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In an age when every hire counts, how can you tell whether a job applicant really has the skills to do the job? When it comes to metalworking, what can anyone tell from an interview?

Like many businesses struggling with the shortage of qualified workers, Fred Latour had similar questions and concerns. The lawnmower was his partner's idea.

"You can put a whole lot on the resume," says Latour, president and CEO of Sheet Metal Components, Inc., of Atlanta. "But it doesn't prove anything."

So Latour's former partner brought a lawnmower to work and cut some people down to size with it. The applicant would be asked: "Can you take a lawnmower apart and put it back together and make sure it works," says Latour. "That was the idea."

Latour's company noticed that the unusual method proved which unskilled candidates had the mechanical aptitude for the varied jobs at Sheet Metal Components (www.sheetmetalcomponents.com), which performs laser and turret work, press brake work, welding, stamping, and rolling, along with machining work. These days turnover at his job shop isn't what it used to be, but the lawnmower is still available for use on prospective job candidates.

Given the growing shortage of skilled labor, companies around the country are looking for innovative ways to attract and retain skilled workers. Company executives are also getting creative in their efforts to generate interest in the metalworking fields at a time when educators have seemingly abandoned the industry.

If a lawnmower isn't in your H.R. department's future, what can industry leaders do now to stop the decline of skilled workers? The answer might be to start getting creative now, because if you think the government is going to solve the labor crunch, you might consider this exchange:

A few years back, Phil Pratt was doing some lobbying on behalf of the metalworking trades in Washington, D.C., and attended a conference with an aide to Sen. Edward Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat. The aide relayed a conversation with Kennedy on the subject. "She said Kennedy wanted to know if there really was a shortage of welders in the United States," Pratt says.

"That's the scary part," says Pratt, the president of Asheville, N.C.-based SilverHawk Associates, a consulting firm specializing in hiring and retaining people in manufacturing. "It reflects the fact that the elected officials have no idea about this shortage."

Pratt says industries should forget about getting help from the government, where the tide of training money has shifted out toward technology training and away from the more traditional trades.