The scene has played out countless times; a charismatic individual with a puffed-up Controls Engineering resume gets a job by giving the HR and Engineering Managers buzz-word headaches. By the time that it becomes painfully obvious that the the employee is not in possesion of the skill set on his resume, the company is out $20k.
The global reaction seemed to be that companies changed to hiring through contract houses. This may have worked for a time, but now, the competition between the agencies has led to recruiters that don’t know the difference between a PC and a PLC and, worse, recruiters that intentionally bloat resumes to get their candidates in front of HR. The hope is that the candidate will be able to interview well enough to get the job and then be able to learn on the fly. Seems that we’ve come full circle…
Recently, TEC Trainer partnered with Engineering Solutions Group, a Minneapolis-based engineering firm that provides a wide range of electrical, controls, remote maintenance and software services to prove a new methodology in hiring; hands-on, real-world testing of candidates. The approach uses TEC Trainer Portable Training Labs and a series of tests developed by Joshua Irish that replicate manufacturing automation processes.
The end-game was to prove that the paradigm would save the engineering manager from wasting time on unqualified candidates and also to remove the need for the HR Director to ask questions that she, admittedly, didn’t know the answers to. After four candidates were tested, the results spoke for themselves; one crisis averted, two rock stars, and one solid candidate. ESG has a new way to qualify candidates and a new confidence when an offer letter is sent.
