The manufacturing industry is currently facing challenges on several fronts of the most vital is the recruiting of new employees to fill vacancies. The purpose of this article is to understand current recruiting challenges facing the manufacturing industry and offer strategic solutions to best fulfill employer needs. Face to face interviews and electronic surveys were used to collect the most up-to-date information on recruiting challenges, tools, and resources in a mid-sized town in the Upper Midwest. Main findings focus on the need for varied recruiting strategies at different stages of the recruiting process; what has worked the past that is not working now; and specific resources used by employers that are producing successful results. A tension was found between published best-practices in recruiting for manufacturers and actual, on-theground, practical solutions an important and valuable outcome of this research.