MATC hosts interview day

Milwaukee Area Technical College hosted an interview day for students in its CNC machining and tool and die programs on Thursday.
Nineteen manufacturing companies, including Caterpillar, Rexnord and Charter Wire, had representatives present to review resumes and interview students for open positions.
About 25 students from the CNC Machine Setup and Operation and Tool and Die Making technical diploma programs participated in the event, with interviews scheduled ever half hour from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., said Michael Kuehnl, manager of the JOBshop at MATC.
Kuehnl organized the event, which was a different format than job fairs the college has hosted in the past, he said.
“We had them in the classrooms, they could sit down with students,” Kuehnl said. “These are live, real interviews.”
There were about 30 positions to be filled at the companies who participated, he said.
David Bernstein, human resources manager at Unit Forgings in West Allis, was looking for two or three second shift CNC operators, he said.
He’s hired about 40 employees in the last year and a half as the construction and offroad, oil and railroad car businesses Unit serves improved.
Bernstein was looking for technical skills, a good work record and the soft skills like work ethic and teamwork.
“Even if a person is well-qualified, we still need to train them on our equipment and the intricacies of the parts we make,” he said.
Justin Fletcher, 38, of Mequon just finished the CNC program at MATC after 20 years as a production manager in the concert industry.
He learned from interviewing with several companies Thursday that he wants to get a job machining smaller parts rather than large mining or construction parts.
“I just like the idea of taking a square of metal and crafting it,” he said. “It applied to the artistic side of me.”