John W. Mitchell: Fire Your Hiring Habits

Estimated reading time: 1 minute

On the Wednesday of IPC APEX EXPO week, IPC President and CEO Dr. John W. Mitchell stylishly delivered his keynote address, “Fire Your Hiring Habits!” to a packed ballroom full of round tables all immaculately laid for a sit-down lunch. 

Announced by IPC Hall-of-Famer Joe O’Neil with a Rolling Stones track in the background, Mitchell’s presentation, subtitled “Finding and keeping the best talent is fundamental to building electronics better,” offered relevant and valuable guidance on understanding human nature and how this knowledge can help you find and keep the right individuals for your organisation. Mitchell discussed how to give candidates the confidence to come and join your organisation, how to train them, and how to keep them happy and productive, while simultaneously facing the challenges of record low unemployment, skills gaps, and an education system that has been unsuccessful in motivating students to get jobs.

“Quality electronics,” Mitchell said, “starts with quality training,” and IPC demonstrated its commitment to this key message by offering certain online training packages to member companies, free of charge.

Several recent surveys have asked questions like, “What is top talent looking for? What do employees want?” Inevitably, those surveys come back with different answers and orders of priority. One clear finding, however, was that different generations think differently, particularly on the “live-to-work” vs. “work-to-live” paradigm. In addition to age-related demographic differences in the answers to those questions, gender-related differences also came up, with predictable arguments over whether women were better than men.

To read this entire review, which appeared in the 2023 edition of Show & Tell Magazine, click here.