5 tips for hiring the right welder

What’s the perfect subject to get a room full of metal fabricators talking? Ask them if they are having difficulty finding welders.

It’s been a universal pain point for fabricating companies for years. The “availability of skilled workers” has been the No. 1 concern of fabricators that participated in The FABRICATOR’s last three “What Keeps You up at Night?” surveys, which spans six years. These companies see their skilled welders retiring and wonder where they are going to find replacements with the same skills and work ethic. (According to American Welding Society data, among the roughly 450,000 U.S. welders, the average age is in the mid-50s and fewer than 20 percent are under the age of 35.)

The search for welders has gotten so frustrating for some companies that they are just looking for committed individuals that can show up, be drug-free, and pass a basic welding test. The idea is that the company can teach advanced welding skills, if needed; they can’t provide a lifetime of experiences that mold individuals into reliable and productive employees.

To gain a better understanding of how companies are finding—and hopefully retaining—new welders, The FABRICATOR spoke with David Munschauer, president, Atech-SEH Metal Fabricators, a precision sheet metal fabricator in Buffalo, N.Y.; Jason North, manager, operations and industrial training, Merrill Institute, a manufacturing skills-training organization founded on the campus of Merrill Fabricators, Alma, Mich.; and Scott Mazzulla, president/CEO, Hobart Institute of Welding Technology, a welding skills-training institution founded in 1930. As a result of those conversations, these are some of the hiring tips for finding the right people, even if they may not have the needed welding skills right from the start.

No. 1. Pay Attention to the Schooling

This may sound like an obvious tip, but there’s more to this than just checking if the candidate has a degree that seemingly indicates mastery of skill. This is about getting the full scoop on the person who will be taking the welding skills test for a position in your company.

“The students need to be test-ready, of course,” Mazzulla said. “Not only do these companies want them to have the skill, but they want them to have professionalism for an interview and how they approach the job. They don’t want them to be shocked or intimidated.”

That means getting to know the prospective employees more by asking questions of the instructors and administrators that worked with them. A fabricating company can learn if the students showed up every day, how they interacted with instructors and other students, and how they handled challenges.

Atech-SEH has good working relationships with several administrators and teachers involved in the vocational skill-training programs in neighboring counties, according to Munschauer. As part of the schooling, students can participate in shadowing programs, where they work at nearby companies to see if they might be a good fit and if the career path is of interest to them.

“A lot of times if they are interested, we’ll hire them,” Munschauer said. “It’s a good first job. We have several employees here that have gone through this type of a program.”

Of the six welders currently on the staff at Atech-SEH, one came through the Boards of Cooperative Educational Services, known as BOCE locally (and pronounced bō-CEE). He’s been with the company seven years, and in addition to welding, he programs and operates the laser and turret punching machines. He’s proven to be a good fit for the company, Munschauer said.

No. 2. Consider the “Nontraditional” Candidates

Not everyone follows the direct path from high school into vocational or welding school. Sometimes people take an indirect path until they find welding.

North said that he has noticed that students with “nontraditional” backgrounds sometimes surprise him. He added that about 95 percent of the school’s registrants have never touched a welding torch until they show up for class. (The Merrill Institute has trained about 300 welders since 2011. Some have gone on to work for Merrill Fabricators, but a majority move on to work for other companies in the area.)

As an example, he recalled a conversation with a new student who had previously worked as a dog groomer. When she came in for an assessment, North admitted that he was skeptical about her being a good fit for the trade. After talking with her, he learned that she was creative and liked working with her hands.

“I’m glad we brought her in because she did really well,” he said.

North said looking for creative people makes sense because they often can understand how things fit together to create a larger vision. It’s akin to taking a 2-D drawing and turning that into a metal fabrication.

He said he particularly sees this talent with folks that have worked in the construction industry. Even though they may have been working with wood, they have experience looking at a print and creating something out of nothing.

No. 3. Realize That Wages Are Important … for Most

Mazzulla said that Hobart Institute of Welding Technology is filled with competitive and proud students, similar traits shared by most welders. As a result, they are knowledgeable about pay rates for specific geographic regions and industry segments.

“You hear them when they gather in our student resource center, where we have resources dedicated to career development and job placement,” Mazzulla said. “When you get eight or nine students together in there, they are showing each other information related to what the top-paying jobs are.”

With young adults, however, sometimes you never know. Mazzulla described the case of one student, who after graduation wanted to go back home to north central Indiana and work with his friends. This unofficial high school reunion put him on a path to making $13 per hour. Mazzulla said Hobart Institute staff had to talk with the student to convince him that just by living an hour or so outside of his hometown he could almost double his wages because of his skill level.

So money is important for most prospective welding hires, but if they are younger, they may not really respond to discussions of other company benefits. A conversation about 401(k) plans and health benefits just doesn’t resonate with someone in their early 20s as it might with an older job candidate.

No. 4. Promote Skills Development

North has four kids of his own, ranging in age from 15 to 29. He knows what it’s like working with the younger generation, both in his own house and at Merrill Institute. He said that while others see young people as disinterested in work and distracted by modern technology, he sees individuals that want to be challenged and that have an incredible interest in technology.

“They want to understand the end result and what they are doing,” North said. “When they get that, they become engaged. There is a lot of excitement then.”

Job shops are the perfect environments for this, according to North. Using Merrill Fabricators as an example, he pointed to all of the different types of large weldments created for customers in industries such as transportation, oil and gas, mining, and even automotive. The company relies on all sorts of welding processes and has seven robotic welding cells. Because it’s a large company, currently with 150 employees, a person can become involved in quality control and lean manufacturing efforts. Opportunities abound.

“We’ve had a lot of people that work here for a period of time as a welder or a fabricator and then go into robotics or project management. Some have even become team leaders,” North said.

The challenge with younger workers is finding the time to manage them. They tend to require continuous feedback and guidance on their way to becoming valuable contributors to a metal fabricating operation.

Munschauer said Atech-SEH has a formal mentoring program for younger employees. The mentors act as a sounding board and quality coach for their less experienced co-workers and provide important guidance, such as explaining blueprints and defining what welding symbols mean.

No. 5. Be Flexible

Certainly, a fabricator can’t have a workforce that telecommutes. Moving a 1,000-lb. fabrication between a welder’s garage and the shop is a material handling nightmare that no plant manager wants to experience.

That, however, doesn’t mean that a fab shop has to be completely inflexible when it comes to work schedules.

“Everyone has issues that they deal with. We want to try and help them,” Munschauer said. “For example, someone might have to wait with the kids at the bus because his wife works nights as a nurse. Maybe they come in at 7:30 a.m. instead of 7 a.m.”

Other fabricating companies have creative work schedules to maximize flexibility. Some have offered four 10-hour shifts on the second shift to entice people to work that hard-to-fill slot, instead of the regular five-day, eight-hour shift. One company even has offered three-day, 12-hour shifts that span Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to add more capacity.

Accommodating workers in this way helps to build a solid foundation of trust between employee and company, Munschauer said. This remains the case when employees leave, believe it or not. He described how Atech-SEH regularly reaches out to former welders, who have gone on to other jobs or self-employment, to pitch in when the shop floor needs help in processing large welding jobs. Those welders will come to Atech-SEH in the evening to work, reconnecting with the company that helped them develop their skills.

The Real Struggle

These tips are obviously offered to guide a metal fabricator in its search for the right welder, but it’s still going to be an uphill battle. With the general economy humming and a national unemployment rate that hovers around 4 percent, those that want to work have a lot of options before them.

The same holds for welders specifically. Mazzulla said at a recent job fair on the Hobart Institute of Welding Technology campus, 31 employers came looking for welders. He added that the school’s job board hosted almost 200 manufacturing companies looking to fill 1,500 welding openings.

“A lot of these companies are talking about hiring welders, but they are looking for a fit for their culture,” Mazzulla said. “They want to hire these individuals for the long term.”

Atech-SEH Metal Fabricators, www.atech-seh.com

Hobart Institute of Welding Technology, www.welding.org

Merrill Institute, www.merrillinstitute.com