How Manufacturing Professionals Read Job Postings
Description:
Jordan Humphreys and Dave Griffith go over job postings for Controls Engineers and talk about what these sections mean.
What should you pay attention to?
What doesn’t mean as much?
Transcript:
Dave Griffith: I are getting on. We’re going to talk about a couple of job postings, for everyone that doesn’t know, Jordan Humphreys is a recruiter. Jordan, you’ve been recruiting mostly in the automation industry for a number of years, correct
Jordan Humphreys: Yeah, I guess officially it’ll be three and a couple of months, so almost three years.
Dave Griffith: Very cool. And then a little over a year ago, you started your own recruiting agency in order to help more people in the automation industry.
Jordan Humphreys: That’s correct. November 19, officially LLC JMH talent solutions.
Dave Griffith: Very exciting, very exciting. And so, if anybody remembers a year ago, which seems like 10 years ago, Jordan and I did a couple of videos in which we talked about recruiting and how to use recruiters for your benefit, and honestly, a bunch of other things, but that seems like forever ago. And Jordan, I had been talking and we were thinking that a good way we could help the job market as it is, is to go through the process and to go through a couple of job descriptions, and answer our questions, kind of talk about what we see from both sides and then answer our, any questions that you guys may have. cool. And so I’m going to pop open one of the job listings and Jordan and I went through and saw that they were job listings and should generally correlate to the automation controls engineering industry. but beyond that have not looked at them very much. We wanted to do more of a live read for everyone. And so this first job posting actually comes from my West desk. I asked her to go and take a look for a controls engineer, a job posting, and she found this one on zip recruiter. and then Jordan, do you kind of want to go through on the recruiting side and talk through what you see when you see a job posting and how you would walk someone through it
Jordan Humphreys: Yeah, absolutely. So we’re on ZipRecruiter. it’s going to be formatted a little bit differently. So first things first, we’re going to look at the job description, the format, the length. So if Dave, you go up we’re at the top and you’ll slowly scroll all the way to the bottom for me. So we can take a look at all of it. It’s one of the first things that I look at, you know, from a recruiter perspective, trying to delineate whether this is a corporate job post. And basically what I mean by that is it was written by human resources. you’re going to see all of your regulations at the bottom, equal opportunity, diversity hires, all of those things that the government says, Hey, you have to have on a job post. typically you’re going to see these from corporations that are mid-sized is what you need to pay attention to and what you don’t.
Jordan Humphreys: There are things in here that are going to do tell you what the job is, tales, and then there’s other stuff that’s just going to be for lack of a better term fluff, if you will. So let’s go back up to the top and you may already be there. first things first, this was posted over a month ago. So first things you want to look at is when the job has been posted, if it’s been posted fairly recently, we know that not a lot of people have gotten to take a look at it and probably not. A lot of people have applied. So you do want to be looking at fresh postings. If you’re looking at a job. Now, this one has been posted over a month ago. So basically after a month of being on ZipRecruiter, most likely your own website, this company has it posted, maybe even over at indeed monster career builder, who knows how many places that they posted it.
Jordan Humphreys: And the other thing is, are they engaging with recruiting companies If they’re doing all these things and they job has been out for over a month and they don’t have a hire yet, that’s one thing that I’m going to question. now this could very easily be already filled and they just have yet to take it down. that happens a lot too. So we looked at this it’s over a month ago, I’ve given you a little information on that. The other thing is they have posted a salary range. Not a lot of people will do this. and they have posted 65 to 85, about $20,000. I’ll just tell you right off the bat, they’re probably looking for, right out of college, two, three to five years of experience.
Jordan Humphreys: Usually if somebody is going to share a salary range, I don’t want to say, see it spread out too far that tells me that they don’t exactly know what they’re looking for, or they’ve got a couple of ways they can go with this. This is definitely not senior, but 65 to 85 tells me, right out of high school or college, two, three to five years of experience, they do also list that it’s full time and has benefits, medical vision, dental, which is going to be pretty standard on most of your jobs. So next thing we’re going to look at is the actual job description. It says the company there, they currently have an opening for a direct hire controls engineer in the Tempe Arizona area. and they are in the manufacturing industry. So you’ve got a job location, Tempe areas, Arizona, it is a direct hire. So it’s not a contract. They are looking for a permanent hire, a permanent solution. If you will, as a controls engineer in the manufacturing industry, as we go on to look at the purpose, purpose support for plant and engineering department management, assist engineering and maintenance manager
Speaker 3: In developing
Jordan Humphreys: And implementing policies program strategies must have and display initiative in all aspects of the job. So again, we’re getting pretty standard corporate language here, nothing nitty gritty, actual details.
Speaker 3: I mean, you could put this, you could put this purpose and pretty much any controls job, and you’re, and you’re going to be doing this. so I guess
Jordan Humphreys: The only thing out of this is, you know, provides support for plant and an engineering department management, and you’ll be assisting engineering and maintenance manager and developing and implementing policies, programs, and strategy. So this does sound kind of like a, you’ll be, you’ll be at a, at a, a manufacturing facility. sounds like you would be doing some
Speaker 3: Probably,
Jordan Humphreys: You know, keep, keep the controls and automation up debugged making sure the products are still going down the line. again, reporting to the engineering manager, maintenance and engineering that tells me everything right there, maintenance and engineering and manager. Okay. So you’re going to be in with maintenance guys who maybe know a little bit of a ladder logic can do some mods and nets, but not real heavy. They’re going to be leaning on you for that. So this is going to be a support role. Sounds
Speaker 3: Like
Jordan Humphreys: As we go on more, the position requires extensive knowledge of electrical control systems, PLCs, data logging, and data management systems. Well, I should hope so because it is a controls position. as we go on, it’s going to say project management, equipment, installation, maintenance repair, again, things that we’re going to see on every job posting successful candidate will use AutoCAD or other CAD software. So they are getting a little bit in depth with what software re you will use, as far as it goes with designing. I mean, it’s not going to be too crazy in our industry, AutoCAD, AutoCAD, electric. There’s some others out there if we’re going to be doing with CNC. and then you get your general computer stuff, Mim S or XL project power point that, you should be, you should be up and ready to go on. last one must be able to read, write and understand English. Okay. If we could scroll down a little bit skills and educational requirements. So this is one to pay attention to. this is one where you can kind of screen yourself out depending on how in-depth they get on this one requires a four-year degree in electrical or other pertinent engineering discipline, plus two to four years of relevant experience as a controls engineer, electrical engineer, or equivalent.
Speaker 3: So
Jordan Humphreys: This company is saying we need a four year degree, not a two-year degree, not an associates degree, not a community college degree. We need a four year degree and it needs to be an electrical. Maybe computer science, mechanical engineering can work if you’ve got experience in PLCs. And, the other thing to look at is they do want two to four years of relevant experience. Now, again, if we’ll go back to the top, just them putting the salary in, 65 to 85, I told you someone right out of college or three to five years of experience, again, that’s lining up with what we’re seeing. They want two to four years of experience. So if we go back down Dave skills and requirements, so four year degree to four years of experience kind of went okay, there we are. and they want you to have some experience as a controls engineer, electrical engineer, or any other kind of equivalent controls, engineer, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, with a controls focused, basically any kind of job. It could be a controls technician. That’s you’re around PLCs. that’s going to be your big one control systems, PLCs, what, you know, what you can do with a PLC, communications, protocols, networking, those kinds of things.
Jordan Humphreys: So skills, education requirements. again, they did not, and we’ll look down here, as we go on, if they go back, but this is where skills education requirements I would like to see them get a little bit more, less corporate when they say electrical control systems, PLCs, what kind of experience PLCs We know that Allen Bradley and Rockwell, what 90 to 95% of the market share. Siemens is probably the second one. If you’re going to be doing, Japanese work, Omron, Mitsui, Toyota puck, obviously with Toyota, those those come into hand,
Jordan Humphreys: But I want to know,
Jordan Humphreys: And I like to be able to tell my candidates what kind of PLCs we’re working on and what do we need to know Are we a master at that PLC Can I write something from scratch No matter what industry we’re in set up my schematics, is that what you’re looking for Or do you just need somebody to do some mods and edits and Allen
Jordan Humphreys: Bradley
Jordan Humphreys: And again, what kind of software are we going to be utilizing with Allen Bradley What Rockwell suite, you know, studio, logics, compact logics. There’s, there’s all kinds of them out there, studio 5,000. just to give me a little bit more information on what I’m getting in
Jordan Humphreys: You too.
Jordan Humphreys: Well, I would like to see, just get a little bit more, that gives everybody a little bit more information and it cuts down a question questions we have to ask, because if this is an Allen-Bradley project and I know a guy that’s really good and Siemens, I’m not going to call him and vice versa, if it’s Siemens work and somebody I know is not an Allen Bradley, I’m not going to call, but if I don’t know that I’m going to call them and end up wasting some time. So from the corporate side, I would like to see them get a little bit more nitty-gritty on the details as far as skills and educational requirements. Go, more questions that you can successfully answer before you get in contact with that candidate just makes it more streamlined.
Dave Griffith: No, I would agree with that. And Jordan, and then just to, I’ll just jump in for a sec, while you’re going through that, you know, I, I, I agree, you know, when I read the skills and education, it looks like they’re looking for someone who is an engineer, in my experience, depending upon the location, maybe less so that they’re a degreed engineer and more so that they have the experience in controls engineering or, or any plant facility. And so I would say that that is probably, towards the top of the list. You know, this to me reads, you need to have some experience in a plant facility. And then as we go down and we’re talking about, you know, the, the knowledge I would agree with what you’re saying, you know, this seems like they kind of took a whole bunch of words and are not doing a great job, kind of explaining what sort of control systems, what sort of PLCs, you know, up here, they’re reporting to the maintenance and engineering manager.
Dave Griffith: And, you know, they’re going to have to do some work in a variety of these things are kind of seems like a Jack of all trades. Maybe they do need, they don’t have a particular, you know, suites, for Rockwell Siemens, otherwise they have standardized zone. I think that it’s interesting that you need to use AutoCAD or CAD software, which is a fairly normal, you know, thing that you use while you’re going through engineering and going to get your engineering degree. But part of me wonders, you know, if we’re in the PLC is, and working on the data and the control systems, what do I need to go to the site I think it seems a little all over the board and I’m just going to scroll down just to make sense. Okay. I don’t see any, any specific, specific questions, or specific kind of answers to these.
Jordan Humphreys: Yeah. And before we move off of that, I’m glad you brought that back up. requires a four-year degree. So one quick note about that as a recruiter, when I talk to a company that wants to use me, I will ask them, I say, Hey, on your job description for your degree, is that true And they will let me know. Yeah, we really want a four year or sometimes they’ll say, you know, if they’ve got good experience, depending on their experience, you know, I’ll, I’ll look at that too. You will not know that as a candidate, just going on ZipRecruiter and looking at that. So when you see requires a four year degree, and you don’t have one, I’m not going to tell you to not apply because you never know. but if you are working, that is one of the advantages of working with a recruiter, they will generally know.
Jordan Humphreys: and I have a lot of clients that have that on their JDS, but they, you know, if I show them somebody that has great experience, has experienced in the realm of, of automation and controls that they are looking for and get them on the phone, and they’re able to speak about it, that that doesn’t matter a four year degree or not. especially in automation and controls where there’s much more of a need for talent. And there isn’t a bunch of talent out there. yeah, I talked to this guy or girl, great controls, automation engineer. I’d love to hire him, but unfortunately I don’t have a four year degree. We’re just not really in a position to do that in the automation world. Now, as you go into corporate structures, higher ups, they have fast, hard, and fast rules. If you don’t have a four year degree, they can’t give you an engineering position, maybe a technician. but again, to get back to it, if it says requires a four year degree, and you don’t have one, I would still say if, if, if it sounds like you could be a fit, go ahead and apply. It can’t hurt. Yeah,
Dave Griffith: No, I think that, that makes sense. So we actually have a question, from Paul in the, in the chat specifically saying, you know, does he need to meet all the requirements to apply for the job And if he doesn’t meet the requirements for what should I do And I think this is a, this is a good point to ask that question because you kind of talked about, so if you, if you have some amount of experience, if you’re working with recruiters on a position, or if the position allows you to kind of talk to a recruiter, they’re the person that needs to ask.
Jordan Humphreys: Not for a second. My internet went out and I heard you had a question from Paul. Can you restate that please Yeah,
Dave Griffith: Sure. So Paul asks the question, does he need to meet all of the requirements for the job description And if he doesn’t, what should he do
Jordan Humphreys: Great question, Paul. No, you do not. for a better answer, you know, I’d have to balance what they’re asking on the job description and what, you know, if they have 10 things they need and you meet six of them, what are those six, you know, are those the meat and potatoes of the job And we can learn the other things, then yes, but if, if, if, a J D list 10 things, you do not have to meet all 10 of those things. if a client gives me 10 things that they’re looking for, they’re going to end up hiring somebody that probably meets five to seven of those, a 10 out of 10. It’s just pretty much, I’m not going to say impossible, but it’s close to impossible. Now, if you see something that has 10 requirements and you meet two of them, Lynn, I would say maybe hold off.
Dave Griffith: Yeah, no, I would, I, I would agree with that. And, as you had mentioned, you know, if you’re working with a recruiter, a recruiter is going to be able to tell you the answer to those questions.
Jordan Humphreys: Yeah, absolutely.
Dave Griffith: Okay. and then principal accountabilities seem to be very standard, honestly, for me as kind of talented, if you will, I’m going to come here, I’m going to look at this top. You know, I’m going to see the salary range. I personally like salary range. If it’s within the range that I’m willing to accept, I’m going to continue day. If it’s not on just going to, to, to continue on and not worry about that. I appreciate, you know, the, the title and the area. I appreciate it kind of the industry. And then somewhere down here, you know, we talk about the facility. So for me, that’s important. I know that, you know, this is a Foundry. I know generally what we’re going to find while working in a Foundry. and then a lot of this is kind of pick and place and doesn’t get super specific as to what we’re going to need to be able to do. if I’m kind of looking for a controlled engineering job, have, you know, a little bit of talent and especially if I have a degree and a couple of years of experience, it’s going to be a, Hey, I can certainly apply for this, you know, with the assumption that the salary range and the area and location works for me,
Jordan Humphreys: One thing I will add to that salary range. And again, that doesn’t always happen, but if they give you a range, let’s say you want to make 90, or you’re making 90 right now. And this sounds like a really good job. Oh, but the salary range is 85. Don’t let that stop you because everything’s negotiable. Now, if you were wanting 110, yeah. Don’t apply. But if you’re within, you know, five to seven, maybe even 10,000 apply, and if you get to have a conversation, they get to know you. That can definitely be done. Not all the times, but it can be done.
Dave Griffith: Okay, perfect. No, I, I appreciate it. That, Jordan, for me, it seems like it’s one of those I kind of, when I look at a failure range, I always imagine that people want to be at the low end of the salary range. So kind of getting that other part of the knowledge of it, a, they may be interested in, going above the salary range is always, it’s always good to kind of get that feedback. IFM that is the salaries kind of increase in the types of jobs increase. It’s always good to have someone on the inside, be it nature person or a recruiter, someone working on your side in order to help you navigate these.
Jordan Humphreys: Absolutely.
Dave Griffith: Awesome. Perfect. So, I think that that was a, that was a good example. I’m going to, I’m going to click out of this. I don’t know if anyone is interested in this job. you guys can go ahead and take a look at it. it’s certainly not Jordan and a goal to try to push anyone into a particular job. This is towards to the top of what we find when we type in controls engineer, online. Cool. So this one actually comes from indeed. This is a little bit different, just based upon salary range, 107,000 in change. it looks like this is more of a senior role is, is what we’re looking for. and then as we scroll down on the indeed side there, you know, Amazon automation engineer, Colorado Springs facility, is they got a salary, they got bonus relocation, bachelor’s degree or two years of working on an Amazon site is a minimum requirement.
Dave Griffith: So I kind of feel like those aren’t are nice. if you’re scrolling through indeed, that kind of gives you the majority of the, that kind of answers. The majority of the questions that Jordan and I were talking about it, it’s kind of big. I actually appreciate it kind of a poll. The bullet is take a look at best if you, if you fall under this immediately, you know, go and apply on the company site. And since the journey and I had actually pulled this up, and this is the full job posting, Jordan, do you want to walk through this or do you want me to walk through this and you can kind of add it
Jordan Humphreys: Why don’t you walk through it real quick and I’ll take a look and then we’ll go over anything, that I think, that we need to pay attention to.
Dave Griffith: Okay, awesome. So now, again, I think it makes sense to see that, you know, it, they’re working on an Amazon facility, they’re working on an Amazon facility in Colorado Springs, so relocation is available. but if we were to come back and look at it, you know, this is a control systems engineer position. This is in Colorado Springs, Colorado. They’re looking to hire for one person. And then once we immediately get onto that, she can see that this is like a very corporate job posting, corporate job postings aren’t necessarily how I read job postings. But when you get to a company of a certain size, there are just things you have to make sure you have a job postings for legal HR and otherwise rates. And so, you know, they’re, you know, they’re looking for automation controls and technical support role or fulfillment center operations, which is your Amazon facility.
Dave Griffith: You know, they’re focusing on maximizing uptime, reliability and operational performance. So conveyors sortation systems, which I didn’t know where the word scanners cameras prints and apply systems, data, devices, and programs, which seems very much in line with the fulfillment centers, kind of conveyor systems in the Amazon facilities, that I’ve done work at, in the past. and so as we continue down, we’ll look at some of these essential functions and, you know, coordinating plan, work activities, you know, through the North American customer fulfillment teams, we’re working closely with, Desti operations, the operations engineering, the FC startup team. There are a lot of acronyms. I’m actually not sure what these mean. you know, so we’re working as part of a team. We’re probably building this from the ground up, which is generally what, what I’m seeing, where we’re doing a major upgrade and overhaul of this.
Dave Griffith: You know, we need to be able to understand the kind of material handling as a whole, which is again, what we see at the top with the conveyor sortation systems, et cetera. And that is what most of a fulfillment center looks like. so when we talked about PLCs and PC controllers, we talk about networks like Ethan, Mac control, net device, net pro Phoebus, motor control systems, Serbo, drunk frequency drives, and electrical distribution systems. So we get a couple of, we had a couple of specifics at this point, if I had not been at work at a handful of these Amazon facilities, I would kind of continue to go back to the questions that we had before. Like what PLCs are they’re looking at What’s the data systems that they’re looking at as of a couple of years ago, they were current.
Dave Griffith: They were a little bit all over the place. I think it depends upon, you know, the material handling systems, companies that, that come in to do a lot of this work and as to the actual specifics of this, but we’re monitoring some metrics and, and partner with the maintenance operations for system performance issues and provide analysis across all FCS. I mean, a lot of these seem very kind of standard, very kind of boiler plate. a lot of it in my mind is, you know, these are the things you have to tell you, you may or may not do this list is very long, more than anyone can do across a single job posting, for a single job. So we’re just kinda gonna throw a bunch of things together, and it’s going to be kind of your we’re going to have to figure it out as we go as with most startups, all along the line. Let’s see. Oh, now, so, so this, the essential functions seem fairly large to me. do you see any things here Do you see anything here that we should specifically point down before we go down and talk about the requirements
Jordan Humphreys: All right. So this one’s a little bit specific and if, you know, Daifuku when right. You know, that they are material handling and very robotics led, they do a lot, they have done a lot of work in Amazon, so much so that they’ve kind of tailored this to an Amazon post. that’s why you see all the acronyms, right. second bullet work closely with FC operations, fulfillment center operations, FC start-up team, AFT ACEs, like AFT software teams, Amazon fulfillment team is what I’m, I’m guessing. so again, they are, it looks like been contracted and they’re sitting in Amazon facilities and they want you to be an automation engineer, help them out, run, run their controls department. so a lot of it is tailored to Amazon and Amazon systems. If you’ve ever worked for Amazon or done contract, you probably are familiar with how they run their fulfillment centers and their technology.
Jordan Humphreys: so it looks like that’s what they’re looking for here. And that’s why you see all the acronyms that probably don’t make sense unless you are familiar with fulfillment centers. That’s why we see FC a lot here. but again, yeah, like you said, including PLC PC controllers will, what kind, they did list, you know, ethernet control net device, net prophy bus, motor control system, servo drives, frequency drives. So your, your, you know, typical stuff that you’re going to see, especially at a fulfillment and warehouse. so I guess if you’re not from the material handling or fulfillment, this would kind of be confusing to you, but if you have, this would be right up your alley more so to speak. so again, you know,
Dave Griffith: I would also say I was just going to say, Jordan, this reads to me that they want someone that has experience in fulfillment centers. Mostly basically if you’ve done work in an Amazon fulfillment center, you know, built on or worked on one, this is the sort of job that you’re looking for and you’re the sort of person that they want, because you’re gonna understand how fulfillment centers work. or maybe you’ve done a lot of work in materials handling like material handling as a whole niche, subsection of industrial automation in and of itself on most people that I know who get into materials handling for any period of time. Like that’s just their career. That’s what they say. And they work in and that’s their bread and butter. And so, so I, I would agree like this is a very specific, vertical, much different than the other last job description we talked about.
Jordan Humphreys: Yeah. Very good point. They’re looking for someone specific. if I was recruiting for this position and I gave them someone that’s 10 years controls engineer, but let’s say they worked in the oil and gas. Yeah. They know Rockwell and Amazon may use Rockwell Allen-Bradley, but they’re not used to this type of facility. not to say they couldn’t do it, but the ramp up time, especially in a leadership position is going to be so much less. If you’ve got somebody that’s worked in a fulfillment center, particularly Amazon, you can almost plug and play
Dave Griffith: Completely. Yeah. So I, I would agree. And I think that that’s a good point. That’s different than the previous, you know, the previous one is they want someone who’s got a couple of years of experience who’s willing to learn and grow in the job, you know, potentially at some point make it them maintenance and engineering manager, this, they weren’t someone who’s got, you know, two to 10 years of experience. They want someone that’s worked on building an Amazon facility in the past, which is Amazon facilities continue to grow and grow. I mean that the number of people who’ve done that become larger and larger, and if you’ve done work and built Amazon facilities, you know exactly what you’ve seen. I’m going to call out a couple of things. I guess, one thing down here at the bottom, travel up to 20%, that seems fairly low, on for mostly a controls engineering position. that means you’re probably working mostly at the facility. Maybe you go away, you know, once a month, once every other, once every couple of months, that kind of feels like you’re going to have to go on a couple of trips a year, but we’re throwing it in there. Just so you know, upfront. I do not believe the last position called on travel.
Jordan Humphreys: Yeah. I’m glad you highlighted travel. and this one is interesting, you know, when we talk automation or controls, it’s always travel. What does it look like Is this a non-travel, it’s a very important thing. the last job did not say anything about travel. generally if they don’t put travel in there, there’s probably not going to be any travel. if a company puts travel in there, then you know, there is going to be, what’s unique about this one is you’re working at Amazon fulfillment as an automation engineer with some leadership, duties in there is that you will travel up to 20%. Usually these don’t have traveling. you know, when you’re working at fulfillment centers or a Foundry steel center manufacturing facility, when you’re working at the plant, usually don’t travel unless you have a sister plant that’s close and easy to go update them on something. so in this position, I would be curious to know what that 20% is. they’re, they’re willing to relocate to Colorado for this. So am I going to be traveling regionally in, or should I be traveling in state Am I going to be going 30 minutes to an hour to another facility Or am I going to be doing regional within the tri-state area Or is this potentially, nationally to other Amazon fulfillment centers and other parts of the state that’s what I would want it about that.
Dave Griffith: Yeah. To me, this reads, like, if they need someone to help with the last week of start-up at another location, you’re going to get shipped out there. I generally don’t consider, you know, driving 30 minutes down the street travel that maybe you have a different site you’re working at for the day. I generally think of travel as you’re not going to sleep in your own bed.
Jordan Humphreys: Yes. And that’s a very good way of looking at that. That’s perfect. And putting it like that, some companies do have travel and they say, yeah, we’ve got a customer an hour away. They’ll count that as trap. even if, you know, you’re only there for the day and you come back, you don’t sleep somewhere else, but generally I’m glad you said that travel will mean, Hey, I’m going to sleep in a hotel or, or another bed other than my own tonight.
Dave Griffith: Yeah. Perfect. Awesome. So let’s scroll through some food requirements and we’ve got some additional skills, I guess. It’s like we go through the qualifications, we’ll scroll to the bottom, because again, we were talking about all, this is kind of corporate and like all of this reads very corporate email. They’ve got their statements for the affirmative action, equal opportunity employer with you, you see kind of on every corporate, you see kinda on every corporate listing, we’ve got some physical demands, we’ve got the lift and carry the push pull. We’ve got, you know, kind of activity. which in my mind generally goes with a controlled engineering position. But even though it generally goes to the controls engineering position, it’s written in like a very corporate manner. Right. And like we’ve got computer skills. And so we see, you know, Microsoft, Microsoft office. and it doesn’t talk about, you know, you, you know, your Rockwell tweets or your Siemens fleets, or you’re scared of software. So with that kind of this whole bottom seems very, it seems very boilerplate.
Jordan Humphreys: Yep. Yeah. A lot of that it’s going to be on any of their job descriptions from that company. so yeah.
Dave Griffith: And, and tell me what the additional skills and knowledge also reads the same way.
Jordan Humphreys: Yeah, it basically means, Hey, you know, because this is a leadership position, the first one ability to accept responsibility account for his or her actions and results. Right. Are you a, are you a leader Are you a trustworthy person Are you a person of integrity cause you know, that’s what we need out of a leader.
Dave Griffith: Yes, no, exactly. I also am in cell one, we’re talking some preferred requirements. This seems kind of similar to a little bit of a leader, but this kind of leads a little bit between, the actual job posting and kind of the boiler plate stuff. But it’s basically, this is basically the experience. This is that, Hey, if you’ve done work at a fulfillment center in the past and know what that looks like, we would like, you know, this is kind of the goal. And if you’re, I think you talked in the last one, you know, if there are 10 bullet points, they really would like five of these. Right. And so talking about experience with robotics, with ASRS systems, with advanced automation control systems, you know, these are potentially someone could have all of these, but if you’ve got one or two of these, you know, that’s what you’re looking for. You know, communication skills. We talk about conveyors instrumentation systems, you know, ideally we’d like you to be both a field service engineer and assistant trainer with systems integration experience. and so that’s kind of a, it’s all a given a tape. And so if you had, you know, half of these, you’re probably do a good job.
Jordan Humphreys: Yeah. And what’s crucial in these leadership positions from these companies, they’re looking for somebody that is looking to mentor, looking to train. They’ve gotten to a certain place in their career where they want to pass that knowledge over to the next generation and do so efficiently. I’ve talked to a lot of people that that’s what they want to do. that’s what they’re looking for those types people. So if, if, if you’re not great with passing on your knowledge, don’t really want to lead. Don’t really want to manage, these are not the types of jobs for you because you’re probably not going to get your hands too dirty too often in this role, they need somebody who’s been there and done it can architect it. if something goes really haywire yeah. You know, go grab your laptop and, and, go back to the source code and look at something maybe, but most of the time you’re going to be teaching people and this, there’s a program they want you to implement again. so that’s kinda what you, you discern and look for in this job description is they really want somebody that’s going to lead and has experience with that. You’re going to really stand out in this.
Dave Griffith: No, no. I would agree with everything that you’re saying, Jordan. and I, I think that all of that makes a lot of sense. I liked the, the two that we picked out, for me, those seem like a couple of their interest in a couple of very good job descriptions that are going to be different than most, yeah. That are going to be different than most. no, there is certainly a difference between both of them. One of them is early career. A couple of years of experience. you know, you’re working at a Foundry and one is you have a bunch of particular experience we’re going to relocate you across the country for a year, for a couple of years in order to get this facility up and running.
Jordan Humphreys: Yup. Absolutely.
Dave Griffith: And I, I think that we, we answered pretty much all of the questions. Paul, I think we got your questions, the job requirements, Dan, yes, this is being recorded. I know Dan does a lot of teaching and so I would imagine some of his students would be interested in, in gaining some additional views on job experience. And Frank is only thank you for, for dropping in the chat. we, we look forward to hearing what you think about the, the, the topic. but now, so to watch her wrap her up a little bit, I hope everyone enjoyed it. We’ll certainly give Jordan achieves to throw some closing remarks in there. if you guys are still watching, flat and I are coming out with episode three of manufacturing hub next Wednesday, the third, evening time, East coast. Do you have any closing thoughts You have any closing thoughts for this
Jordan Humphreys: I think, to plug something else, not on my own, but I did see something from you earlier day, the conversation that you’ve been bringing up in the last half of 2021 that I’m interested in, I saw a post from you. I don’t know if he did a video or if it was just a article on reassuring in America. I know you had something
Dave Griffith: I’ve done a couple of posts on reassuring, including, and a post three should come out in February. What I’m talking about, you know, what do you look at How do you go and build new facilities it’s, it’s one of those, what can we do now with all of the opportunities and all of the talent and what are the things that we should look at if we have the chance to sell it from ground zero
Jordan Humphreys: Yeah. And that’s something that I’m looking forward to, and thought, you know, obviously the presidential election would have some, to do with obviously our overall economy where we would go in manufacturing. I do know that Biden had signed the buyback, or I forget what it’s called the, the buy American plan. I did read a short article about that, that it got kind of stalled in the last administration, but, he is supposed to beat that up. It will be interesting to see what that program does for American American jobs and manufacturing coming in the near future. I’m definitely excited to see that. I think there’s a lot that can be done in automation here in America. if we put some attention to it
Dave Griffith: Agreed, completely agree with that. I look forward to finding more manufacturing jobs, in, in the industry and, Jordan, while we were wrapping up, we actually had another question come in from Rob, Rob Graham. He wants to know how do you show that skills are transferrable from one segment of the industry into another.
Jordan Humphreys: So, yeah, so skills that are transferable from one industry to another. So maybe, you know, if you’re an oil and gas, how do you translate to food and beverage for instance, or to pharma, maybe, you know, we’re manufacturing, you got to look at the S I, for me, I would say you look at your technology, what, what comes over we’re, we’re all working with a PLC right now, whether reason at PLC to control or feedback on our tank levels, pressures to, moving servers or we’re sorting something in a, in a warehouse we’re using the same kind of controllers, right Rockwell Allen-Bradley, different. I don’t know, what’s the word different softwares, you know, so the studio suite, logics, compact logics, are we doing safety stuff so I would say that getting in and knowing as much as you can about your PLCs and what you can do in other areas, you know, peak your interest in those areas, know what you can do as a PLC, other than just what you’re using it for.
Jordan Humphreys: that way, when you can go into other areas, you know, what a PLC can do, not just an oil and gas perspective, but, Oh, well, I see what you’re trying to do in this food and beverage and this process environment. I know that the PLC can support these kinds of things, that way you can bridge that gap and make your ramp up period, a lot less. so again, SCADA, we’re going to use those in O and G versus a, some process industries. we’re basically just using the same technology, but using it in a different way. So learn your technology that you’re utilizing today in your industry, and take classes, talk to other people in different industries, get into some details about, you know, your AOIs, your tags UDTs, and you know, what do we use them
Jordan Humphreys: How do we network with these How do we get them to talk to one another that’s what I would say is really try to focus on what the PLC can do other than just in your environment. and again, I know I’m using just a PLC, but things that are transferable over from one to two to the other, it’s a great question, especially for folks that are in oil and gas. we’ve had a really tough year last year. and now with the cancellation of the pipeline, they’re hurting. And a lot of those guys I’ve talked to, a lot of those guys are, you know, Hey, I’m, I’m tired of though and G ups and downs. I want to get out of this and want something more stable. What’s a good way to segue to answer that question. A lot of O and G guys I’ve had help getting them into process and Ong or process and food and Bev.
Jordan Humphreys: those, those have been a really good segue and food and beverage has done really well in COVID, times. so I would, that’s where I would first look, if you’re gonna look at changing industries, look at food and Bev right now. so I hope that I hope that answers your question. I know it’s not an easy answer. but I haven’t to answer Rob’s question. I haven’t had a lot of trouble with that. Hey, will you take a guy from Ong and your food and Bev Yeah, we’ve done that before. It’s not a bad transition, or from food and Bev to O and G just using that. I, it’s usually not something that’s really hard to come by. and again, that comes into the dearth of talent that’s available. How many guys out there have had PLC, you know, Allen-Bradley that can write from scratch. okay. Well, he’s never been in food and beverage, but there’s not a lot of other guys that can write PLC programs from scratch. I’m going to use this guy and work with
Dave Griffith: Yeah, no, I would agree with that. I think on the technical side that the technical skills do a really good job of transferring as a technical skill and then your soft communication and other skills are also going to do a good job of transferring from one industry to another. I would say, you know, as Jordan mentioned, you know, work on the skills and then as you’re looking to transfer industries, it’s going to be a little bit harder to kind of make that transition. You’re going to have to find a company willing to work with you through that transition as you go from one industry to another. I would also say that, you know, as you’re mentioned, as pharma, as sitting badly, as some industries are ramping up and other than ramping down, I find that controls engineers, if you’ve had experience in more than one industry or multiple facilities or multiple platforms, or you have the skills that they’re looking for, it becomes a much easier transition. And I see many people in this industry who do and specifically look and work at, and working in multiple verticals and multiple industries at some point early to mid career. So that as industries, you know, go up and down, you’re able to jump from one industry to another and have more of that experience and become more valuable across seasons.
Jordan Humphreys: Absolutely. And you know, to go off that real quick, you know, this would be a situation where if you are an Ong, for the, for the job description nets up with this Amazon, you know, that would not be a good, I would not put you in that because they are looking for something particular here. Okay. but that doesn’t mean that you can’t find something. I would just tell you, Hey, they’re looking for something particular here. Can you do this job Yes. You could with time, but they’re not looking for that.
Dave Griffith: No, exactly. Rob, I think that, that’s a great question. thank you for answering, asking that. I don’t see any other questions in the chat and, we are running up on time. So Jordan, let’s run. If there are questions that people ask after this guys, please go ahead and ask them, we’ll come back and answer them, and we’ll be happy to have those conversations, with you guys. And then we’ll see what the community reaction is. If there’s some other good questions, we can come back on tuna in a couple more weeks and, and have some more conversation around it.
Jordan Humphreys: Absolutely. Thank you all for your time, Dave, thank you for putting this together. And I hope everybody got something out of it. And then as always ask questions and we’re here to answer.
Dave Griffith: Well, thank you very much, sir. Thank you everyone. We’ll talk to you guys soon.
Jordan Humphreys: Bye-bye.
