Recruiting for Manufacturing versus Consumers

Recruiting for the manufacturing industry is dramatically different than recruiting consumers. Working with an agency that is not experienced in manufacturing can lead to missed deadlines, poor show rates and less than ideal recruits. In fact, a new client of ours, a research agency, just experienced this difference first hand.

This agency needed to recruit wheel load operators for in-depth interviews over the phone. They originally hired a West coast research firm to help them recruit candidates for interviews. This West coast firm had little to no manufacturing industry experience, but they likely had immense experience in recruiting consumers. This did not appear to be important until the agency was about a week and a half shy of their deadline, with only a handful of recruits confirmed.

Given the concerning success rate, this research agency client contacted Communications for Research (CFR) due to our vast experience in manufacturing. With just days to go before their deadline hit, CFR was able to secure more than half of the required number of research recruits.

Why CFR was successful

CFR was successful with this recruiting for manufacturing project, and so quickly, for a few key reasons:

• We understand the target audience: CFR hit the ground running on this project because we’re intimately familiar with research candidates in manufacturing, and wheel load operators are no different. We understand their day-to-day, how they spend their time and what they care about. We know how to address them as to not make them feel we are wasting their time. CFR’s recruiters have more than five years of experience working in the manufacturing industry. They know who the gate keepers are and how to speak with them. They are successful at getting early buy-in. And they have impressive call back rates.

• We’re experienced in manufacturing: Manufacturing is one of CFR’s specialties. From farm equipment to animal products, we’re very comfortable in the manufacturing space. We’re adept at working with everyone from farmers to c-level executives.

• We are very flexible in our recruiting: We’re successful in our recruiting because we aggressively gather information in ways that make it as easy and convenient for survey respondents. This means communicating to them on their time, in a way they want to be communicated with. If we call a research candidate and they are not available, we make sure we’re always on to take their call if they circle back with us. We leverage many tactics to get in touch with them and we don’t stop at the first attempt.

CFR’s new agency client was able to hit their deadline for recruiting for manufacturing, and meet their show rates for their in-depth interviews. CFR saved them time and panic by hitting their hard deadline.

If you have a research project in the manufacturing industry, we would like to hear from you. CFR works with agencies and consultants to accomplish their research goals in manufacturing. You can contact us here to tell us more.