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WBTO
WBTO Skills ProfilesManufacturing, one job at a time

What does an entry-level manufacturing job actually require?

Employers tell us the skills a new hire needs to arrive with. Instructors tell us what their programs deliver. The difference shows schools and employers exactly what to work on together, job by job.

I hire for these jobs

Find your subsector, pick the jobs you hire for, rate each skill 0 to 3. About ten minutes per job. Your answers stay confidential.

Employers

I teach these skills

Find your program, pick the job it prepares students for, and rate a typical completer. About ten minutes per job.

Instructors

I fund or plan programs

What the project produces for education service districts, colleges and workforce partners, how profiles are built, and what comes back.

Partners

How it works

Every profile is built the same way, so results can be compared across jobs, regions and states.

Step 1

Pick the job

We profile the jobs that employ the most people in manufacturing, plus the skilled trades that feed them.

Step 2

Build the skill list

The twenty to thirty skills that matter in your subsector, drawn from published apprenticeship, credential and program standards, in the words the trade uses.

Step 3

Ask the people who know

Employers rate what a new hire needs. Instructors rate what completers reach. Same skills, same scale.

Step 4

Show the gap

Once five employers have rated a job, the average becomes the published level, shown with how many answered and how spread out they were.

The scale. 0, None: not part of this job. 1, Awareness: has seen it. 2, Competent: can do it with help. 3, Proficient: can do it on their own. Always the level a brand-new hire should walk in with, not what an experienced hand eventually reaches.

Profiles carry the label “draft, pending employer validation” until five employers have rated them. Your rating is what makes a profile final.

What comes back

Employers who take part receive the findings for their region before they are published anywhere else. Schools and workforce partners receive the same findings as a needs assessment, with an estimate of what it would take to close each gap, in technical skills and in employability skills.

16 job profiles so far, all drafts pending employer validation. See them by subsector.

Questions we get asked

Who sees my answers?

A small team at WBTO. No school, trade association, agency or other company sees your individual responses. Anything published is combined across at least five companies; where fewer than five answered, we report nothing rather than round.

Is this a sales pitch?

No. Nobody will follow up trying to sell you anything, and we are not recruiting you into a program.

What do you mean by entry level?

Somebody with no work experience in that job. They may have some technical training from a program, they may not. It is the job you would fill with someone who has never done the work before.