Growth in manufacturing demand is driving the need for more workers to fill nearly every kind of position, from entry-level machine operators to skilled engineers. Yet over 65% of manufacturing leaders say that attracting and retaining talent is their primary business challenge.
The stakes are only getting higher as older workers retire and younger generations—with very different expectations for the candidate experience—take their place. Attracting these candidates successfully requires manufacturers to facilitate a streamlined, responsive process.
So where should manufacturing hiring improvements begin? The following three recommendations can help your organization become more appealing to candidates through efficiency and technology.
1: Take a candidate-centric approach to hiring
Today’s candidates expect application and onboarding steps to be as easy as ordering from Amazon or calling an Uber. They see traditional hiring processes as too cumbersome and time-consuming.
While the fast, user-friendly experiences that candidates want can take a variety of forms, they always alleviate hiring bottlenecks. For example, offer mobile-friendly background checks for candidates to complete on-the-go, or provide onsite oral swabbing for drug testing versus sending candidates to a clinic location with long wait times for results.
However, you approach it, creating a candidate-centric hiring process helps your manufacturing organization meet workers where they’re at and demonstrate you’re an employer that respects their time.
2: Use automation to personalize communications
The last thing you want to do as a manufacturing organization is make candidates feel like a number in your recruitment software. Or worse, make a bad impression with slow, inadequate communications.
A personalized approach to candidate communications using automation allows your organization to provide transparent and frequent updates. It also helps facilitate ongoing engagement and personalize outreach—like triggering text messages, important links, and more.
Not only does automated personalization help your manufacturing organization keep candidates in the loop and sustain their excitement about a job opportunity, but it also helps you stand apart in an increasingly competitive labor market—all while working smarter, not harder.
3. Centralize systems for smoother hiring workflows
Multiple teams and locations often play a role in the manufacturing industry’s candidate evaluation and onboarding processes. This can make it even more challenging to move quickly and confidently.
The solution: Centralizing processes into a single system that supports the many types of workers in your manufacturing organization so you can reduce workloads and hire faster. (For example, using one vendor for background checks, drug testing, and post-accident screening.)
Finding out which processes need tweaking takes a little bit of sleuthing, but the best place to start is by asking your talent acquisition team which roadblocks delay hiring. From there, you can set goals for improvement and use them to evaluate new providers for your technology stack.
Ready to fast-track manufacturing hiring in 2025 to win top talent?
Modernizing and automating manufacturing hiring processes is key to attracting and retaining skilled manufacturing workers in the year ahead. But you can only get there by choosing the right partners who offer the solutions you need to truly unlock new levels of efficiency.
Learn how to navigate new technology selection for your organization, employ the right automation, and define success in our blog: Experts Share Secrets to Successful Manufacturing Hiring in 2025.
