by John Purser | Jul 29, 2021 | Blog
Be prepared. A scouts motto but it certainly can be applied to today’s job market. If you haven’t noticed, there has been an increase in opportunities out there in the engineering & manufacturing sectors but it’s not going to slow down anytime soon. So if you need or are thinking about bringing in top talent, the time is now! Back in March 2020, the job market was nuts. It was simple. There was a 12-18 month lead up to that point where it was becoming harder and harder to find good people. Hard to find top talent. COVID has just hidden this demand. First off, since around September 2020, companies had their COVID policies in place and were becoming more familiar with the new normal and hiring started back up. As you can imagine, there was not a lot of hiring from March to June-July of 2020. The increase in roles from last September to now has been a steady increase with a slight drop during the lockdown at the start of 2021. Here are a couple of the other signs of why you need to jump on hiring now: Retirements. Who was going to retire during the pandemic? A lot of upcoming retirements were pushed off if they had the choice. With all the uncertainty, why not take a paycheck to, in some cases, work from home. In other cases, it was still better to push off retiring to get the stability of a paycheck and retiring once the pandemic was over. So, over the next 6-12 months, I bet you we will see an uptick...
by John Purser | Apr 7, 2020 | Blog
How are you seeing the pandemic affect the job market? Although a lot of manufacturing companies in Canada are still up and running for the time being. Have companies put hiring on hold? Are the processes dragged out? Or is it business as usual and you’ve found a new job? We have seen a combination of all of the above. Having said that, in the markets that we have been doing work in recently (general manufacturing, industrial manufacturing, building materials, construction services, aerospace, automotive), hiring has almost come to a standstill. It makes sense. Feedback has been that they would rather be able to put that cost to keeping their current employees but that means bringing new people on board has to be put on hold. If it is a key position? Companies seem to be moving forward but still at a cautious pace. And I’d say that started before things got to where they are now. You could see it in January and February. Construction & Building Materials do seem to be moving forward. Infrastructure is a focus and these projects are going to keep needing people and need to be completed. I still think thats a small percentage though. If you are in the pharmaceutical, medical devices, logistics and/or CPG industries to name a few, I can see it as being busy. We have not seen this directly ourselves but it does make sense. What can you do if you are effected as a job seeker? Ensure your resume is up to date and can make an impact by using services like manufacturingresumes.ca. You want to...
by John Purser | May 16, 2017 | Blog
Attacting talent through job postings isn’t as easy as just posting your internal job description and hoping for the best. This article posted by Nethire does a good job of going over some of the basics you should think about when trying to attract the right talent. Below I’ve outlined the main five points in the article but keep in mind that our focus is on the engineering & manufacturing industry. 1) Know the difference between a job description and job advertisement This is a great point and the article outlines why. Here at JP Recruitment, the job posting on our website is not typically exactly what is sent to us by the client. Sometimes it can be completely different. We have 2-3 pages of notes from when we sat down with our client and that usually doesn’t reflect the job description. We post what we think will attract the talent the client needs. 2) Do NOT use a unique job title that is only applicable to the company This is simple and straight forward. Nothing worse when you see a resume of a candidate that has really complicated job titles on it. Why would it be different for attracting talent? 3) Do NOT forget to include vital information Application instructions is probably the one that stands out the most to me when attracting talent. Make this as straight forward and easy as pos Companies may not want to include their name if it is on a job board but it also can certainly be a good attraction tool. Things like job location can help the filtering of candidates...
by John Purser | May 9, 2017 | Blog
Improving LinkedIn profile’s is a very important topic if you are open to new opportunities in the engineering & manufacturing industry. It can help your own personal “online brand”, act as a resume to companies without you even applying, can give you a different level of references as well as help grow your network for when you make a more aggressive search. I read this article today and it prompted this blog post. I’ve outlined the main points you should focus on your profile from it below: Industry groups Search of rival companies Observing who is recommending and endorsing people Finding similar people to those they already know Finding alumni from specific colleges Using Google to search LinkedIn’s public profiles I don’t think companies in the manufacturing sector across Canada focus on the alumni part – I believe this is more in the US. In my entire recruitment career, I’ve never been asked to focus on people from a specific school. I would also essentially fill out your career history with everything from your resume. Be sure to outline what your current/past employers manufactures, how big the facility you work at is & the market it sits in. On top of that, focus on key achievements that you accomplished and quantify those achievements. Lastly, and this may seem obvious, grow your network! What are you doing to ensuring your LinkedIn profile is...
by John Purser | Dec 13, 2016 | Blog
Here at JP Recruitment we would like to wish everyone and their families a safe holiday season! We thought we would kick off the Christmas period with 12 tips in finding that next step in your career. “A job that will make you happy.” This would make the world a better place if everyone would just be happy in their jobs. Going through the recruitment process properly and finding out the information along the way can prevent bad decisions. Hopefully the tips in this blog article will help you find a job that will make you happy. “Two solid references.” When you are buckled into your job search, make sure you have a couple solid references handy. “References upon request” is all fine and dandy on the resume but ensure you have people that either recruiters or your future employer can talk to and not have to chase up. Also, have their correct contact information. “Three solid questions.” Once you have secured that all important interview, ensure you have done your research about the company by visiting their website, etc. You should have enough information from the job description, website and recruiter about the role/company to have 3 good questions to ask at the end of the interview. This will show that you are serious about the career change and allow to you to learn more. “Four follow up calls!” Follow up calls are probably the thing on this list that people do the least. Please do not just apply or email across your resume and hope for the best. It’s important to try to follow up on your application. However, remember people have call display! There is nothing worse when a candidate calls me...
