Comments on: Looking down the road at manufacturing /looking-down-the-road-at-manufacturing/ Tips, Trends, Resources, News and Information Fri, 19 Apr 2013 20:58:30 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.2 By: Vince /looking-down-the-road-at-manufacturing/#comment-3794 Wed, 06 Mar 2013 01:37:05 +0000 http://www.pneumatictips.com/?p=2769#comment-3794 I recently read your insights article on “Looking down the road at manufacturing”. This is a complicated subject and I am sure I do not see all the aspects of this issue. But I have been on both sides of this dilema. I have been a hiring manager, and I am now a skilled professional looking for work. I understand there are over 600,000 jobs unfilled, and I understand that there are probably in excess of 3,600,000 people who would like to fill those jobs. I see two very different problems. First of all, from a process perspective manufacturers are defining their job openings so tightly that the computers are screening out applicants who can do the work and do it with excellence. Their resumes just do not contain all of the “key words” being sought by the manufacturer. Secondly, I don’t think we lack skills to fill those jobs, I think manufacturers lack the will to train on the job and would prefer to hold a job open for 6 months in the hope of getting the perfectly matched candidate rather than spend two months or less training someone on the job.

I also think that the company can do a more efficient, and less costly job of training the new hire on the skills that are indeed lacking, than the government can do and in less time.

Before I had computers screening resumes for me, I had to read through a stack of resumes and look for the hidden skills, talents, and experience that was present in a candidate. I also learned that the soft skills of character, communication, and team player skills of the candidate were more important than the technical skills which could be trained, or improved upon.

]]> By: Gus S. Calabrese (@99guspuppet) /looking-down-the-road-at-manufacturing/#comment-3687 Tue, 05 Mar 2013 18:43:20 +0000 http://www.pneumatictips.com/?p=2769#comment-3687 Hello Paul

I put some remarks at

To summarize my thoughts…
#1 Government programs have a high failure rate… often the only winners are the friends of the politicians…
#2 Academics are a major source for great ideas. They often suffer from the myopia of having a safe job….. no *skin in the game* so to speak….
#3 Why focus on U.S. manufacturing ? We are now a world economy and should look at what is best for all of humanity… the greatest good for the greatest number. This is not at odds with making people in the U.S. successful. Not in the long term anyway.
#4 Please consider directing your readers to look at privately funded efforts such as Singularity University or Khan Academy.

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