• Direct Recruitment:  We find people who will never see an advertisement by direct-recruiting them from their desk.
• Referrals:  We have a great network of plastics industry professionals, and we are able to garner referrals for the top talent in the plastics industry.
• Subscription services:  We have paid services that tell us who works where, and others that generate their contact information.  We also use trade show directories, college alumni directories and have worked with some colleges to help place past graduates.
• “Market Maps”.  We have all markets mapped out with every company and all of the employees we can find at each company.
• Database:  We have a database of tens of thousands of plastics industry people that we’ve worked with over the years.
• Advertisements:  While we don’t count on advertisements, some positions, particularly lower-level positions lend themselves to advertisements.

Our founder, Ed Keil, “The Plastics Recruiter”®, started Plastic Executive Recruiters in 1995 after a career in the plastics industry that included ownership in extrusion and molding companies.

Since then, our team has grown to 12 recruiters and researchers that focus exclusively on the plastics market.

We have filled thousands of roles with over 600 of the plastics industry’s best companies.

• Recruiters: Many of the most successful companies use recruiters like us to fill their key roles.  Great plastics recruiters are a fantastic resource to shorten your time-to-fill.  They are also a great help if you are short-handed in HR, or you don’t want to have to sort through the mountains of off-target applicants.
• Employee Referrals: Perhaps the best way for a company to get great candidates is to ask your employees for referrals for people they know or have worked with.  A referral bonus can help in that regard.
• External Referrals: Mine your network for people who could do a great job.  Personal connections can go a long way.
• Trade Shows: Many key people visit plastic industry trade shows.
• Web Site: All of your jobs should be posted on your web site.
• Social Media:  Companies use Facebook and Linkedin to successfully find candidates.
• Job Board Advertisements: While 99% of job board applicants aren’t a fit, and take a lot of time to sort through, some good candidates apply from time to time.

• Interviews:  Phone, video & in-person interviews are all utilized to get to know each other.
• Personality Assessments: Companies use a variety of personality assessments to get a feel for relative strengths and weaknesses.  A word of caution…be sure you understand how the scoring system really works.  There are time that low scores are better than high scores (for example “willing to take risk” might be good for a CEO and bad for a Mechanical Engineer).
• Reference Checks:  Reference checks can range from one of the best tools to one of the most useless tools that people use to evaluate candidates.  Used properly, the hiring manager talks to the reference and asks follow-up questions specific to problems they are trying to solve with the new candidate.
• Working Interviews:  Working Interviews are also known as “Auditions”.  The candidate is given a real-world task and presents it in their final interview.  For example, a Continuous Improvement Manager might outline how they will train the workforce, run Kaizen events, and implement 1-piece flow in manufacturing.
• Back-Door Reference Checks: If you know someone that may have worked with this candidate in the past, check with them to see how they performed.  Sometimes referrals that haven’t been provided by the candidate give the most honest feedback.

One of the most common questions we get is “How long does it take to find someone?”.  That is a difficult question to answer, because it is based on a lot of variables. 

Let me give you an example.  I would love to own a ’69 Camaro.  If I asked a car dealer how long would it take for you to find me a “69 Camaro”, it might depend on a number of things:

• Condition:  Perfect, original, no-rust anywhere, frame-off restored, rolling chassis?
• Miles
• Stock or resto-mod?
• Color
• Matching numbers (all original)? 
• Model:  SS, Z28, sport coupe, RS, RS/SS
• Convertible or coupe?
• Engine:  6 cylinder, 302, 350, 396 (or restomod with LS Swap)
• Stick shift or Automatic
• My budget
• Location:  After all, I have to get it back, and how do I go see it from Indiana?

If I tell him I want a perfect example, no rust, numbers-matching,  big-block 396,RS/SS coupe in White with Black stripes and hideaway headlights, stick shift, within a 3 hour drive of Fort Wayne, for $25K…he would probably die laughing.  I’m not sure that car exists within 3 hours of Fort Wayne, but if it does, it’s certainly $50-$80K (or more).

Similarly, with hiring, if someone wants me to find them a degreed Process Engineer with 5-10 years of hands-on process engineering in PVC Profile Extrusion, with the ability to design custom profile tooling, as well as tune the dies and create the SOP’s for $75K, I know that job is likely either unfillable or will take many months to find the candidate. 

When we work with a company, we explore

• Cultural aspects:  What’s it like to work there?  What’s it like to work with the hiring manager?
• Hiring Process:  How fast will they move?
• Compensation (base pay, bonus, 401K, benefits, etc),
• Career Path: Where will they grow from here?
• Increase in responsibility with this role
• Other key areas that are important to candidates, such as environmental impact, and how they are making the world a better place overall.

If the company, position, and compensation are compelling compared to the market, we can typically find 1-2 people for every 5-10 days we work on the search.  If they are looking for a very rare talent, it can take longer.  Most of our positions are filled in 60-90 days if not slowed down by the hiring companies processes.