PIM’s Guide to Finding Talent

Posted on by Sadie Hagen

It is important to develop connections and best practices for finding qualified employees. Use the following Printing Industry Midwest (PIM) suggestions to support developing your talent pipeline!

Questions? Contact Kristin Pilling-Davis at kdavis@pimw.org or 612.400.6208

Download a PDF of this information here.

More About PIM’s Workforce Development Initiatives.

  • Create Job Descriptions: Make sure that you have active job descriptions on file for all the positions at your company, to better communicate with prospective talent. Download PIM Job Descriptions.

  • Locating talent starts early!  Establish relationships with the schools near your Print Company (this is a solution that takes time to develop.)
    • You can also do a simple google search of your area, visit their websites, connect with the Principal or Counselors at the grade school, middle school and high school.
    • Connect with PIM staff for the latest handouts, talking items, and suggestions to help with the connections.  
    • Ask if you can speak to classrooms, participate in career fairs, offer job shadowing, or conduct plant tours.
    • Provide students with swag, participate in mock interviews, or sit on an advisory committee. Have lead staff, HR participate in this involvement.

  • Use your PIM Employment Referral Section!
    • Post on other Job Boards, such as Linkedin, DEED, APRES – Careers, Kids & Comebacks A Working Mother’s Guide

  • Identify your local Community Based Organizations (CBO’s) Partners Review the PIM Workforce page on the PIM website to find CBO connections.
    • Look for partners that work with career development. Most of these organizations will have career counselors that you can work with to provide you with clients that they are working with to interview.
    • Invite these counselors to your facility, give them tours, tell them the type of talent you’re looking for.
    • Establish a relationship so they think of you when they come across talent that would be a good fit. This can be a great partnership and provide community building. 
    • Department of Corrections – many states Department of Corrections provide Job Skills Training, for example in Minnesota there is MINNCOR – which is also a member of PIM. Contact 1-800- MINNCOR

  • Locate Your Local Career Support  
  • Take Advantage of Financial Incentives and Local Support. Utilize your state’s Workforce Development Resources. (Requires PIM Member Login.)

  • Expand your search by engaging where tomorrow’s workforce lives:
    • Black Girl Group  – A platform for Black women to showcase their projects and freelance services, connect with potential clients, and share with one another.
    • Boulo Solutions – They connect businesses with committed and driven women, mostly mothers, who are interested in contributing to businesses that honor diversity and flexibility. Boulo will send you 3–5 vetted candidates that match your role requirements in as little as 72 hours.
    • Fairy God Boss – Their mission is to improve the lives and workplace for women through transparency. The site offers a job board, honest company reviews for women, discussion boards, and career advice.
    • Include – From the CEO of Lesbians Who Tech, Include.io is helping companies build their best teams by connecting them to underrepresented tech professionals looking to find their dream job and get hired for who they truly are.
    • Jopwell – Empowering underrepresented ethnic minority professionals and students to successfully navigate their careers, Jopwell is a leading career advancement platform for Black, Latinx, and Native American students and professionals.
    • Lane – Created by Women 2.0 and with a strong focus on women in tech, Lane offers a connection point between high-quality tech talent and workplaces that care about making their companies more successful through inclusion.
    • Noirefy – A platform that connects diverse talent and corporations for career opportunities, Noirefy aims to change the diversity landscape to create inclusive work spaces globally.
    • Out and Equal – A global nonprofit organization dedicated to achieving LGBT workplace equality, they partner with Fortune 1000 companies and government agencies to provide executive leadership development, comprehensive training and consultation, and professional networking opportunities that build inclusive and welcoming work environments.
    • People of Color in Tech – A top recruitment platform that helps connect people of color with jobs in tech and startups.
    • Power to Fly –  global platform connecting women with companies that value diversity and inclusion. Their tools and services reduce the time to hire hard to reach talent pools of underrepresented female engineers at a centralized and lower cost.
    • Basta – Bridging the college to career gap for first-generation graduates of color.
    • ReacHire – Through comprehensive recruiting, training and placement programs that support diverse hiring, reacHIRE gives companies an alternative channel for tapping into a powerful, underutilized talent pool — returning women.
    • Rise – This modern flexible work platform for professional women brings together flexible jobs, on-demand benefits and services, and an engaged community. Rise accelerates women’s career ladder journey by using bite-sized projects and flexible roles. The platform is building a future where women are empowered to go further, faster, on their own terms.
    • Squared Away – Working to break the military spouse unemployment cycle, they empower military spouses to build meaningful careers and work from anywhere as assistants and support team members. Military spouses working with Squared Away are trained in high growth and scaling businesses.
    • Tech Connection – A recruitment platform that supports the professional development of untapped technical talent from diverse backgrounds. They work with job-seekers and employers through individualized career planning and job placements.
    • Trans Can Work – Through employer trainings, job boards connecting the transgender community to safe and inclusive businesses, and workshops TransCanWork is working to build a culture nationwide for transgender people to thrive in the workplace.
    • Women who Code – Inspiring women to excel in technology careers, Women Who Code offers their members coding resources, scholarships, and access to a robust job board.
    • Workforce Opportunity Services – Committed to developing the skills of untapped talent from underserved and veteran communities, WOS recruits, educates, trains, and places high-potential candidates with leading organizations around the world.
    • 2050 – A job site for people of color in creative, digital media and tech.

Questions? Contact Kristin Pilling-Davis at kdavis@pimw.org or 612.400.6208

Download a PDF of this information here.

More About PIM’s Workforce Development Initiatives.

Sadie Hagen
Author: Sadie Hagen