Category: Insights

“Seek and you shall Find”

There is no question that we are in the midst of one of the most challenging economic periods in our generation due to Coronavirus, and if you factor in Brexit and IR35, then you can understand why recruiting the best and the right talent can be extremely difficult.

So….do you have the right people, with the right skills to navigate your way through these challenges and deliver what you need?

Many procurement & supply chain leaders recognise the need to upskill, or increase their team’s capacity and are working on training and development planning, as well as finding the best people in the market. Which leads to the next challenge – finding the right talent.

With so many people now looking for jobs due to redundancy or unemployment, you would naturally believe that it’s an excellent time to recruit, and that hiring, despite the increased demands, should be a breeze, right? Well, think again. Whilst recruiters are flooded with applicants, few people in secure work want to switch jobs at the moment. Many recruiters are finding it increasingly difficult to manage the surging number of applications to the point where they are no longer advertising roles.

So, when it comes to finding the best talent, or the right specialist skills what do you do? How do you ensure that out of the hundreds of advert applications, you select the best, in a crowded market? Advertising is evidently becoming very time consuming so how do you ensure you have the right proactive search & selection strategy for the passive candidates?

More so than ever, recruiting the right person, first time is paramount. So how do you win the race for the best talent and attract the right skillsets, if the right people are not actively looking in a market and are rightly risk averse?

What’s the solution?

There are many factors which attract people to leave their ‘safe’ secure role and seek a new career, including flexible working, training, development, career progression, culture, financial and job security, to name a few. But none of these will matter if prospective candidates are not aware of your company’s career USP’s.

By getting to know clients and their requirements in depth, good recruiters are able to really focus on the top tier candidates for each role, whether they be passive or active candidates. A professional and informative approach and the fact that any hiring company have ‘retained’ a specialist recruiter, gives a great first impression to candidates, presenting them as an organisation that allows serious candidates to want to find out more.

Positioning the company, the role and actively searching for the right talent match with promotional material, 360 capability assessment and other selection tools, also ensures candidates know they are a good fit, providing confidence for both themselves and the client and therefore reducing the risk for both.

Good specialist recruiters know their market inside out. Through years of working with procurement & supply chain professionals globally, we have built relationships with extensive networks of passive career seekers, most of whom will not actively apply to job adverts.

Furthermore, they trust their preferred agents to be able to assess the right roles and represent them properly to ensure they are not lost in the hundreds of advert applications and in most cases never receiving a reply from the advertiser.

Hiring great talent has not got any easier, but there is a solution! Reach out for a confidential discussion and we can guide you through a range of innovative, flexible & cost-effective support options that will help you solve these challenges.