Maybe the company is large and has had college recruits lined up outside the door since Thanksgiving. Or maybe it is a small business that is just beginning the recruiting process. Manufacturing companies of all sizes will have to tackle the same problem this summer when college graduates come aboard -- a lack of hands-on skills.

The Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) released a study during 1999, documenting what it calls skill incompetence in new hires. The SME survey asked manufacturing executives and training directors to identify the professional and technical gaps of recently hired recruits, and rank the shortcomings according to how critical they are to the company.