Hiring challenges lead largest manufacturing network of skilled labour and employers, FactoryFix, to turn to VanHack
“We were finding people almost immediately.” – Tim Nott, CTO of FactoryFix
It’s becoming more difficult to source skilled talent across various industries, including manufacturing. According to a study by the Workforce Institute at UKG, 54% of manufacturers have trouble finding candidates with the right skills. 49% of multinationals also report to have difficulty retaining skilled talent.
Aside from sourcing challenges, manufacturers are also trying to prioritize other hiring goals:
- 71% place workforce diversity as a top priority
- 81% claims investing in the workforce as a key component of their digital transformation strategy
FactoryFix is the manufacturing industry’s largest marketplace that connects skilled professionals to opportunities. Setting out to “build the workforce that makes our world” since 2015, FactoryFix offers innovative technology to improve the recruitment experience for manufacturers, saving their customers time and cost per hire.
Tim Nott, the CTO of FactoryFix, joined the company in 2018 and started to build a development team. With a business model that’s similar to VanHack’s professional network of 300,000+ tech talent, they turned to VanHack for help with recruiting software developers. They overcame challenges such as having to sift through numerous recruiter emails in overloaded inboxes, difficulty sourcing qualified local talent, and meeting too many candidates before finding solid ones with VanHack’s help.
With a focus on maintaining a tight company culture and finding people in the same time zone, Tim comments that “… We’re really lucky in that VanHack has a reasonably large, stable of folks who are in the Americas and the process is really great… VanHack’s got some really nice, simple software that allows me to see where applicants are in the process and easily manage those interactions, which is great.”
“I think one of the nice things about VanHack is that it’s not just a software platform. It’s nice that that exists, but the folks that have helped us out have been a huge part of our success. So, getting really great feedback on our job descriptions and also help with how our job descriptions align with how VanHack actually works makes a big difference.”
Traditional hiring lead times can take many months, and Tim saw a difference in his experience with VanHack.
“I think we came on and we started talking to VanHack in either July, probably about July. And I think we had a hire by August. It was really quick, and what was really impressive to me was the hit ratio, the number of people that we were interviewing versus the number of people that we were hiring was really tight. So, we weren’t having to go through 10, 15 interviews to get a solid candidate. We were finding people almost immediately.”
Rather than just a collection of average developers, Tim saw a difference in the quality of VanHack’s senior talent pool.
“We needed people who could run dev teams. And so bringing in people who were more senior, well vetted, who had the experience that we were looking for was really key, as we went from a seed stage company through a post-seed, and now we phrased the series A, and it has been a great experience all the way through.”
Retention rates with VanHackers have also been high. “…We’ve seen above average retention with VanHack and again, I think some of it is that VanHack understands what we’re looking for. And so the pre-vetting is usually very solid. The recommendations are great,” says Tim.
See the full video interview here.
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Here’s the full conversation between Ilya Brotzky, CEO of VanHack, and Tim Nott, CTO of FactoryFix:
Ilya Brotzky:
Hi, everyone. Welcome to another VanHack success case. My name’s Ilya. And today I’m really excited to be joined by Tim from FactoryFix. How’s it going, Tim? Great to have you here.
Timothy Nott:
Good. Thank you.
Ilya Brotzky:
Awesome. Well, do you mind just doing a quick intro about yourself, FactoryFix and we’ll go from there.
Timothy Nott:
Yeah. So, FactoryFix is a company that started in 2015. I joined in 2018 and had to start building a development team. Fortunately, I ran into VanHack and they’ve been a big help. But what we do is, we’re actually very similar, we help manufacturing companies find and retain talent. So, we’ve got a big network of professionals and then we’ve got some machine learning that helps save our customer’s time and cost per hire as they’re going through the process.
Ilya Brotzky:
Very cool. Yeah. I love the similarities in the businesses and cool to help each other out there. So, do you mind giving us a kind of explanation about how was hiring before VanHack? And then we’ll talk about the actual process.
Timothy Nott:
Yeah, so we were working with recruiters, we were getting a sale from all sides by folks who were interested in helping us hire tech all over the world. And for us, so much about what we wanted to do was really have a tight culture. And so, we wanted to focus on people in the same time zone. And so we’re really lucky in that VanHack has a reasonably large, stable of folks who are in the Americas and the process is really great. A lot of the other recruiters make me basically live in my inbox, which is not a great way. It’s not a good to do list. Inboxes can be completely out of control, but VanHack’s got some really nice, simple software that allows me to see where applicants are in the process and easily manage those interactions, which is great.
Ilya Brotzky:
That’s great to hear. So, how was the beginning? Let me talk about the first couple hires. Like, how was that process when you post the job to get candidates? How quickly are you getting candidates? What do you like about the profiles? Those kinds of things.
Timothy Nott:
Yeah. I think one of the nice things about VanHack is that it’s not just a software platform. It’s nice that that exists, but the folks that have helped us out have been a huge part of our success. So, getting really great feedback on our job descriptions and also help with how our job descriptions align with how VanHack actually works makes a big difference. So, I think we came on and we started talking to VanHack in either July, probably about July. And I think we had a hire by August. It was really quick, and what was really impressive to me was the hit ratio, the number of people that we were interviewing versus the number of people that we were hiring was really tight. So, we weren’t having to go through 10, 15 interviews to get a solid candidate. We were finding people almost immediately.
Ilya Brotzky:
That’s the goal. So, good to hear that it worked out that way. You mentioned that hiring in the time zone in Latin America, how was that maybe different than hiring locally in the U.S.? Did you see a big difference? Was it very similar or?
Timothy Nott:
Oh my gosh. We gave up on hiring in the U.S almost immediately. I mean, it’s a very difficult job market and even internationally, it’s difficult. If we don’t put out an offer almost immediately, we can lose a candidate. So I’d say it’s easier now that we’ve kind of expanded out to other countries, but it’s still not easy by any stretch of imagination. But I’d say the fact that we’ve got the tools, the profiles and the ready communication system inside of VanHack makes it a lot easier.
Ilya Brotzky:
Nice, nice. And how have the hires that you’ve made contributed to the success of FactoryFix?
Timothy Nott:
Yeah, so we started hiring with VanHack when we needed to start bringing on some more senior people. And that was kind of pivotal for us. We needed people who could run dev teams. And so bringing in people who were more senior, well vetted, who had the experience that we were looking for was really key, as we went from a seed stage company through a post-seed, and now we phrased the series A, and it has been a great experience all the way through.
Ilya Brotzky:
Nice. I’d love to understand what kind of features have they built and maybe talk about the tech stack, what was the actual, technical contribution there that…
Timothy Nott:
Yeah. So, like any good start-up, we were, I don’t want to say floundering, but we were walking around in the dark to some extent. We knew what our customers wanted, but how to deliver that was not always readily evident.
Timothy Nott:
So, one of the things that we really had to do was be flexible. We started on the customer side, really focused on what our customers needed in terms of a platform, but then it became really apparent that we needed to flip the script and switch to a focus on building up the network again. So, nice thing about hiring professionals who’ve kind of been there and done that is that that change of focus was something that they could like take in stride and really just keep moving forward with.
Timothy Nott:
So, while our original work was really around building an applicant tracking system, the work that we’ve done over the last year has really been about building out our job board and getting our job posts out to as many places as possible so that we can attract that talent.
Ilya Brotzky:
Very cool. Kind of like the Zip Recruiter for a manufacturing industry? Is that a…
Timothy Nott:
Yeah. I mean, it’s interesting and I’m sure you guys have experienced this as well, but job boards are what they are and they’re not enough. So yes, we like to say Indeed for manufacturing, but our customers really despise Indeed. So, saying that is almost like the wrong thing to say.
Ilya Brotzky:
Interesting.
Timothy Nott:
They’re like, “No, if I’d never had to work with Indeed again, I would be so happy.” And personally, I know what it’s like to post a job on Indeed and get like 15,000 resumes.
Ilya Brotzky:
Yeah, yeah.
Timothy Nott:
You don’t even know where to start. So yeah, having that vetting process is huge and that’s what we try to provide.
Ilya Brotzky:
Okay. Got it. Got it.
Timothy Nott:
Then you asked about the tech stack, we’re JavaScript and more JavaScript for the most part, our machine learning’s in Python, but the folks that we’ve hired through VanHack have almost exclusively been working on our JavaScript side. So, we’ve got Vue on the front end, Node on the back end, we’re sitting on Google Cloud and the folks that we hired were cloud-native. So, they were able to adapt to that really quickly.
Ilya Brotzky:
Nice, nice. Very modern. So, that’s exciting technology.
Timothy Nott:
Yeah, it’s fun.
Ilya Brotzky:
Yeah. For sure. Okay, cool. So what tips do you have for other tech leaders out there who are thinking about just hiring in general? What can they do to have success like you did?
Timothy Nott:
Yeah. Well, I mean, find a platform that really works for you. That’s the nice thing about VanHack is that there’s a million ways to go about any given task. There’s no one right answer in most cases, but find someone that you’re really comfortable working with. If you do not feel 100% comfortable with your point of contact, then it’s not the right fit. Find somebody who aligns, who understands what you’re saying, that you say it to them, they say it back to you in a way that continues to make sense. That’s been a big part of it. And make sure that your culture is well aligned. You know, that’s one of the things that we really focused on and we built a lot of that just by staying in the Western hemisphere and being time aligned so that people are spending time together, but that can mean different things for different companies.
Ilya Brotzky:
Nice. Yeah. I think having that alignment and culture as soon as possible, it’s one of those things that you can never fully complete, right. It’s always the next step, the next thing to improve. So yeah, I totally agree with that one. One just last quick question before we finish up is on the retention piece. Because I think a few of the candidates we’ve helped hire have stayed for quite a while. How has that been compared to maybe other local hires or hires in general?
Timothy Nott:
I think we get to take a little bit of credit for the fact that we’ve managed to retain people quite a long time, regardless of where they’ve come from.
Ilya Brotzky:
Yeah.
Timothy Nott:
Just because we’ve really focused on that culture piece.
Ilya Brotzky:
Yeah.
Timothy Nott:
But I can say that we’ve seen above average retention with VanHack and again, I think some of it is that VanHack understands what we’re looking for. And so the pre-vetting is usually very solid. The recommendations are great. So I’m not getting people who, “Yes, the recruiter found them and yes, the right words show up on their resume, but no, they’re never going to be someone who can work at FactoryFix.” And I’ve definitely experienced that with other sources.
Ilya Brotzky:
Got it. Okay. Great. Well, thanks for sharing that. And Tim, this was a really fun conversation. Thank you for joining us and sharing your experience. And any kind of final last words?
Timothy Nott:
No. I mean, thanks for all the help that you’ve given me. I mean, this is the biggest team I’ve ever grown.
Ilya Brotzky:
Cool.
Timothy Nott:
And I can use all the help I can get.
Ilya Brotzky:
Nice, nice. Well, hopefully, that just keeps growing together and maybe you guys raise a series B and go public one day. Who knows?
Timothy Nott:
Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
Ilya Brotzky:
Yeah. There’s a huge need of manufacturing talent out there right now to build some BBB, right. There’s that big bill and a lot of things happening. So I think we are very well positioned for success. So yeah, I look forward to growing the partnership. Thanks so much, Tim.
Timothy Nott:
Great. Have a great day.
Ilya Brotzky:
Cheers.