Employment services try to find a good fit for employers

In the last decade, Kelly Services District Manager Lori Smith has seen science, technology, engineering and mathematics - known collectively as STEM - jobs grow at three times the rate of other occupations.

“And the demand for STEM professionals is only projected to increase,” she said, “growing another 16.8 percent from 2010 to 2020.”

Smith estimated demand will be greatest for computer-related occupations. The job numbers in this field, she added, could jump by as much as 21.8 percent in the next 10 years.

Kelly Services was founded in Detroit in 1946 and now has offices around the globe. It has one location in Cedar Rapids and another in Iowa City.

Its placement expertise began with office services, call centers, light industrial and electronic assembly work but has grown to include finance and accounting, education, engineering, law, IT, science, HR and health care.

WHAT LOCAL COMPANIES NEED

Express Employment Professionals's Cedar Rapids Branch Manager Kaly Etten has seen an increase in industrial job placement in the Corridor area.

“If you look at our business mix, we have project-based or short-term jobs available, as well as direct hires. We place everything out in the warehouse, from general labor to to specific skill sets like welding, machine operating, and shipping/receiving,” she said.

Fourteen-year-old Express has nearly 500 offices in the United States. Cedar Rapids boasts four employees - the branch manager, two recruiters and an office coordinator.

Express Employment also focuses on professional opportunities, including data entry, accounting and supervisory/management roles.

“We don't typically get involved with IT or high-level engineering, such as systems or software engineers - there are placement agencies that focus exclusively on those markets. But we do place drafters and manufacturing engineers, mechanical engineers, and electrical,” Etten said.

She noted that CNC experience - operating automated milling machines that make industrial components - is a critical industrial skill right now.

“If anyone has a CNC background, whether as a CNC operator or a CNC programmer, it shouldn't be too hard for them to find something,” Etten said.

Another growing trend both locally and nationally is direct hire, Smith added. Many companies don't have the necessary resources to recruit their own talent, so they contract with staffing agencies to identify and hire talent.

MAKING THE MATCH

Etten spends much of her time traveling to companies that want to partner with Express for hiring services.

“I need to make sure they offer a safe working environment if it's in the industrial realm. I also want to see the professionalism of the company and make sure they're following OSHA guidelines,” she explained.

Once she's on-site, she discusses the company's requirements: Do they need temporary help for a project too big for their permanent staff to handle? Are they looking to do a direct hire or an evaluation-to-hire to fill a permanent position?

Back in the office, she looks through possible matches in the agency's database to see who's available.

“We're not a warm-body placement company. If you tell me today that you need 50 people next week … we probably can't do that,” Etten said. “We take it one job at a time to make sure we get the right fit instead of just sending the first applicant who comes in.”

Etten estimated Express's Cedar Rapids location is employing 150 to 160 people on a weekly basis.

Express conducts background checks, drug screenings, baseline knowledge evaluations and a skills testing to make sure the match between employee and employer is beneficial for both parties.

Kelly Services follows a similar practice.

Smith estimated someone seeking administrative work will spend three to four hours completing these tasks.

CONVINCING COMPANIES TO TAKE A CHANCE

“Typically in our industry if unemployment is less than five percent, they call it a ‘recruiting crunch,'” Etten noted. “Cedar Rapids right now is at about 5.1 percent, so it's harder to find people who have the recent experience employers are looking for.”

Part of Etten's job is to help “sell” the applicants she has to employers.

“There are so many companies that say they need people with certain career experience and skill levels,” she said. “But because of this recruiting crunch, applicants may not have the exact skill set required.”

So she explains other hiring options to companies and helps them think outside the box when it comes to the skills required for a particular job.

“I'll go in and say, ‘I know you want someone who's been in a shipping/receiving department. I have a candidate who has experience loading and unloading containers, they've done a lot of computer work and they've worked with handheld Telxon scanning devices, but they haven't been in a shipping/receiving department,'” Etten said.

She can explain what the applicant has done in the past and how those experiences might match up with the company's need, how great his or her accuracy is, and how he or she did on testing.

If these same candidates were to apply to the company directly, Etten suggested a hiring managers may overlook them because their resumes don't perfectly match what the employer's seeking.

Etten said the average Express Employment office bills approximately 5,500 hours each week nationwide. In the Midwest, the average Express office is billing around 7,000 hours weekly.

“We're above the national average in our area,” she said.

“Everybody in Iowa is doing very well, which is a good sign. It means that companies are hiring and keeping people busy.”

CAUTIOUSLY CAUTIOUS

Employers are “guarded” and are maintaining their wait-and-see attitude on potential hiring overall, according to the Hamilton Group's third-quarter 2012 survey of 5,000 small and medium-sized companies statewide.

“Results showed that 56 percent of the respondents were either somewhat or very optimistic. This is up slightly from 55 percent in the second quarter of 2012,” the West Des Moines-based company said.

However, respondents cited as barriers to new hiring:

•  Business regulations and industry red tape
•  Costs and uncertainties surrounding health care
•  The impending so-called fiscal cliff of Jan. 1, 2013 - when a number of spending cuts and year-end tax increases will take effect if lawmakers fail to find common ground.