Wolverine Coil Spring Co. Finds Qualified Manufacturing Talent With Precision Through iHire360

The full story:

Background

Wolverine Coil Spring Co. (WCS) is a leader in the metal-formed products industry, providing custom, precision engineered springs, clips, pins, rods, wire forms, stampings, and assemblies for the automotive, furniture, appliance, medical, home furnishings, construction, and consumer sectors.

Founded in 1946, WCS is a family-owned business headquartered in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan. With approximately 100 employees, WCS is committed to supporting its workforce professionally and personally as it continues to grow its team.

Challenges

WCS recruits for highly specialized manufacturing roles, including Machine Operators and Machine Set Up Technicians. In addition, the company is always on the lookout for potential candidates for succession planning purposes, as more senior-level employees retire.

When using general job boards, WCS often attracted unqualified candidates, and many times, applicants were unresponsive to the company’s outreach to gauge their interest in a position or schedule interviews. This led to frustration and wasted time for WCS. Meanwhile, other online recruiting tools were costly and lacked the functionality and ease of use WCS desired. Thus, the company sought a more efficient, cost-effective way to reach qualified, engaged candidates and build strong talent pipelines to fill future roles.

Solutions

WCS found its ideal recruitment solution in iHire, an industry-specific employment platform with 57 talent communities, including iHireManfacturing. Matthew Wehrmeyer, WCS’ Human Resources Manager, was already familiar with iHire from his time using it as a job seeker. He thought iHire’s industry-focused approach could help WCS reach career-minded candidates in the manufacturing sector.

“I was drawn to iHire to find very specific candidates,” Wehrmeyer said. “I could post a Machine Operator job on other job boards and get 100 resumes – 90% of which are unqualified. But on iHire, the percentage of qualified candidates is a lot higher, with many applicants having the relevant background and experience.”

Wehrmeyer chose to implement iHire’s all-in-one recruitment management solution, iHire360. Comprising a subscription to Job Slots (iHire’s flexible, interchangeable job postings), AI-powered resume sourcing tools, a branded company profile, and personalized guidance from iHire’s seasoned Hiring Success Strategists, iHire360 was perfect for WCS.

With Job Slots, WCS’ postings are promoted to the most relevant candidates in search results, on their iHire dashboards, and via branded job alert emails. And, with iHire’s AI-powered resume sourcing tools, WCS is automatically notified of matching candidates to fill their open positions and pipelines. WCS is also able to set up powerful search filters to ensure the resumes proactively sourced meet their needs (Wehmeyer has found the AI-powered sourcing “on point”). Along the way, iHire’s team offers feedback on how to optimize WCS’ job ads and Resume Search filters to attract and find the right candidates with maximum efficiency.

Wehrmeyer especially likes using iHire’s candidate messaging tools, which allow him to correspond with applicants directly from iHire’s platform via email and text. He also appreciates iHire’s AI-driven Applicant iScore, which provides an at-a-glance summary and numerical ranking indicating how well the candidate’s resume aligns with the requirements in the job ad.

Additionally, WCS enrolled in iHire’s Choice Employer Program, which rewards companies with additional job exposure for pledging to treat job seekers well through fast and fair hiring.

Results

With iHire, WCS has been attracting experienced candidates for its manufacturing roles, including a highly qualified Machine Set Up Technician. This is a hard-to-fill role that requires precise knowledge of configuring, calibrating, and maintaining spring coil machines.

“The quality of candidates I’m getting through iHire is much superior to other platforms because it’s so specific to manufacturing,” Wehrmeyer said. “We typically don’t have a lot of time to fill positions, and with iHire, the time to hire has greatly improved. I’ve also noticed that the candidates on iHire are more responsive than those on general job boards when I message them.”

Lastly, Wehrmeyer pointed out the cost-effectiveness of iHire’s platform as well as the responsiveness and quality of support afforded by his Hiring Success Specialist, Cammi Foreman.

“Cammi has been awesome through implementation, and her care in following up is amazing. If I have questions, I know exactly who to call,” Wehrmeyer commented.

Moving forward, Wehmeyer anticipates continuing to lean on iHire for WCS’ hiring and pipelining needs to help meet its growth goals.

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