It’s Only Common Sense: Customers Need Confidence More Than Low Prices
Dan’s Biz Bookshelf: Revisiting 'The Popcorn Report'
The title of John W. Mitchell’s new book, Fire Your Hiring Habits, says it all. Hiring and retaining talent is an ongoing challenge for our industry that requires unconventional thinking, casting a wider net, and addressing the real issues at hand. John shares his thoughts behind the book and why we need to rethink the entire hiring process.
Barry Matties: John, congratulations on your new book. The title is interesting, so let’s start there. What habits need to be fired?
John Mitchell: I spend quite a bit of time talking with industry leaders, as well as reviewing IPC’s various sentiment surveys. What I see is we’re doing the same things we’ve done for 20 years even while the world around us has changed. We need to act differently now from how we might have in the past. In our industry, we’ve always had challenges with our workforce, especially in finding the right talent. This book is about two big pieces that align strongly with IPC’s mission in workforce development: finding and keeping the right people. At one point, we thought about titling the book, “Finders Keepers.” The entire appendix of the book is a white paper about building electronics better by solving these workforce challenges.
It is written in an approachable, fun way for those who are trying to hire and retain talent; it's really meant for them. Anybody that hangs around me for a while will probably hear me quote more than one movie line, and so you’ll find some of those in the book. We wanted to keep it fresh and easy to read, but still provide valuable tools you need.
Matties: There was an era when you found a job, signed up for the pension, and happily retired 30 or 40 years later. Those days seem to be long gone.
Mitchell: Yeah. The companies that do that are few and far between.
Matties: Corporate culture seems to have shifted as well. Where do you see the shifts in culture?
Mitchell: The largest section of the book—if you include diversity, equity, and inclusion—talks about how keeping the right people means first finding the right people. It's about the kind of organization you are—that's your culture. It’s not something you buy off the shelf or create by putting up a few posters. It's about who you are, what you do, and how you treat your team.
To read this entire conversation, which appeared in the June 2023 issue of PCB007 Magazine, click here.
