Wire EDM Job Postings

Wire EDM staff are kind like unicorns out here in Norcal. Running ads in Indeed and Craigslist are not very effective. What is the go to website for hiring EDM staff nowadays?

Hi ppickerell:
I think this place is as good as anything...I'm not aware of any resource that you can go to just to find a good wire guy you can hire.
It's a pretty rare skill set especially for the more arcane stuff so it's not like they're popping out of the woodwork like VMC operators.
So if you find a good one, it'll be mostly due to luck.

Have you considered training one from scratch.
It's not difficult to get up to speed for the basics, and the machine vendors are the best training resource for any given machine; but of course, then you have to buy a new machine to get the training.

Gaining experience with the weird and wacky requires exposure...you only get that from playing with it, making lots of fuckups and trying to gain something from every one.
It takes years to make every fuckup there is to make, but a guy will be pretty useful to the average shop within a few weeks if he's bright and gets a good start from factory training.
So it's not like a four year apprenticeship is needed for someone who is already a good machinist to be useful and productive for you.
So maybe just find a good overall guy and train him (her) up to get good at the specialty too.

You need someone who's meticulous, likes to learn, and is patient.
No big hammers are required for this trade, so the people who have heavy machining or heavy fabricating experience will likely find the fiddling and piddling pretty frustrating.

Impatient impetuous, and in a hurry are not good traits for a wire guy.
Methodical, detail oriented and a bit anal are.

Cheers

Marcus
Implant Mechanix • Design & Innovation > HOME
Vancouver Wire EDM -- Wire EDM Machining

Oh yeah, women often make excellent wire EDM people...I'll betcha you could just re-train someone from your HR or administrative pool and get a pretty good one.
Incentivize them properly and you may be very pleasantly surprised.
After all, you don't need big muscles to do this kind of work.
MC

I didn’t realize it was that hard to find a wire guy....

Not much harder than a mill or lathe....

Just takes longer.......

I'm surprised as well.... My first cnc experience was a Charmilles wedm. Started programming long hand by drawing shapes, then assigning XY values.

I programmed and ran/operated Charmilles for about 15 years. Programming Sodick now, which is still a bit foreign to me, but I am learning.