Recruitment Marketing Strategies that Attract Supply Chain Talent
Your company might have solid supply chain talent, but are your recruitment marketing strategies attracting the best possible workers? The truth is that the people in charge of a company’s supply chain can make or break a business’s finances. Even paying upfront for a costlier, more experienced manager can save your company money in the long run — and these results are proven. According to some reports, 79% of companies with high-performing supply chains have greater than average revenue growth and 15% lower supply chain costs. Optimized supply chains also come with cash-to-cash cycles that are three times faster.
Unfortunately, more than half of businesses have poor visibility across their supply chain, which makes common pitfalls like delivery costs, keeping up with consumer demand, customer service, and inventory harder to navigate. The right talent can optimize your process, but they won’t just appear out of thin air. For the better part of a decade, the industry has actually been facing a shortage of qualified logisticians. You’ll need to enact some creative recruitment marketing strategies that attract the best talent. These strategies can help you find talent at every stage — from the hopeful student to the supply chain veteran.
Try Out An Employee Referral Program
You know the old phrase great minds think alike? That certainly rings true when it comes to talent. It’s a safe bet that throughout their career development journey, the great team you’ve already cultivated has made valuable connections in the industry. You can utilize these contacts through an employee referral program. Collaborate with your top supply chain executive, supply chain recruiter, and HR manager to incentivize your workers to tap their existing network and help you in the recruitment process.
You can go about a referral program one of two ways. Either manually have your employees refer contacts via email or automate the process using a platform like JobVite or Jobcast. Either way, the key is to offer a valuable incentive like a cash bonus, vacation package, or some other sort of substantial gift.
Partner With A Top Supply Chain University
Since there’s a significant shortage of supply chain talent, you may want to jump in early by partnering with universities that have some of the best supply chain programs. This could be anything from fostering an internship program to hosting job fairs and bringing in guest speakers for lectures. The important part is establishing a presence among students and developing relationships with key staff in the career department (who could make crucial referrals) and professors (who know the top students). Always, always post your job to any university-specific job board.
Overall, universities tend to be the gift that keeps giving. Down the line, an entry-level hire from one university will be able to go back and recruit even more talent. They’ll know how to best sell the job to graduating students because they were once in the same position. It’s also important to reach students early before they’re about to graduate and get flooded with job offers.
Get Involved In Supply Chain Associations
You want to find top talent where they are, and supply chain associations, like CSCMP, can be a very useful piece within your recruitment marketing strategies. Not only can you build brand awareness through partnerships with these associations, but you can also network with talent and learn about the trade. The more you know, the more attractive you can make your job postings.
Some supply chain associations allow partners to host local chapter meetings, but you may also want to utilize your employees to raise your overall profile. If you pay for their association membership and send them to conferences, they can network on your behalf in a way that feels genuine.
Start A LinkedIn Campaign
While brands are overwhelmingly utilizing social media to bolster sales, it’s often left in the dust during the recruitment process. This is a mistake. People are online searching for jobs the same way that they’re shopping on Amazon. A campaign on the right social network can reach a larger pool of talent than a university job fair or your employees’ immediate social circle.
For supply chain jobs (or really any job that requires a college education), LinkedIn is often an underutilized resource. You’ve got a pool of employees with profiles who have leagues of professional contacts that they may or may not even personally know (i.e. people they’d never think to recommend in a referral). Since LinkedIn is a networking tool, people with vague connections often follow others in their same industry with loose employment ties.
LinkedIn lets companies leverage their employees’ networks with targeted recruitment ads. These have up to 50x higher clickthrough rates than regular recruitment ads, and they’re automatically shared on targeted employee profiles. Beyond this, LinkedIn lets you block competitors from placing ads on your employees’ profiles so no one else can utilize your top talent to find talent of their own.
Posting to Nice Supply Chain Job Boards
Posting on niche supply chain job boards is a great way to get your open position in front of the appropriate audience. Niche job boards allow for an exclusive audience compared to larger generalist job boards, which attract everyone including non-relevant candidates. With the supply chain careers job board you can rely on your position to be shown to the most relevant supply chain audience.
Raise Brand Awareness
Most companies in the world of business don’t exactly ooze trendiness — at least not to young students looking to join the workforce. You’re competing with startups and major tech companies like Google, who offer endless amounts of free food and nap pods. With all that fanfare, it can be hard for more traditionally corporate companies to compete. This is where brand awareness comes in.
If you’re not attracting qualified supply chain talent, it may be because students and recruitment companies don’t understand what supply chain career opportunities you provide. Developing a brand awareness campaign, especially one that’s catered to a younger demographic of job-seekers fresh out of college, can help raise your prospects. Consider launching career-centric social media channels, developing student-centered websites, hosting seminars, and brushing up on public speaking. Even something as simple as an industry-related podcast appearance can help raise your profile and position you as a leader in the industry.
The Bottom Line
Having different recruitment marketing strategies is important, but at the end of the day, money speaks volumes. You can have all the trendy office fixings in the world and the hippest social media profiles, but if your compensation isn’t competitive, you’re not going to have very many bites. If you’re finding it difficult to find qualified talent, you may need to up your offer. Beyond this, employees who feel valued with competitive compensation packages tend to stick around. In the long run, a better offer could reduce turnover and save you money in recruitment marketing costs, onboarding costs, and lost productivity. After all, research has shown that happy employees are 13% more productive.
Ryan Gould
Vice President of Strategy and Marketing Services, Elevation Marketing
For the exclusive use of scmtalent.com
