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Company: Tigre USA
Industry: Plastics, Pipes, and Fitting Manufacturing
Contact: Maria Abeal, Senior Talent Acquisition Partner
For specialized manufacturing roles that typically stump recruiters, Maria achieved what had seemed impossible - consistently finding qualified tooling and process technicians in challenging markets.
As Tigre's sole internal recruiter managing hiring across the company's US operations spanning 9 states, Maria faced a perfect storm of recruiting challenges. The company's locations were strategically positioned for manufacturing efficiency, but created recruiting obstacles: "We're not in Chicago or LA - we're at the Wisconsin-Illinois border and 3 hours south of LA in California. Our locations are tricky. There's not a lot of candidate supply."
The most challenging roles were tooling technicians and process technicians - highly specialized positions requiring specific plastic injection molding expertise. "These are very rare candidates with very short supply," Maria explains. Traditional job boards delivered hundreds of unqualified applicants while the handful of truly qualified candidates remained elusive.
She stated that after 20 years of recruiting, she had not found a tool that could consistently or effectively deliver candidates who met the job requirements. She explained that typically, she’s had to sort through hundreds of applicants who do not align with her job postings.
When Maria reallocated her job board budget to test FactoryFix during a 3-month trial, she discovered something no other platform had delivered: deep manufacturing expertise built into the technology itself.
"I never found a tool that understands what a plastic injection molding operator is or what the machinery brands are," Maria explains. "Finding those criteria and the options available was incredible - we're talking the same technical language."
FactoryFix's platform includes specific injection molding terminology that matters to manufacturers:
This manufacturing-specific intelligence extended beyond just terminology. The AI screening process asks intelligent follow-up questions about technical competencies that generic platforms miss entirely.
Within the trial period, Maria achieved breakthrough results for her most difficult positions. "I was able to get tooling technician candidates and process technician candidates that I've never done before," she reports.
The competitive advantage became clear quickly: "Sometimes I'm faster than external recruiters and get better candidates" - even outperforming specialized technical recruiting agencies that charge premium placement fees.
Maria's business case for renewal was straightforward: 7 successful hires through FactoryFix saved the substantial costs of external recruiting fees, delivering clear ROI that justified the platform investment.
The AI engagement capabilities proved equally valuable. "I was told that the quicker you engage with a candidate, the higher engagement they have. It sounds fantastic and probably accurate, but I see that working on a daily basis."
As FactoryFix evolved, Maria became an early adopter of new features, including custom AI recruiter personas.
"I wanted to give Copilot the same tone that I use," Maria explains. "David is the one that's more like my style - consistent, concise, and efficient, moves on quickly, screens for qualifications, and focuses on top talent only."
This customization capability demonstrates how FactoryFix adapts to individual recruiting styles while maintaining manufacturing expertise.
Maria's success with finding candidates led to an even bigger contribution - identifying an opportunity to optimize workflows for high-volume recruiters.
As Maria's usage of FactoryFix expanded, she recognized a common challenge that many busy recruiters face: staying organized across multiple active conversations. "With 6 jobs and about 60 candidates per job, keeping track of all the ongoing conversations was becoming more complex," Maria explains.
The workflow challenge became most apparent when Maria returned from vacation to find 75 candidate messages awaiting her response - a volume that highlighted the need for better message organization.
Recognizing an opportunity for improvement, Maria shared this insight with the FactoryFix product team. "I reached out about having better notification management because I knew it would help me stay more organized," she explains.
FactoryFix's commitment to customer feedback meant Maria's suggestion received immediate attention. Her input was instrumental in developing the new Activity Feed feature, which provides a centralized view of all candidate conversations across jobs. The feature highlights unread replies, overdue follow-ups, and important messages that need attention.
"Now I can stay on top of everything much more easily," Maria says, noting the immediate improvement to her workflow efficiency and candidate experience.
This collaboration exemplifies FactoryFix's approach to product development - listening to real customer needs and rapidly implementing solutions that benefit the entire user community. Maria's practical insights helped create a feature that now helps manufacturing recruiters everywhere manage their growing candidate pipelines more effectively.
Maria's experience demonstrates how FactoryFix works as more than just a recruiting tool - it's a platform that evolves based on real customer needs and deep manufacturing expertise.
"FactoryFix has so many features that help us succeed - the AI engagement, the user-friendly interface, the manufacturing focus that speaks our technical language," Maria reflects. "But the main reason it works is the quality of candidates. For our most difficult positions like tooling and process technicians, I get quality candidates I've never seen before, even in our most challenging locations."
Today, Maria continues to rely on FactoryFix as her primary recruiting platform, confident that she can compete with and often outperform expensive external recruiting agencies. Her ongoing feedback continues to shape the platform's evolution, ensuring it meets the real-world needs of manufacturing recruiters everywhere.
Key Takeaways:
Ready to solve your toughest manufacturing recruiting challenges? Book a demo to see how FactoryFix can help you find qualified technicians faster.
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