Headhunter FAQ’s & Musings

We know that finding qualified personnel for the plastics industry is difficult — and that you may need a bit of help in that area right now. Have you wondered why that is? With internet sites boasting of “smart” searches and “targeted” ads, shouldn’t it be simple to find expert candidates? With the myriad of recruiting firms clamoring for your business, shouldn’t it be easy to find a recruiter to fill your requirements?

Well, the reality is that for some positions the job boards work great. For certain industry segments, just about any recruiter can find good candidates. But when the position requirements are a bit more restrictive; when the right person is more likely to be a passive candidate; when evaluating a candidate’s fit with your organization’s culture is significantly more important than matching up resumes with keyword checklists — then things get a little tougher. And in plastics, where the technical requirements for a position are usually process and very equipment specific, finding good people can be nearly impossible in today’s market.

Of course, you hate to spend money on a recruiter — especially when you know that you could find a good match yourself if you just had a bit more time. But extra time is hard to come by, job postings are pretty expensive in their own right, and even posting on a corporate web site carries the cost of wading through stacks of resumes. Even after filtering out the most promising resumes, you know that you’re not necessarily looking at the best candidates; just those that happen to be actively looking for new employment, and those that possess enough writing talent to convey a sense of their capabilities (whether real or imagined).

So, perhaps with some reluctance, you may decide that you need the services of a “plastics” recruiter. There are lots of plastics recruiters to choose from. If you do a search for “plastics recruiters” on Google, you’ll have no trouble finding them. Just to save you the trouble, here are links to six plastics recruiting firms we found on a recent search:

• Strane & Associates, Inc.
• Gros Plastics Recruiters
• Allan James Associates
• Lucas Group
• MyPlasticsRecruiter.com
• Eaton Associates

So, whom do you choose, and why in the would you choose Discovery Personnel instead? After all, each of these firms claim to know the industry. Most are members of industry organizations, such as the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) or the Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI). They all claim to know where to find the best candidates, with access to the most complete databases, and unmatched industry insight. (Some of their websites look pretty nice, too.) So again, whom do you choose?

What makes Discovery Personnel unique is our experience in the plastics industry. For the last 24 years, we have recruited solely for the plastics industry. We are not just a branch of a larger recruiting organization. We know plastics, and we know it well. The recruiters in our office have manufacturing and management experience in plastics that most recruiting firms simply cannot provide. Most recruiting firms can find candidates with the job requirements provided by the hiring company but they lack the depth of plastics manufacturing experience to identify the intangibles that often make or break a new hire.

Confucius, in The Confucian Analects once said, “When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it – this is knowledge. ” Not only do the Technicial Recruiters at Discovery Personnel know the hiring needs, processes, and the equipment used in the plastics industry, we know enough to know if we do not know something and we will work with our client firms and contacts in the industry to obtain the requisite knowledge to meet the needs of our client firms. The Technicial Recruiters in office just returned from the 2006 NPE show where we went to update ourselves on equipment, processes, suppliers, etc. , not to try to recruit. It is this commitment to the Plastics Industry that we believe places us step above the rest.

Lisa Carpenter, founding partner and President, has a BS degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. After receiving her degree, she joined the Materials and Plastics Division of General Electric where she worked as a process engineer and supervised production in several facilities. Jim Heilman, Vice-President, earned a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University and later an MBA from the University of Dayton. His 25-year manufacturing career encompassed the development and manufacture of containers, devices, and packages that were thermoformed, extruded, blown, cast, blow molded or injection molded, including stints as design manager, maintenance manager, and production manager.

Discovery Personnel has placed candidates ranging from CNC machine operators to CEOs. We’ve found talented individuals for companies hiring their first employee, and for Fortune 100 firms. When asked to perform a job search, we work with you to minimize your commitment to the search process so you can concentrate or more pressing business needs while meeting your organization’s staffing requirements. In addition to supporting your hiring needs through traditional recruiting methods, we also have the flexibility to provide recruiting support on a contract or hourly basis. Details can be determined and arranged on a case by case basis.

Discovery Personnel, Inc. takes every possible measure to be sure we are finding the right candidate for your company. We post positions at www.discoverypersonnel.com, on over 400 job boards, on the Top Echelon Network, which is the largest network of independent recruiters with over 1,400 recruiters, and with approximately 100 recruiters that specialize in recruiting for the plastics industry that are members of our informal network. Discovery Personnel, Inc. also has a database of over 7,000 candidates and of course we do the traditional recruiting thing; getting references and calling into companies that are not, and have not been, our client companies.