For decades, entering a job in manufacturing, particularly maintenance and other technical roles, followed a predictable script: growing up around mechanical work, taking vocational classes, or earning an engineering degree. While these traditional pathways remain vital, they can no longer supply the volume or diversity of talent the industry desperately needs.
I started in microbiology before moving into enterprise technology, developing a background in systems, data, and problem-solving rather than mechanical engineering or industrial maintenance. On paper, nothing about my earlier career pointed toward a career in manufacturing, yet those experiences ultimately became the foundation of what I brought to the manufacturing sector.
Despite the nontraditional career path, manufacturing has always been a part of my life. My dad worked 12-hour maintenance shifts, and I grew up seeing the demands of that work firsthand. After losing him, I was searching online for companies connected to either maintenance or manufacturing to honor his legacy, and that search led me into asset management and industrial technology. This is how I ultimately got into the industry and had the opportunity to work closely with manufacturers as they modernize their maintenance operations and technology integrations in their facilities. It’s a route I never would have anticipated earlier in my career.
My story is personal, but the theme behind it is everywhere: many people from nontraditional backgrounds may not initially put industrial maintenance on their original career wishlist. For way too long, our industry has relied on people accidentally stumbling into these jobs. But with massive labor shortages and tech changing how plants operate every day, relying on luck isn't a recruitment strategy anymore. If we want resilient operations, we have to stop waiting for people to discover manufacturing by accident and start actively inviting nontraditional talent through the front door.
The Economic Cost of Conventional Recruitment
Manufacturers are currently facing a structural supply-demand mismatch. Projected labor shortages across manufacturing and industrial sectors indicate that millions of technical and operational positions could go unfilled over the coming decade if recruitment continues in the same narrow way. Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute project the U.S. manufacturing sector could need as many as 3.8 million new workers by 2033, with approximately 1.9 million positions potentially going unfilled if workforce challenges are not addressed1. Without progress on recruitment, training and retention, many of these positions could remain unfilled.
Industrial maintenance faces related constraints. A recent survey of maintenance and operations professionals commissioned by Limble2 found that 46% of maintenance leaders reported vacancies taking three months or longer to fill. Respondents ranked hiring and retaining technicians ahead of AI and automation when asked which improvements would have the greatest business impact over the next three years.
The urgency to address the talent gap is clear. Data from the 2026 Annual Career Advancement in Manufacturing Survey3 conducted in partnership with Women in Manufacturing confirms what many of us see on the ground: most people in this field never actually planned to be here. Among management-level employees, over 80% did not intentionally enter manufacturing.
This "discovery gap" is even wider for female and nontraditional candidates:
- Only 23% of women in manufacturing say they deliberately chose the industry, compared to 35% of men.
- Despite low initial intentionality, once people land here, attitudes toward manufacturing careers are overwhelmingly positive: 90% of workers express optimism about the industry's future, and 82% would recommend a career in the industry.
The paradox is clear: manufacturing offers rewarding, high-satisfaction careers, yet it remains invisible to the vast majority of potential talent.
Rethinking the Manufacturing Skillset in a Digital Era
Part of what keeps nontraditional talent from considering maintenance is an outdated perception of the work. Outside the plant floor, the industry is still widely associated with physically demanding, repetitive work in dirty or aging environments. Maintenance roles, in particular, are often perceived as purely manual, reactive labor focused on turning wrenches.
These perceptions can be especially limiting when it comes to attracting women and people who haven't grown up around manufacturing. If prospective candidates rarely see women in technical, operational, or leadership roles, or don't understand the range of careers available, they may rule out the industry before ever exploring an opportunity.
Modern manufacturing looks very different from these outdated stereotypes. While hands-on mechanical aptitude remains essential for many roles, today’s smart facilities are driven by robotics, artificial intelligence, connected Internet of Things sensors, and advanced data analytics. This technological evolution creates opportunities for professionals with transferable skills in software, systems thinking, project management, and process improvement. By recognizing talent from other fields, manufacturers can build a broader, more resilient talent pipeline and bring fresh perspectives to industrial challenges.
But recognition isn’t enough. Until the industry effectively communicates this high-tech reality to the outside world, millions of qualified candidates, especially women, will never realize their skills have a vital place on the modern plant floor.
Actionable Strategies: How to Attract and Retain Nontraditional Talent
Moving from “accidental hires” to an intentional recruitment strategy doesn’t require a total overhaul overnight. It requires deliberate, targeted shifts across every stage of the hiring pipeline:
1. Rewrite Job Postings and Expand Recruitment Channels
- Modernize Job Descriptions: Reframe job postings to highlight innovation, robotics, data analytics and critical problem-solving. Strip away outdated, non-essential physical requirements that unnecessarily screen out qualified, tech-savvy talent.
- Expand Recruitment Pipelines: Cast a wider net beyond trade schools and mechanical engineering programs. Actively recruit from computer science, data analytics, industrial design, and business operations, while partnering with women's professional networks to reach candidates who might otherwise overlook the industry.
- Spotlight Diverse Role Models: Feature women and professionals from nontraditional backgrounds working as technicians, reliability engineers, and plant managers. Authentic visibility gives prospective candidates a clear template for what success in modern manufacturing looks like.
2. Build Systems that Retain and Advance Talent
Attracting nontraditional talent through the door is only half the effort; retaining them requires clear, structural pathways for growth.
- Build Bridges Through Training and Mentorship: Design onboarding and cross-training programs for employees that blend a candidate’s existing skills, like software, analytics, or process management with hands-on plant knowledge. Pair new hires with experienced mentors to fast-track their technical confidence.
- Demystify Career Progression: Establish clear, objective milestones for advancement and promotion. Removing ambiguous experience requirements ensures talented hires from nontraditional backgrounds can seamlessly transition into specialized technical or leadership roles.
3. Preserve Institutional Knowledge and Accelerate Skills Transfer
As experienced workers retire, manufacturers risk losing decades of irreplaceable knowledge and operational expertise. In Limble’s survey, 74% report having at least one critical asset that only one person knows how to repair, while 47% say their organization has already lost knowledge it couldn't recover because someone left.2
To bridge this gap, manufacturers should prioritize documenting work and equipment histories, troubleshooting workflows, and lessons learned. Integrating them directly into modern asset management and digital maintenance systems is one way to do it. Pairing this documentation with structured mentorship lets veteran technicians pass down practical know-how. Centralizing this knowledge also gives nontraditional hires instant access to historical context, allowing them to build technical fluency without needing decades of informal plant-floor exposure. The goal isn’t just archiving data. It’s to empower a changing workforce with the institutional wisdom required to keep plants running.
Great Tech Needs Great People
The industry talks endlessly about AI, robotics and automation, but algorithms don't fix a conveyor or calibrate a failing sensor. People do. An automated alert is only as valuable as the skilled team capable of interpreting data, collaborating across departments, and solving the problems on the plant floor.
My unconventional path into industrial technology taught me that valuable skills and perspectives can come from outside traditional boundaries. Opening the door to nontraditional talent isn’t about lowering the bar on technical expertise. It’s about expanding how we build it, encouraging fresh perspectives, and learning alongside veteran techs.
As facilities grow smarter, a true competitive advantage won’t come from technology alone, but from the people empowered to put it to work. Manufacturers relying on conventional hiring practices will continue to struggle with chronic vacancies and burned-out teams. Those bold enough to welcome nontraditional talent will build the skilled, adaptable and resilient workforces ready for the future.
Sources
- Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute, Taking Charge: Manufacturers Support Growth with Active Workforce Strategies (2024). Research summary and workforce projections.
- Limble, 2026 State of Maintenance Report, survey of 686 U.S. maintenance and operations professionals (2026), published findings and methodology, pp. 11, 4.
- Women in Manufacturing, Xometry, and Thomas, The 2026 Career Advancement in Manufacturing Report (2026), pp. 7-8, 2.
About the author
Susan Burris is VP of Strategy & Solutions at Limble, a modern maintenance and asset management platform trusted by more than 3,500 customers worldwide across manufacturing, maintenance, facilities and other industries. Her career spans enterprise software, industrial technology, and operational solutions, with previous experience at Stripe and TaxJar. A former microbiologist, she brings a systems-oriented approach to solving complex business and operational challenges.