Successful Recruitment Campaigns Led to Multiple Hires at Felton Brushes

"I want to start off by saying that any prospective businesses who are interested in Jobilla, are welcome to call me and I will firsthand share the merits of the Jobilla campaigns." -Tony Ponikvar, President & CEO of Felton Brushes.

High-quality value and dependability, this is what you get from the people and products at Felton Brushes. Founded in Ontario, Canada, in 1933, Felton Brushes is a leading manufacturer of heavy-duty brushes for industries such as oil and gas, food service, and domestic and industrial cleaning.

For Felton Brushes, recruiting machine operators has long been a major challenge.

Traditional recruiting methods were unsuccessful, and headhunting firms were too expensive.

Felton Brushes employed traditional recruiting methods, including going door to door in the vicinity to distribute pamphlets to attract potential candidates. The method turned out to be successful to a lesser extent, but it was still not significant enough to where it needed to be.

"We avoided headhunting firms because of their high costs, but knew that we needed them due to the volume of positions that needed to be filled," says Felton Brushes General Manager Rod Compton, who oversees the company's operations, plant operations, hiring, and onboarding.

As a result, Felton Brushes knew they needed to try something different, and that’s when Jobilla’s Canadian partner Krista Wright came in and gave Felton Brushes a presentation about how recruiting should and could work.

Krista Wright had introduced Jobilla's concept to Felton Brushes before, this time they were ready to give it a try and were ultimately quite pleased with the outcome.

Jobilla made recruiting in my mind a lot lighter than I ever experienced before, and as far as I’m concerned, a lot more economical. Ultimately, at the end of the day, it's just you getting fully involved with the process versus paying 40% or 50%, whatever the markups are in whatever region you're working in.

More candidates in less time

Felton Brushes was able to reach more candidates as a result of Jobilla, leading to a faster interviewing and hiring process. 

Due to the fact that we are a medium-small business, we don’t have a human resources department that can assist us with our recruiting process, so Jobilla was a new experience for us.

We all found our first Jobilla campaign very interesting; the number of people we were able to reach in such a short time without much effort was a great eye-opener. This turnaround was very light and fast when compared to traditional recruitment methods.

Jobilla just made it easier for us to do it because we knew what we were looking for. We knew what kind of people we were looking for, and what kind of skill sets they needed to have.

In some cases, we were able to do immediate hires that took between 2 days, whereas in other cases, it took approximately two weeks.

There's no need to make recruiting a burdensome process

With Jobilla we embraced the hands-on interaction, the conversation of the employer and potential employees faster versus candidates uploading CVs, waiting three weeks for a callback, and two weeks for an interview. By the time this happens, the candidate is no longer interested. This was the biggest uptake and positive influence that we experienced.

Recruiting as a whole has become a very cumbersome, heavy bureaucratic process. It doesn't need to be that way. In this sense, with Jobilla you are notified when you have new candidates, go through them and identify when you want to call or leave messages and be able to follow up with emails or texts. There are a lot of opportunities to reach potential candidates. You are able to get a person-to-person interaction, not a faceless process without any information.

You're seeing people that have a different bandwidth. They might have worked in a factory ten years ago, but are very committed people. These are the types of candidates that go to work every day and are excited to learn something new. These are the kind of people you're looking to bring on board.

Breaking down the job interview barrier

It wasn't long before Felton Brushes began scheduling plant tours and meeting with potential candidates. The interviews and conversations shifted away from the formal recruitment process that everyone is used to.

Rather than asking questions about the candidate's CV and experience, it became a conversation between two people getting to know one another. Having that conversation enables you to determine if the candidate is a good fit in terms of work experience, personality, and culture.

From my experience, Jobilla is able to give you the flexibility of getting into a general labor capacity. It allows you to focus on people and get the opportunity to grab a conversation and give you a chance to upsell your company.

Successful recruitment campaigns that led to multiple hires

In order to fill multiple machine operator positions, Felton Brushes ran two back-to-back campaigns with Jobilla, recruiting both active and passive candidates.

"Any prospective businesses who are interested in Jobilla, are welcome to call me and I will firsthand share the merits of the Jobilla campaigns. The main reason why Jobilla worked so effectively for Felton Brushes, is because you get a higher quality candidate than the ones who are job searching" says Tony Ponikvar, President & CEO of Felton Brushes.

Additionally, you can hire locally, which creates double the propensity for retention – people that can walk to work are a huge game changer for us. The most important aspect is that you are picking off candidates that are bored with or commuting to their jobs from far away.

We ended up with candidates who applied though they were not necessarily interested in a machine operator role but revealed themselves to be of a higher skill set. We landed a Production Floor Supervisor and a Production Manager from the campaigns, which was an unexpected surprise.

As a result of our campaigns with Jobilla, we were able to onboard 9 candidates. We have actually hired candidates working other jobs before joining us.

There was also a positive aspect to that, as it meant that the attraction was working well. As a result, we were able to sell the company and offer something that is appealing to other people.

Employers should keep the following in mind when recruiting

Be open, recruitment is not as complicated as it's been developed into being. People need to be aware that recruiting can be done a lot quicker, and a lot easier, if you just take the time upfront. Put the time and resources into developing the questionnaire and putting it on a good platform, and then it becomes a follow-up. Pay attention and be more diligent in being involved.

Recruitment has become a very long-drawn-out process, and it doesn't have to be. Jobilla has opened my eyes to that.

I would be happy to use it again, depending on what our needs are. My first response will never be a placement firm or a headhunting firm. We would contact Jobilla's Canada partner Krista Wright and talk about how Jobilla can help us with what we're trying to recruit. Jobilla fits with hiring larger numbers of people and might fit well for one or two employees. Just keep in mind that your approach will go a little bit differently.

With Jobilla added to its leading-edge technology list, Felton Brushes continues to innovate and succeed.