Where Has All the Talent Gone?
You’re competing against deep-pocketed corporations and low unemployment. It’s time to get creative.
Last year, when Taiwanese electronics behemoth Foxconn announced plans to build a plant in Wisconsin and employ 13,000 people, Erik Anderson laughed. “I don’t know where they expect to find those 13,000 people,” he says. “They’re not here.”
Anderson is CEO of Jefferson, Wisconsin–based Basin Precision Machining, a supplier of parts for customers like Harley-Davidson. Recruitment “has always been a challenge, but it is beyond the pale at this point,” Anderson adds. Wisconsin’s 2.9 percent unemployment rate “sounds impossible, but if you’re looking to fill positions, it feels pretty real.”
With the
