Logistics & Materials Planning Manager – Engineering
Challenge: 
A market leading international group required our help to appoint a Logistics & Materials Planning Manager for one of their most challenging sites. The site was loss making and lacking historic investment but was now in the hands of a forward thinking and driven General Manager. They required someone with the skills, charisma and resilience to help turnaround the site and win the hearts and minds of long serving members of staff who were resistant to change.
The company had tried several times to recruit themselves, they concluded that their reputation had gone before them and that the high calibre candidates they sought were put off.
Method:
We recommended that the most reliable method of identifying candidates who had the set of skills, knowledge and experience our client was looking for was to complete a headhunt into a number of specifically targeted organisations. This strategy was supported by an online advertising campaign and a search of all the relevant candidate databases.
We took time to fully understand the clients business, their organisation, history, culture and values. It was also important that we fully developed their job and candidate specification, clarifying and differentiating between the desired and essential requirements.
The management team had lost confidence and were clearly poor at selling career opportunities to prospective candidates, so we facilitated a brain storming session to highlight the benefits and opportunities to be gained by joining them rather than the opposition. This achieved encouraging results, rekindling pride and producing a consistent positive message that the team agreed they would give to any prospective candidate.
Our consultants initiated an extremely thorough market mapping exercise of aligned businesses and identifying a list of potential candidates. An informed and compelling approach was made to potential new candidates. We spread the net wide to ensure that we would be able to deliver a broad and comprehensive candidate list that would reassure the client that they would have a choice of high calibre, relevant and interested candidates.
42 candidates were identified, 32 were spoken to and 7 were asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement and invited to attend a first stage interview. To help our client refine their messaging and reinforce their recruitment brand we recommended that we should hold joint first stage interviews. The client enjoyed the process immensely, so much so that they have now insisted on utilising this process moving forwards. The 7 candidates were interviewed and the client agreed that all of the candidates were highly sought after individuals who could all do the job. The choice now came down to strategic strength, drive, ambition and personality.
3 candidates were selected to meet with the Senior Management team for a second interview. They were requested to prepare and deliver a strategic presentation on what they anticipated their first 90 days would look like. It provided a great opportunity to explore approach, style and methodology.
LORD also completed personality, verbal and numerical assessments of these candidates prior to interview, discussing the results and agreeing with the client specific areas to probe.
All interviewed candidates enjoyed a seamless and professional process. Those who were not successful were given constructive and helpful feedback.
Results:
The second interviews were a huge success and following them we discussed the merits of each candidate. The consultant assisted the decision making process. We then made recommendations on offer and remuneration package before contacting the successful candidate.
Conclusion:
A robust, positive and efficient recruitment process resulted in a successful appointment who, having overachieved on all agreed deliverables, has recently gone on to hold a multi-site role within the Group.
Along with supporting our client on a number of other key appointments, that has seen them transform their fortunes, we have seen them change their approach to resourcing, resulting in high calibre candidates approaching them directly – a great step in the right direction to becoming an employer of choice!