"Do you need practice or sheepskin?" How to master a working profession that is now in high esteem

Alexander DybinNovye Izvestia has already told that the Russian industry is experiencing a shortage of personnel.

Against the background of sanctions and ITS tasks, large-scale tasks are being set for factories, and there are not enough workers. According to experts interviewed by Novye Izvestia, this is partly due to the fact that for many years the education system was led by the economy, which required lawyers-economists.

"There are not enough hands throughout the economy, not only in the defense industry," says Stanislav Tverdokhle, head of the industrial innovation center "Pass", "given that for many years the defense industry has been working in light mode, yes, there were plans, scolding, but there was no acute situation. But now the factories are facing problems. Moreover, even before its. During the pandemic, there was a lot of remoteness, and it is not compatible with regime objects. A shortage of personnel began to be felt. Since the beginning of the SVO, the state order has been strengthened many times and the factories here have experienced almost a shock. We need to increase the staff, and there was not enough of it. All that was needed now: engineers, machine operators, locksmiths. People who have not been trained for the economy for years. For example, some time ago, the Ministry of Education decided to abandon the training of universal machine operators. We have 70% of such machines in our country, and now specialists are not trained. We decided that this is unpromising and only operators of CNC machines are needed. Now a huge need for such personnel has become visible. In many universities, technical specialties were destroyed in favor of fashionable specialties. From year to year, the number of places for techies was reduced, and in specialties where there were many willing to study for a fee – increased. Covid has prepared the government to work in an operational mode and, I think, some emergency decisions will be made now."Confirms the words of a colleague and the head of the recruitment agency "Tirs" Yekaterina Karpenko.

In her opinion, the hype demand for workers will last for the next 3-5 years.

"Production facilities are now working in three shifts, around the clock", - the expert says, "many personnel issues are "closed" through the involvement of existing employees to work overtime, but a mass recruitment has also been announced. We need highly qualified turners, CNC machine operators, welders, metal painters, installers, assemblers and other positions. According to salaries, I can accurately orient that the requests are now for an experienced operator of CNC machines, it is 100 thousand rubles, a NAKS welder 100-150 thousand, turners – 90-100 thousand".

These conclusions are confirmed by the data of the job search portal hh.ru. The most scarce working specialties at the end of 2022 on the site were turners - 0.6 resumes for a vacancy, janitors (0.8), machinists (1.0), locksmiths (1.1) and welders (1.2). The selection of these specialists in 2022 was the most difficult for employers.

"I would call the modern labor market a "job-seeking market for workers of linear blue-collar professions." These roles are in maximum demand today among companies from different industries – and they are most often among the most scarce. Of the top 25 professions in which the lowest competition of applicants is observed, 17 at once belong to working, industrial or agricultural specialties in one way or another. In general, according to the structure of vacancies on hh.ru it is obvious that 75% of all job offers in the country are designed to attract blue—collar workers, as well as linear, mass employees. Another 15% of vacancies are published for white—collar workers, and about 10% are for IT specialists. We predict that the demand for job seekers will grow, but the supply of people will not. The activity of people in the labor market in this professional group is decreasing", - says the chief expert hh.ru on the labor market, Natalia Danina, Head of Client Efficiency.At the same time, the average proposed salary for drivers in January 2023 was 83,489 rubles, packers - 58,708, locksmiths - 62,449, machinists - 100,722, storekeepers - 53,824 rubles.

Let them teach me

According to recruitment expert Yekaterina Karpenko, there is no wide flow of people who want to leave the office or a boring remote job and go to production, but seeing the trend for salary growth, people begin to think about how to get a working profession.

"There is no broad trend yet, but industrial enterprises of the defense industry are definitely involving their specialists in obtaining additional professions that are now in demand at their enterprise, even we can talk about cardinal changes, for example, women are studying to become machine operators. And in my opinion, cases when women will study to be turners, welders, are also possible," the expert says, "some specialists are thinking about switching from white-collar to blue, for example, sales managers, couriers, drivers, supply specialists".

How do you leave the sea of office plankton and find yourself in the workshop or on a construction site? One of the options is to shift the care of learning new skills to the employer. And this is quite a working life hack. According to hh.ru , 34% of all vacancies in the country are suitable for people without work experience.

"Most often these are offers in the professional fields of "Sales" (49% of all vacancies without experience), "Administrative staff" (15%) and "Working staff" (14%). At the same time, training is offered in 44% of vacancies for applicants without work experience," the service experts said, "if we talk narrowly about the manufacturing industry, then 25% of job offers are for vacancies without experience, while training is offered in every second of them."You can go the other way and get a profession with the help of the state.

"A wide range of courses can be found in the employment service, the specialists of the service know all the certified training centers, because they supervise the retraining processes for industrial enterprises. It is necessary to call the district departments of the employment service, and they will give a list of training centers," Ekaterina Karpenko gives advice.You can retrain for free, but this option is available for the officially unemployed.

Another obvious way is to go to a vocational school, technical school or college that offers training in additional vocational education programs. It is this phrase that means that the institution can accept an adult for training. However, in practice, this method requires some perseverance. For example, the correspondent of Novye Izvestia failed to get any specific information from the capital's colleges. There is very little information about the courses of interest on the websites of educational institutions. And where it is, it is difficult to find out the specifics. So in one of the colleges of the capital they asked to call back three times, each time giving a new number. But in the end, no one answered. In the college community in the Vkontakte social network, it was noted that there are welders courses that interested us, the profession will be taught in 2 months and 25 thousand rubles. But to sign up, you need to call – the circle has closed.

In order not to butt heads with bureaucracy, you can contact one of the many educational centers. But there are nuances here too. Somewhere they teach skills, and somewhere they only sell sheepskin.

So in one of these centers in St. Petersburg, they ask for 18600 for a 2-month course.

"Classes will be held at the college on the Square of Courage. Theory, practice is mandatory, the group starts today," the training center said, "in a group of up to 10 people, the next one starts in a month and a half. You will get a welder's certificate from the college."In the capital, they ask twice as much for the same specialty: electric welding is 38,000, if you also need argon skills, then 42,000.

"There is a group during the day, on weekends and in the evenings. The start is on February 4," the interlocutor said, "if on weekends, then classes are at 10 am until 4 pm. Mandatory practice, only 6 visits. The output will be either a certificate, if you only have a school, or a certificate with registration in the register, if you have some kind of education."There are absolutely budget options.

One of the companies promised to train as a welder for only 5,500 rubles. But the question about the practice of the manager confused.

- Do you study or just need documents?- Of course, to study.

- Unfortunately, we are temporarily out of practice, but we can help with the documents and provide materials for self-study.

The most budget option that we managed to find is 2000 rubles, but the company honestly admitted that they would just do all the necessary sheepskin without training.

Children have no idea about life

According to Stanislav Tverdokhleb, the head of the industrial innovation center "Pass", adults need help to assess their competencies and personality traits in order to direct them to work that will bring joy. But it is better to start career guidance from school.

"Children have no idea what the economy is, what industries there are, what professions there are, what levels of earnings," the expert says, "for example, heat supply. Everyone immediately imagines a drunken plumber, and there are a lot of modern and technological things in this area, for example, there are drones that examine pipes, there are drones that look for heat loss. This outlook and career guidance are very lacking. While the country teaches the wrong and the wrong. Then for many years people have been looking for themselves to get pleasure from work and earn decent money."At the same time, experts agree that it will be necessary to solve the current task of finding workers in non-standard ways.

"Recruitment of workers is not only the competence of HR managers, but of marketers and advertising and public relations specialists", - says Yekaterina Karpenko, "they are looking for personnel everywhere: these are work portals, contextual advertising on search engines, advertising in social networks and city public announcements, it is attracting young professionals, workers on shift, organization of retraining of internal employees, mandatory practice for school students, repatriation of Soviet citizens from other countries. Advanced enterprises use advertising sources of television, radio, sound advertising on the streets and in shopping complexes."Stanislav Tverdokhleb believes that enterprises will have to look for workers where they would not have thought of doing it before.

"The time has come for not the most obvious solutions. For example, to identify specialties that require specific competencies, and see where in the economy there are these competencies. For example, an OTC employee can, in principle, be any person who is normal with responsibility and a head. And such employees can be found, for example, in the warehouse of marketplaces. But this is another level of analysis and the work of the car services. Previously, there was headhunting for top managers. Now the same principle will be applied for ordinary employees. Ads have not been working for a long time. If earlier an ad was given and people queued up, now just no one calls".