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 | Aug 29, 2017 | Blog
Leadership & inspiration come hand in hand. Below is a great video on getting buy in from both your employee’s and your customers. Simon Sinek breaks it down very well and it is actually quite simple – definitely worth the 20min watch. As per the video, this can be applied in every industry from engineering & manufacturing to banking to construction. I’ve shared this because the ability to get the buy in from people is the top trait that company’s are looking for today. Every role we do at JPR, whether it is a Quality Manager, Production Manager, Process Engineer, Plant Manager or Director of Operations…requires continuous improvement/lean manufacturing/process improvement experience. To be able to make change, you need buy in. You need to be able to lead your team to success and inspire them to do better. I’d be keen to hear other good books, videos or even just thoughts on how you inspire your team. Like articles like this? Feel free to follow us on LinkedIn for industry news &...
by John Purser | Mar 9, 2017 | Blog
The importance of strong leadership is an obvious part of growing a good business. This article that I read, “Why a Bad Boss is Bad for Employer Brank”, is a great eye opener for a lot of companies out there. It discusses the some points on Talent Attraction/Retention, Brand Reputation, Morale, Culture & Management by Fear. As a recruiter in the engineering & manufacturing space, I come across these topics on a daily basis and have even experienced some myself within my career. There are certainly companies that I can list that I get told by candidates that they do not want to work for. This is even before I’ve told them about any roles!!! You definitely do not want to be that type of business. What are you doing in your current role to prevent this from happening? It may be worth asking your recruiter what feedback has been. I know I am speaking with people every day about the manufacturing industry and have a good idea – I imagine others do as well. All of this has an impact on each of the points listed above. Not being able to attract the right people leads to bad hires which in turn causes turnover, costs money and creates a bad morale & culture in a business. We all know that going through a culture change is not easy. What are you doing today to ensure your management team are creating the reputation and culture you want? I’d like to hear ideas and thoughts of this....
by John Purser | Feb 24, 2017 | Blog
What the CEO’s from manufacturing companies are telling Trump not only resonates in the US. For at least the last couple of years now, I have seen it here in Canada as well. Useful read, so check out the article here. It is becoming harder and harder for manufacturing companies to find the right talent for their needs across Canada. From our point of view in engineering & manufacturing recruitment, it usually comes in waves. In one stretch of time, there can be a lot of technical skill-sets on the market and limited jobs versus another moment where there are a lot of jobs and not a lot of manufacturing candidates. Unfortunately, the latter has become quite a common theme. It certainly makes my job in the recruitment industry harder – I definitely have to earn my keep. This serves as an important reminder if you are in recruitment or in any type of hiring position in a company. You need to keep networking! Networking with people for potential future recruitment or networking and finding referrals of top level talent that you may hire down the road. Social media can be a major driver in networking so be sure to check us out, all the information can be found on our Useful Links page. What trends are you seeing in your company? How are you expanding your...
