Otto Engineering seeking new employees through social media campaign
Otto Engineering is starting a social media campaign that President Tom Roeser hopes will capture the atmosphere of working for Carpentersville's largest employer.
The company, at 2 E. Main St., has long used its website, Facebook and other tactics to market the products it designs and manufactures, such as control panels, switches and joysticks.
The "Friends of Otto Engineering" initiative, which launched last month, will instead focus on the people that make up the company by highlighting employees' accomplishments and special events. The Facebook and Twitter pages, run by human resources Director Barbara Schmidt and her department, will also be used to post job opportunities.
"We can advertise what our products are, but it's hard to advertise our culture," Schmidt said. "We're trying to reach the community and outside people that may be looking for a job ... to let them know who we are besides just our products."
Otto Engineering often has job openings - with ample advancement opportunity - for people at all levels of education and training, Roeser said, including students who may not be college-bound and adults without a higher education. The company employs about 500 people and has annual revenue of roughly $100 million.
Roeser has recently struggled to find employees to fill those positions, and he thinks it's largely because of a stigma associated with the term "factory" that makes people think it's dark, noisy and dirty. With the social media campaign, Otto intends to change that image.
"What I need to do is educate people on what Otto does so they know it's not a stereotypical factory. It's clean, neat and a fun place to work," Roeser said. "If people think factories are dead-end jobs, they're wrong."
Since the campaign began, posts about a Halloween costume contest, a Cubs party and an employee's five-year anniversary have surfaced on social media. In the future, Roeser said, Otto plans to post videos of employees' testimonies, information about unique orders they're filling and other personal achievements.
Roeser is often recognized for the millions of dollars he's invested in redevelopment projects throughout East Dundee, West Dundee and Carpentersville, Schmidt said, "but we don't always tout what we do inside the building.
"We have a unique culture here, (and) once people experience it, they love it," she continued. "We always call ourselves the Otto family."