Industry Insights | 7 minute read

Manufacturing needs tech talent: How data informs your recruitment strategy

July 12, 2023

Technology and software industries are experiencing upheaval from the boom of jobs in prior years. Between slashed budgets and layoffs from the expectation of a recession, tech talent has been largely displaced from big and small players alike. This indicates a slower pace, not a complete stop, as unemployment rates for tech workers dropped to 1.8% in December 2022, according to CompTIA.

It’s important to analyze labor market trends to understand how this shift affects other industries. For manufacturing, this presents an opportunity — as tech talent are looking at other industries for more stability.

Implementing a data-driven hiring strategy can significantly improve the recruitment process for manufacturing and supply chain companies, especially as it relates to hiring tech talent. Here are the three main benefits of letting data guide your recruitment strategy.

#1: Better understand the market, and set appropriate expectations

Using a data-driven hiring strategy helps TA teams better understand their search parameters before sourcing candidates.

For example, recruiters equipped with data insights know there’s a small pool of qualified candidates in the manufacturing space with AI and automation acumen (both highly desirable skills at the moment). This allows them to act as strategic partners to hiring managers by sharing the knowledge and setting expectations of salary and time-to-fill. If needed, recruitment marketing efforts and total benefits packages can be adjusted.

It’s helpful to conduct talent mapping by looking at the competitive landscape of the market, including location and skills of all available talent (both ideal candidates and hidden talent), to find your total addressable market (TAM). This can help inform a recruitment strategy like upskilling prospective employees with transferable skills, which can reduce time-to-hire.

#2: Take a holistic approach, and source talent faster

Leverage data to understand your hiring competition. This allows talent acquisition teams to source candidates faster by targeting passive job-seeking activity and companies with the highest concentration of potential candidates. It can also enable recruiters to take a holistic approach when socializing the opportunity.

This segmentation can help recruiters identify and customize their approach by audience. For instance, when a large number of teachers seeking a career change join your talent community or engage with your content, you can look at their proven abilities to see how transferable skills — such as project management, excellent communication and leadership — are highly desirable traits for admin-based manufacturing roles.

You don’t necessarily need the highest salary to attract great tech talent. Many value flexible schedules, career pathing and upskilling opportunities. Emphasize these in your employee value proposition (EVP) and you’re likely to attract more qualified candidates.

#3: Build a case to innovate recruitment marketing

Meeting potential candidates where they’re at is always the best strategy for expanding your talent pool. Analyzing the data to determine where desired talent “lives” online — such as social media, Bing or industry-specific job boards, for example — can help recruiters prioritize the best outreach channels.

Powerful labor market intelligence software, such as Claro, can find where talent is located in real time to make informed decisions on how to curate messaging for your recruitment marketing efforts. If candidates engaging are seeking remote and it’s something you offer, highlight that directly. And of course, experiment — B2B aren’t all solely on LinkedIn, for instance. Follow the data and tell the story that fits the digital space to attract great talent. In manufacturing, this means communicating your industry as an area of opportunity for candidates to transfer their skillsets.

Labor market intelligence drives informed hiring decisions

With uncertain economic cycles and ever-evolving digitization trends, investing in technology-savvy employees in manufacturing will drive meaningful impact — but it starts at attracting them to your organization. The right data and labor market intelligence insights will help guide your hiring decisions, improve your talent operations, increase recruiting efficiency and keep you ahead of your hiring competition.

Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) partners understand the nuances of market trends and data and leverage these in the most advantageous way for clients. Learn more about how to take a proactive, strategic approach to hiring tech talent in the manufacturing and supply chain space by reading our whitepaper below.

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About Tabatha Duckworth

Tabatha Duckworth leads an award-winning recruitment team at WilsonHCG. Tabatha’s team recruits across multiple industries globally, with a focus on hard-to-fill roles in life sciences. She loves partnering with industry-leading clients to solve their recruitment challenges and deliver a first-in-class recruitment experience.