, but when the company does well, the employees do well. In a good year, bonus pay has been equal to up to as high as a 40% wage increase. In bad years, bonus pay has been nothing.

Doing this helps several ways. For one thing, it gives the company a built in way to cut costs when times are tough. People will stick around for completely inadequate pay for their positions, knowing that things are bad and they should be happy to have a job, and that when things pick up they will be raking in the cash again. Also, it motivates people to do everything they can to try to make the company profitable. A portion of every dime they save the company ends up in their own pocket, so they watch for those dimes.

As far as recruitment goes... we've had some luck trying to snatch the top students from the local community college machining program just before they graduate. They're green and require a lot of training, but they at least have some basic knowledge, and an interest in the field. I even started teaching a class up there to make it easier to poach them before someone else does.

Hiring experienced machinists from other companies hasn't usually worked out too well. We've gotten lucky a few times, but for the most part, if someone is a worthwhile hire, they aren't looking for a job. They got cut loose for a reason. Unless you just happen to run across one of the top guys from a company that just went under during the 1 week they are between jobs, you're just stuck with the leftovers no one wants. Also, it takes a lot longer to un-train someone of what they think they know, than it does to start from scratch.

If anyone else knows of any sources of skilled employees, please share, we're 3 or 4 short right now.

I wouldn't worry too much about not knowing the machines you have. A control is just that a control. It shouldn't take too long to adapt. Auto is auto, same with MDI and offsets. Just the buttons and screens are different. G code is G code. With some variable from different manufacturers. Same with Conversational. What you want to pay attention to is the set up and tooling selection. The thought process of the individual is key. Get going quick. Aid in finding where everything is located. Depending on money coming in the door is how you get started. If not a lot of money then start simple. If a lot, then hit them hard from the git go. Set up is everything for a solid run. Help out with the control. Evaluate on the fly how well the person is picking up. Taking notes or retaining on the fly. If you can't afford them without knowing them. Offer a 90 day(standard) first at a reduced rate. If they are worth their salt. Give them the money to stay. If not then shouldn't be there more than a day or two. However a sit down should be required to go over evaluations throughout the 90 day. As far as recruiting goes. Visit the local establishments for beverage or two around the local shops after work hours. That would be the way to get to know people and also get a feel for how they might work out. Otherwise the market is saturated with recruiters trying to make money off machinists nowadays. Could always go that route. Best of luck in whatever you do.

What in the hell ever happened to taking someone under your wing and training them to do things the way you were trained to do??? That is the attitude that the 3 instrument makers that I have worked with in my career have treated me. Admittedly, I have a great desire to learn the stuff, but NOT ONE of them just handed me some stock and said "go make this" without some instruction, patience, and training. I'm not talking about a formal tool & die maker apprenticeship here, just some instruction on how to run the machines in the shop, how to make the parts that need making, how to be a good machinist. If you are hiring guys who already think they know all this stuff, then you probably have a problem. Start with eager kids who are biting at the bit to learn from you. They will look up to you and respect you. They will learn faster than you can imagine. The right person is like a sponge for knowledge. Are these people hard to find? Yes. Are they worth finding? You bet your ass. As others have noted, they can probably be best found in the local community college or trade school (or perhaps even high school votech program). Get these kids and train them well. THEY are the future of our craft. Not some guy who has been pushing a button on a CNC for 10 years and has been laid off.

I once worked with a machinist who had left a union job to become the machinist at a college. He was horrible. Impossible to work with, few skills (he had apparently run the same part for 10 years at his previous job before coming to the college). He didn't even want to work on things new and exciting. These are NOT the people you want to hire. Don't get me wrong, my Dad was a lifetime Teamster, and our life was much better because of that (compared to working for a non-union company). However, Dad never lost sight of the big picture. At his funeral a month ago, drivers, dispatchers, and owners from his previous job showed up to pay their respects. Why? Not because he hid behind "union rules", but because he always told it like it was, and kept the best interests of the company at heart, even if he had to argue with them about things.

Hire someone who is eager and loves what they are doing. You won't go wrong.

--Hawk

It takes a long, long time to grow someone. If you find someone eager and that gives a shit you're ahead of the game (and hopefully someone with a sense of appreciation and allegiance to those who have helped them). Then expect it to take 6 months for them not to cost you money, and another 6 months for them to be an asset. I'm young and am *very* passionate about my job (I read and post on a manufacturing forum in the evenings and weekends). But I look back and I was pretty useless for about 6 months. Within a year I was producing some things but it was even longer before I knew enough to be worthwhile. In reality I still don't know much, but at least I can be productive and am always learning. You need to be patient, you can't grow them overnight. My background is in engineering, but I think the same applies to machinist.

sable said:

And finally for now ,how to keep the good ones ,not just from leaving but keep them improving. I know the big companies spend a fortune on training and creating new tiers of management so that continuous improvement and promotion is possible but a struggling small shop isn't in a position to do this. It seems easy for a guy that's been with you a few months to think he's making you a fortune and should be getting something extra ,when the reality is the shop is only scraping by with the extra mouth to feed.

Click to expand...

I can't really help with the first few items as my hiring experience was mainly engineers and semiskilled operators and helpers and now semiskilled farm employees, but for the last item, retention and skills development a few things that have worked for me are:

> honest praise. When someone does a good job let them know it was a good job and do it in front of other people if possible. If someone comes up with a good idea and you use it, be sure to tell people who came up with the idea.

> Skills development - be OK with government jobs and if only a little material is needed, provide the material. Find out what they want to learn and see if you can send some jobs their way which will give them a chance to practice. If someone wants to learn to weld, let them do a G-job that involves welding and if you have some simple welding let them do it. If a tradeshow is close and it won't cost too much money send them to the show and give them a job to do at the show - find tooling that can do this, check out machine 'X".

> Don't treat them as a variable cost or expense. Let people know if work will be slowing down so that they know the overtime is going away or that it will be a good time to take some time off. Don't lay people off unless you have no choice

> Buy donuts or lunch - not all the time, not always to recognize a specific event, just do it sometimes to let them know you appreciate their work

> Take the time to learn enough about the employee to know what are good motivators for that person. Some people prefer praise to $$, others want time off or a flexible schedule, even unpaid

> Make sure the bathroom and lunchrooms are clean and that people have a decent workspace and that the shop isn't a sty.

> Remember the golden rule. Most people want to do a good job, but need some guidance to understand what is expected of them. If you provide good guidance, and treat them the way you would like to be treated you'll do OK.

> Finally, be prepared for the best of them to leave. The best guys often have potential beyond what you can offer in terms of challenging work or pay. Treat them well for as long as you can keep them and try to part on good and positive terms as they may end up directing good people to you as future employees or end up as a customer for your shop.

I have nothing to offer no health insurance no vacation, I cant understand anyone with skills actually wanting to work in my shop. There is no promotions or advancement, I can show them how to run a horizontal mill or a shaper but that is not going to benefit them in the long term. If I was to look for a job I would be looking at a big shop or the mining companies because I would need benefits and retirement. I have known guys who have spent years working in mom and pop type shops and I dont understand it there is no where to go they have so little to offer. I cant afford to spend months training someone to run a mill it makes no economic sense, I am better off sending the work out, there are lots of highly skilled shops who wouldnt mind some fill in work.

All the hard working, skilled people I know work for me and I can afford to pay them what they're worth, offer good benefits and vacation and keep them busy.....

Then I wake up.

Very well put hawk!!!!!!!

rebhawk said:

what in the hell ever happened to taking someone under your wing and training them to do things the way you were trained to do??? That is the attitude that the 3 instrument makers that i have worked with in my career have treated me. Admittedly, i have a great desire to learn the stuff, but not one of them just handed me some stock and said "go make this" without some instruction, patience, and training. I'm not talking about a formal tool & die maker apprenticeship here, just some instruction on how to run the machines in the shop, how to make the parts that need making, how to be a good machinist. If you are hiring guys who already think they know all this stuff, then you probably have a problem. Start with eager kids who are biting at the bit to learn from you. They will look up to you and respect you. They will learn faster than you can imagine. The right person is like a sponge for knowledge. Are these people hard to find? Yes. Are they worth finding? You bet your ass. As others have noted, they can probably be best found in the local community college or trade school (or perhaps even high school votech program). Get these kids and train them well. They are the future of our craft. Not some guy who has been pushing a button on a cnc for 10 years and has been laid off.

I once worked with a machinist who had left a union job to become the machinist at a college. He was horrible. Impossible to work with, few skills (he had apparently run the same part for 10 years at his previous job before coming to the college). He didn't even want to work on things new and exciting. These are not the people you want to hire. Don't get me wrong, my dad was a lifetime teamster, and our life was much better because of that (compared to working for a non-union company). However, dad never lost sight of the big picture. At his funeral a month ago, drivers, dispatchers, and owners from his previous job showed up to pay their respects. Why? Not because he hid behind "union rules", but because he always told it like it was, and kept the best interests of the company at heart, even if he had to argue with them about things.

Hire someone who is eager and loves what they are doing. You won't go wrong.

--hawk

Click to expand...

new people

RebHawk said:

What in the hell ever happened to taking someone under your wing and training them to do things the way you were trained to do??? That is the attitude that the 3 instrument makers that I have worked with in my career have treated me. Admittedly, I have a great desire to learn the stuff, but NOT ONE of them just handed me some stock and said "go make this" without some instruction, patience, and training. I'm not talking about a formal tool & die maker apprenticeship here, just some instruction on how to run the machines in the shop, how to make the parts that need making, how to be a good machinist. If you are hiring guys who already think they know all this stuff, then you probably have a problem. Start with eager kids who are biting at the bit to learn from you. They will look up to you and respect you. They will learn faster than you can imagine. The right person is like a sponge for knowledge. Are these people hard to find? Yes. Are they worth finding? You bet your ass. As others have noted, they can probably be best found in the local community college or trade school (or perhaps even high school votech program). Get these kids and train them well. THEY are the future of our craft. Not some guy who has been pushing a button on a CNC for 10 years and has been laid off.

Hire someone who is eager and loves what they are doing. You won't go wrong.

--Hawk

Click to expand...

.
i found the best thing is
1) work side by side with a new person or assign someone to work with them for a week to a month to show them how things work and to see how they do work. also have someone close by so if they have a question they can ask and get a answer quickly. some things are simple like where are certain things kept in the shop.
.
2) i was a maintenance machinist for 31 years at a big company that closed down a whole building and everybody laid off. from doing machining 50% of my time i was eager to do work in the shop 100% as i always considered it the better and easier type of work.
.
3) my problem was some places not even willing to try me out (too old maybe at 51). i got lucky with an employment recruiter (who i believe was paid $1000 to find me from the hiring company) who matched my skills to a job at a another larger company that did short run machining. i had told him i do better at lower quantity jobs as i like variety and doing different types of jobs. i also liked working for bigger companies as i think they offer more stable employment.
.
4) i was used to following procedures, asking for a pencil and paper to take notes, making parts to required tolerance so parts will work in a machine. as i guy who fixed machines i understood a machine being shutdown til a part was made so it could be repaired and put back into production.
.
did i make mistakes?? sure crashed a 4" facemill into a vise from a typo error. released a tool holder and it hit the tool length setting device and knocked it out of calibration, scrapped a few parts. but after 3 months because i was honest in admitting mistakes and tried to change my work procedure checklist to not make same mistake twice i was at my 3 month job review given a meets expectations and after 1 year at the job got my first merit raise. i make $20.50/hr

RebHawk said:

What in the hell ever happened to taking someone under your wing and training them to do things the way you were trained to do??? That is the attitude that the 3 instrument makers that I have worked with in my career have treated me. Admittedly, I have a great desire to learn the stuff, but NOT ONE of them just handed me some stock and said "go make this" without some instruction, patience, and training. I'm not talking about a formal tool & die maker apprenticeship here, just some instruction on how to run the machines in the shop, how to make the parts that need making, how to be a good machinist. If you are hiring guys who already think they know all this stuff, then you probably have a problem. Start with eager kids who are biting at the bit to learn from you. They will look up to you and respect you. They will learn faster than you can imagine. The right person is like a sponge for knowledge. Are these people hard to find? Yes. Are they worth finding? You bet your ass. As others have noted, they can probably be best found in the local community college or trade school (or perhaps even high school votech program). Get these kids and train them well. THEY are the future of our craft. Not some guy who has been pushing a button on a CNC for 10 years and has been laid off.

I once worked with a machinist who had left a union job to become the machinist at a college. He was horrible. Impossible to work with, few skills (he had apparently run the same part for 10 years at his previous job before coming to the college). He didn't even want to work on things new and exciting. These are NOT the people you want to hire. Don't get me wrong, my Dad was a lifetime Teamster, and our life was much better because of that (compared to working for a non-union company). However, Dad never lost sight of the big picture. At his funeral a month ago, drivers, dispatchers, and owners from his previous job showed up to pay their respects. Why? Not because he hid behind "union rules", but because he always told it like it was, and kept the best interests of the company at heart, even if he had to argue with them about things.

Hire someone who is eager and loves what they are doing. You won't go wrong.

--Hawk

Click to expand...

I agree 100% but then you have move them up the pay scale pretty quickly.. My first job I learned mazatrol on a Integrex. I was excited to learned and what learn more. Mind you I was a senior in high school making $10 a hour. I thought that was awesome getting paid to learn. After three months,I was on my own programming parts and doing the setup.. I picked up the control fast and how things was done fast being trained by my mentor.

Granted I wasn't speedy at programming and setup but I took my time and never crashed the machine.


But, the $10 dollar got old really fast so I left for more money.

I have nothing to offer no health insurance no vacation, I cant understand anyone with skills actually wanting to work in my shop. There is no promotions or advancement, I can show them how to run a horizontal mill or a shaper but that is not going to benefit them in the long term. If I was to look for a job I would be looking at a big shop or the mining companies because I would need benefits and retirement. I have known guys who have spent years working in mom and pop type shops and I dont understand it there is no where to go they have so little to offer. I cant afford to spend months training someone to run a mill it makes no economic sense, I am better off sending the work out, there are lots of highly skilled shops who wouldnt mind some fill in work.

Click to expand...

Sounds like you need a machinist with a full time job that just wants some extra cash maybe the nights or weekends?

I have worked in an engineering dept. for 20 years. Before that I was a journeyman sheet metal mechanic and millwright and I also spent ten years as a welder/fitter in a structural steel house. I have done OJT, formal apprenticeship, and formal training. It all works out to varying degrees but is entirely dependent on the character of the trainee and circumstances of employment. When I served my sheet metal apprenticeship, I was working in a heavy gauge shop that was very specialized. The stuff I did there and the skills I learned there were available no where else, but they also did not do me a lot of good in most of the other local union shops.

I got an AA in engineering and started out where I am now, and I am now senior designer here. The engineering schooling was necessary but once again, what I do here is very specialized to our particular business. I started out here very humbly - I went from a journeyman sheet metal mechanic's wages to just above minimum wage - my daughter was a junior in high school at the time and her summer job was as a lifeguard at the city pool a few streets over from our house. She was making a buck an hour more than me and I had just completed 2 years of college. It was tough sledding for a couple of years.

Company policy and philosophy at the time was that engineering personnel were a necessary evil. The pay and working conditions reflected that. As a consequence, it was very difficult to staff our department. What kept me hanging in there was that I was genuinely interested in my work and in what our company does. Five years in, I counted 23 employees who had joined our staff after myself and had left. We hired several hands who never showed up at all - they had found better positions after they were hired and didn't even have the common courtesy to tell us to go pound sand. We had one guy who showed up on his first day with the newspaper tucked under his arm. He was shown to his cubicle and was asked to wait a bit as the HR person had some other fire to put out before she could get his paperwork rolling. He put his feet up on his desk and read his newspaper. After he finished the paper, he neatly folded it and placed it on his desk. He got up and walked out the door never to be seen or heard from again.

A change at the top of our company leadership changed all that - the new prez came up through engineering and knew what the problem was. My wages doubled in the first 18 months of the new company leadership. My benefits were always outstanding so all was well. Suddenly, working in our engineering dept. became a much more sought after position. Every single member of our staff has been with us at least five years now and we now have very low turnover. The new leadership didn't do many other things right and fell flat on it's face in many areas and was eventually replaced again, but it did engineering right at the time and those changes stuck.

The worst thing we ever did was to hire people who had worked in other engineering positions at other companies. Without exception, they have been a pain in the ass. We are an Inventor/AutoCAD shop and we have tried out a couple of Solidworks guys. There isn't a damn thing wrong with Solidworks, and if it had been my decision to make when we were looking at solid modelers, that is the package I would have chosen. Hindsight is usually 20/20. However, we went with Autodesk because we were already an AutoCAD shop and Autodesk managed to sell us on Inventor. But there isn't anything worse than trying to train a guy on something he doesn't want to learn and is palpably hostile to using. Listening to a guy snivel and whine all day for a year about how Solidworks is so vastly superior to Inventor gets very old, especially since it's nothing but an excuse. SW does many things better than IV, but there are also many areas that IV is handier at than SW. But I digress - these hands were not teachable because they thought the were already experts in anything of importance. They had preconceived notions and did not have an open mind. Their valuable knowledge and skills ended up being useless to us as a team because they could not adapt and everything became black and white to them. They placed no personal value on the knowledge and skills that were available to them in this situation. I never felt a bit sorry for the several fucktards we had over the years in this category but I also recognize that they all led a miserable existence in their employment here. When these folks left it was merciful to both them and us. I guess that often it is true what they say about teaching an old dog new tricks. If that old dog already thinks he knows it all, he is definitely unteachable.

We have found there are two ways to staff our department - inexperienced hires fresh out of community college or university or folks off the shop floor. Through trial and error we have come to the conclusion that it takes a minimum of three years to properly train a new tech in our engineering world if they haven't worked here on the shop floor and they need some formal outside engineering training that is general in nature. The schooling provides us with a notion of whether an individual is teachable or not. We cover a vast amount of ground and one of the most important skills to teach is where to find information to properly do our job. Good judgment comes from experience, experience comes from poor judgment and making mistakes along the way. It is a game of patience and perseverance and there has to be buy in and commitment on the part of both staff and new hire. Often we are just winging it and taking a chance because it takes a while for the commitment thing to sort itself out from both ends. We don't want folks who have worked somewhere else in engineering; they have never worked out for us even one time. We also have several people who have come up off the shop floor and these have been the best additions without exception. The quoting guy ten feet away from me ran every machine on the floor from an old WWII era Warner Swasey bar machine up to our most sophisticated Mori Seiki and Haas equipment and was a shop floor leadman for years. All we had to do was teach him the software we use; he already had 25 years knowledge about how our company operates. He was up to full productive speed in less than a year.

We don't call it apprenticeship, but in effect that is how we staff around here. It is a unique situation and that's how we roll. I don't know how anyone else could apply what we do to their own needs; I offer this as a look at how one place does this, YMMV.

Thanks very much for the response guys ,I have learned a lot. It seems that many are saying that ,as I have found ,the people who have been at it for years and have lost their jobs through redundency at bigger concerns are the most difficult to take on .Has anyone found a way to get the best out of them as they surely are a source of skills there to be tapped and it's sad for anyone to end up on the scrap heap .

Or is it that in reality that most of these tradesmen worked in a very narrow field and actually don't have the range of skills needed in a small shop but wouldn't like to be shown up, as I said in my original post I have interviewed quite a few from large companies ,some of whom had been out of work for some time and they ALL left the interview with me feeling that I couldn't offer them the position even though they should have been a good candidate from their skill set.

kpotter said:

I have nothing to offer no health insurance no vacation, I cant understand anyone with skills actually wanting to work in my shop. There is no promotions or advancement, I can show them how to run a horizontal mill or a shaper but that is not going to benefit them in the long term. If I was to look for a job I would be looking at a big shop or the mining companies because I would need benefits and retirement. I have known guys who have spent years working in mom and pop type shops and I dont understand it there is no where to go they have so little to offer. I cant afford to spend months training someone to run a mill it makes no economic sense, I am better off sending the work out, there are lots of highly skilled shops who wouldnt mind some fill in work.

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Some people actually *like* the mom-n-pop shops , and situations like yours. For whatever reason, who knows? But they like it. I know that I prefer smaller outfits myself, but I do worry about stability. The working atmosphere and the job fit has everything to do with job satisfaction, as much as compensation does.

I'm in the same boat! Looking for a new staff as well. Dreaming that I will find a younger "me". My own clone. I'm self taught, a life long shop guy.....drawn in as a toddler...always working with my hands and challenging my mind. I enjoy a honest day of hard work.

I left the corporate world about 12 yrs ago and started my own shop. It was the best decision ever and I never looked back. I need employees, like me, honest, hardworking, logical thinkers with common sense. They need to be a jack of all trades. Of course nobody knows everything...but the right person knows how to solve problems and get things done.

I keep thinking to myself, If I could find someone like me...there is no telling what I would pay them. I just haven't found them yet!!

Good people want respect and meaningful work. If you wouldn't work in the job and conditions you're setting up, chances are that elusive great first hire won't either. I still remember the first co-op job I turned down. The owner basically said "I want someone to do all the crap jobs I hate." Might have said "yes" if it had been more along the lines of "I need help doing something useful."

An eager kid may feel they're accomplishing something useful starting at the bottom. As the thread suggests a journeyman machinist laid off from another job -- maybe not.

For really low end stuff (sweeping the floors, etc.) you can often find part-time workers out of high school and whatever the UK equivalent of community college is. You won't keep them more than a few years, but the word will get out if you have a good job and other kids will follow.

You might try more experienced (retired, not fired) machinists on a part-time basis. They'll often like working just a few hours and they can take on skilled jobs.

Companies that get going with a few great employees find those folks are a good source to recruit others. So the biggest problem may be finding the first few good people. Hard to do if your business is really a one man show more like Kevin's -- in that case hiring out jobs (as he does) may be better. Sometimes you can create a sort of virtual bigger company with a bunch of ornery small shops cooperating.

In the case where the business really should grow, some people figure out their own weaknesses and aim to find a partner or do a startup to get the full skill set. Every bit as risky as getting married -- but potentially rewarding if the opportunity is there.

Maybe if you tell us the nature of your business -- and the opportunities ahead -- other ideas for recruiting will come forward?

older people

sable said:

Thanks very much for the response guys ,I have learned a lot. It seems that many are saying that ,as I have found ,the people who have been at it for years and have lost their jobs through redundency at bigger concerns are the most difficult to take on .Has anyone found a way to get the best out of them as they surely are a source of skills there to be tapped and it's sad for anyone to end up on the scrap heap .

Or is it that in reality that most of these tradesmen worked in a very narrow field and actually don't have the range of skills needed in a small shop but wouldn't like to be shown up, as I said in my original post I have interviewed quite a few from large companies ,some of whom had been out of work for some time and they ALL left the interview with me feeling that I couldn't offer them the position even though they should have been a good candidate from their skill set.

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when i was looking for a job after getting laid off (building closed) i sent out 30 resumes for jobs and only got 3 interviews. as i was a maintenance machinist most of my experience was in small shops with old machines and only a few cnc prototrak mills and lathes and i made all kinds of parts.
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where i work now
1) they already tried to train a few manual machinist to run the big cnc mazak mill and it was considered they were not the right people for a big cnc mill
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2) then they hired a young kid out of school who had a CNC machinist degree. not sure why but they had him take a drug test a few months after he was hired and he failed. they take hair samples now and even if drug use is weeks or months old it will show up. when they hired me it was on condition i pass a drug test.
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3) then they interviewed me. an older machinist who is going to go back to cnc night school again. (i went many times to night school over the years) or go to work and learn a new to me job working nights.. my skills and experience was not a perfect match. i had not used a Mazak mill before and my 3 axis CNC experience was limited to night school classes. my resume was mostly a list of my skills and abilities as i only worked for one big company for 31 years.
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4) during interview they had me talk to the day shift head cnc machinist. they showed machine, control panel, the drawing they work from, the setup sheets they use to setup jobs, their jigs and fixtures cabinet, their cutting tools cabinet. i said i was impressed with their setup and i was. they said they ran mill at 600 sfpm what did i run a mill at. i said it depends on depth of cut and length of cutter. didn't they adjust speeds and feeds depending on depth of cut and length of cutter?
........ he said no they didn't. i said i used an excel spreadsheet to calculate speeds feeds depth of cut horsepower etc and it help get more milled on smaller older machines. frankly i thought i would not get hired.
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5) they called my references. one said as he was a supervisor and if he was hiring he would not be having this conversation as he would have hired me immediately. so this company did call job references.
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6) when they asked what pay i was looking for i wrote down $12-$20/hr. i wanted to talk about pay rather than interview immediately over over asking too much

I have had employees of one sort or another since 1982.

I have found two things that work.

1- find guys who know what they are doing.
This requires paying them real money. Adults, who already have skills, and can work unsupervised, do not come cheap.
As mentioned above, your competition for guys like this pays Union wages or the equivalent, and benefits.
Around here, that means in the fifty bucks an hour range, assuming you are including medical of some sort.

I have tended to hire the occasional guy like this on a per job basis- that is, for a finite amount of time, to do a specific project, at 25 or 30 bucks an hour. I get the ones who are NOT looking for a career- because I cant promise fifty and hour and employment for years and years.
So I find self employed guys who are slow, or retired guys, who will work for less than they are worth because they dont want to commit to a full time job for their own reasons.

or-

2- hire young kids and train em.
I have done this a LOT over the years- its generally the only way I can afford good employees, and I have the patience to do it.
What I do is call around to the local community colleges that offer 2 year programs in welding, or machining, or manufacturing technology. I have also had good luck with 4 year colleges that have an industrial design program.
I ask the instructors, many of whom I know personally, who is their best student, and I interview them.

These kids have already spent their own time and money, to commit to two years unpaid of learning the trades. I am lucky enough to have very good schools around here- welding, in particular, Bellingham Technical College is superb.

Then, I have to train em. They already know how to run machines, measure, cut, do basic layout and setup- but that doesnt mean you can just tell em what to do and leave. I usually figure two years, before they are pretty much able to work unsupervised. That means, every day, I am in the shop a dozen times, checking, doing the first one, doing initial setups, fixing machines, sharpening tools, and so on.

In the end, I have made an enormous amount of stuff, and made money, by employing young, smart people.
But it has taken patience and time.

I used to start em at ten to twelve bucks an hour, these days its more, depending on experience and the person. If, for instance, they are already really really good at tig, mig, and stick welding, I can pay more, and just focus on training them in the real tricks of fabrication, forging, sheet metal work, and the other stuff I do.

I have had really good luck with this approach, often my guys work for me for 3 to 5 years. Several of them have gone off to run their own successful metalworking businesses- alumni are currently running a general welding and fab business on San Juan Island, a portable welding business on the big island of Hawaii, and a craftsman metal line of products in Bellingham, among others.
I am quite proud of em, and dont feel they are competition at all.
Every one of em gave me plenty back- I dont feel that training them was a COST- to me, it was a way of saving money over what I would have had to pay for journeymen.

sable said:

Thanks very much for the response guys ,I have learned a lot. It seems that many are saying that ,as I have found ,the people who have been at it for years and have lost their jobs through redundency at bigger concerns are the most difficult to take on .Has anyone found a way to get the best out of them as they surely are a source of skills there to be tapped and it's sad for anyone to end up on the scrap heap .

Or is it that in reality that most of these tradesmen worked in a very narrow field and actually don't have the range of skills needed in a small shop but wouldn't like to be shown up, as I said in my original post I have interviewed quite a few from large companies ,some of whom had been out of work for some time and they ALL left the interview with me feeling that I couldn't offer them the position even though they should have been a good candidate from their skill set.

Click to expand...

I think you need to differentiate here between a tool&die maker class machinist and a guy who just made the same part or parts for a number of years, whether on manual machines or cnc machines. None of the lead instrument makers at either of the two places I have worked in the last 30 years started at that place. One was a retired tool&die maker, one was a tool&die maker who was in a non-machining job because he couldn't find tool&die work around here, and the current one is a tool&die maker who was laid off by a local company who sent most of its manufacturing to Mexico. All have been, without question, great guys to work with, knowledgeable, and willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done. Around here, if you are an instrument maker, you have to be willing to do a lot more than just machining. Same thing at my last job.

I think in a small shop, you need to be hiring someone with a wide range of skills, instead of someone who just knows how to push a button. You'll pay more for them, but you'll get a lot better results.

--Hawk