Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

It's Only Common Sense: Bring in the Kids

Editor's Note: To listen to Dan's weekly column, as you've always done in the past, click here. For the written transcript, keep reading...The greatest challenge we face right now in our industry is attracting more young people to our ranks. This is especially true when it comes to getting educated young people to become part of management teams. It seems that becoming a PCB process engineer, quality manager, production manager, or supervisor is just not what young people are going to college for these days.What are we going to do about it? Right now, there are more PCB people hitting retirement age than there are new recruits entering the ranks.

Many companies are looking for good process engineers, but they are having a hard time finding them. When I came into this business over 40 years ago there were many process and quality engineers as well as operations people (admittedly, at the time they were 10 to 20 years older than I was). Today, these guys are in their 70s and 80s--if they're even around at all. And no one has come along to replace them…ouch!

Even the youngest people in management and engineering are in their late 40s and 50s. We need new blood in our industry and we need it sooner rather than later.

With that in mind, here are seven ideas that can help convince young people to join the industry:

1. Get them in school. Hook up with your local colleges and trade schools and work with those institutions to find the best and the brightest. Provide internships and summer jobs to these students so that when they graduate they will already be on the path to work for us.
2. Show them how important our industry is. Talk to them about the role the PCBs have played in the current technology age; from the space shuttle to the Internet to video games, all of it would have been impossible without the PCB
3. Show them the future and the part they can play in that future. Show them a clear career path they can take to job and financial security. A lot of us have made a great living in this industry over the years; show these young people that the same can apply to them. Create a clear career vision for them, something that will get them to invest their time in our industry. Show them the possibilities. Demonstrate to them that from a starting position, say, in your shop's lab, they can work themselves up to a management position in quality. Show them how a position in inside sales can lead to a lucrative career in outside sales.
4. Keep them interested. Young people are eager to learn,  but most importantly, they are eager to be part of something that matters. Show them how they can matter to not only your company but to the industry and maybe even the world at large.
5. Young people want to know about business. They want to learn how to run a business, they want to learn about real-world profit and loss, red and black business, and you can show it to them.
6. Let them know that they matter, that they are an important part of your organization and the industry. Expose them to our trade organizations, and take them to trade shows. Get them assigned to IPC committees. Get them involved in as many vital organizations as possible.
7. Provide them with a mentor. I’ve had at least four incredible mentors in my career, and each one of them led me up another stepping stone of progress teaching me more than any official teacher I ever had. Now it’s my turn, our turn to mentor those who come after us. Develop a mentoring program in your company. It will be the best thing you can do to encourage your young people to progress to success

And one more: Get them involved early on in the running of the company. Set up a junior board of advisors made up of your young employees. Listen to them and encourage them to share their ideas with you. They are able to look at the world with a freshness than none of us have experienced in years…take advantage of that.

And, finally, treat them with respect. Sure, they're a lot younger than we are, but in many ways they are much smarter--especially when it comes to the way the world operates today. How many of us know anywhere near as much about social media as our young people do?. If you want your company to survive, you must find and recruit the next generation. Once you recruit them make sure you treat them right, treat them with respect, and educate and nurture them as much as possible--this is the only way our companies will survive another 10 years. It’s only common sense.