But if a company says they want someone with 5 years experience working on weapons guidance targeting sensors, there's no way you can acquire such experience at home. If they want someone with customer service experience, again, you cannot acquire that experience on your own. (I happen to think that customer service skills are largely innate, but this point is lost on most hiring managers.)
Yes, this is why I hope to be very careful about wording the job description and requirements. Of course it would be fantastic to find someone with many years of experience in our exact skill space but it eliminates 99.99% of the possibilities. That is more of a problem when you operate in a very niche market like we do. In general, I am hoping for
potential which comes from a wide variety of sources. One of my best guys in the past built boats previously - TOTALLY unrelated to what he needed to do with us (not manufacturing at all). Another one was a party planner previously and went directly into manufacturing and office tasks. The only reason I was interested in them was because of what they did in their free time. They seemed like the types to identify and solve problems on their own. They clearly enjoyed challenging themselves. That is something that cannot be practically taught on the job. If I demand specific experience in PCB layout, assembly, machining, etc - I feel like I would get that skill at the expense of the other tasks they would need to do.
If you were looking for a PCB layout job, for example, and you found yourself shipping products and running to FedEx a few times per week - how would that work out? If I advertise for a true jack of all trades, it's like a cattle call for anyone looking for a job that day.
I still have not found any relevant clubs in my area, but have not given up.
Maybe if I specifically spelled out the top 10 tasks applicants would be expected to learn and we are looking for people that can demonstrate the ability to learn new things? If your hobby is hanging out at the beach with friends - you may not get a call. If your hobby is building things or something that challenges your brain in a technical way - you will get noticed.