Supply Chain Talent Articles
SCM Talent Group has been featured in various supply chain talent articles, media journals, and news outlets on topics from how to solve the supply chain talent crisis to advancing careers in supply chain.
SCM Talent Taps Hinesh Patel as Sr Partner & Head of Supply Chain Executive Search
“Hinesh is an outstanding leader and I am confident that his extensive executive search and business management experience will help us improve the value we deliver to our growing and evolving client base,” said Rodney Apple, Founder and Managing Partner.
How to Land Your First Job in Supply Chain
It may not seem like it, but the first job in your supply chain management career could actually be one of the most important.
8 Websites to Help You Find Your Next Industry Role
If you’ve been on the hunt for a while and are struggling to find the right industry role, it’s probably time to divert your attention to a more specialized and focused recruitment site, like the eight we’ve listed below. (SCM Talent Group is featured at number #7)
A Hire Purpose: 11 Strategies to Recruit Supply Chain Talent
To help you attract the best and brightest business and engineering students pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees, here are 11 best practices to integrate into your supply chain talent recruitment strategies…. “Companies heavily emphasize omnichannel supply chains, but don’t extend omnichannel thinking to recruiting practices,” notes Rodney Apple, founder of SCM Talent Group, a supply chain recruiting company.
10 Steps Up to the Corner Office
Chief supply chain officers (CSCOs) have become key differentiators in driving business success… There is no magic formula for becoming a CSCO, as every supply chain is unique. However, there are 10 core competencies that can increase your changes of obtaining this coveted position:
How reverse mentoring closes the supply chain skills gap
“If you aspire to be a leader in the supply chain, your internal stakeholders are all across the company, and there’s no better way to learn than to be in a mentorship program,” Rodney Apple, a supply chain talent consultant, told Supply Chain Dive.
Three Ways to Uncover the Hidden Job Market
There’s no way to tell how many hidden jobs are filled each year, but one thing you can count on is that there’s far less competition for hidden jobs than for those that are advertised. To advance your career by finding and tapping into the hidden job market, follow these three strategies:
Help wanted: Employers need workers who can get their goods moving fast
Companies across the country are seeking workers to bolster their supply chains—and these aren’t just temp jobs to feed the holiday rush.
2019 Predictions For Industry And Global Supply Chains- Part Two
The Supply Chain Matters blog continues its series of unveiling 2019 Predictions for Industry and Global Supply Chains. In this Part Two posting, we explore our second prediction related to critical talent needs among all functional and technical support areas of supply chain management.
Rodney Apple, Founder and Manager Partner at SCM Talent Group reinforced to us that there is no better time to be in the supply chain management field given the current market dynamics.
Six Steps to a Successful Talent Referral Program
Employee referrals are a proven way to raise the quantity and quality of the applicant flow in a supply chain organization. According human resources thought leader John Sullivan, Ph.D., 88 percent of employers report that referrals are the number-one source for finding and hiring above-average candidates. Plus, it only takes five employee referrals on average to make a hire. He writes, in “10 Compelling Numbers that Reveal the Power of Employee Referrals” from ERE Media, that retention of referred employees is 46 percent after one year, compared to 33 percent for users of career sites and 22 percent for users of job boards.
Referral programs vary based on company culture, supply chain organizational structure and overall goals. But the following six tips will lead most businesses to a successful effort.
Creative Sourcing Strategies & Recruitment Tools
With today’s tightening labor market and talent shortage within the supply chain discipline, do your supply chain recruiters have the tools and resources in place to fill your hiring needs in a timely manner? Are your recruiters leveraging multiple sourcing channels to identify, attract and engage both active and especially passive supply chain candidates?
If you’re having difficulties with sourcing and hiring supply chain talent, check out our list of the sourcing channels and recruitment resources that you should consider adding to help drive better results.
Six Steps to an Employee Referral Program
A proven way to improve the quality and quantity of your applicant flow is to create an employee referral program for your supply chain organization.
According to Dr. John Sullivan, an international HR thought leader, 88% of employers claim that referrals are the #1 source for hiring above-average candidates. A recent report by ERE found that after one year, retention of referred employees is 46% compared to 33% from career sites and 22% from job boards. On average, it only takes 5 referrals to make a hire, as with a job board it can take hundreds of applicants.
Referral programs can vary from company to company based on company culture, supply chain organizational structure, and the overall goals of the program. We’ve identified six common characteristics that you’ll find in most successful employee referral programs.
Key Steps for Developing a Supply Chain Employer Branding Strategy
To keep up with hiring demands in a tightening labor market, it’s important to deploy creative marketing and employer branding strategies to help attract the right talent to your supply chain organization. Here are our top tips for developing or optimizing a supply chain employer branding strategy.
Advance Your Top Talent Through a Supply Chain Leadership Development Program
It’s no surprise that so many organizations struggle to retain leaders, especially within the supply chain discipline. According to DHL’s recent report, 58% of companies have a hard time finding employees with both operational experience and soft skills. As baby boomers continue to retire in droves, it’s imperative for organizations to take steps to create more robust talent pipelines, as today’s supply chain leaders need to be able to think multidimensional. One way to do so is through creating a Supply Chain Leadership Development Program (LDP).
Turn Your Supply Chain Organization into Talent Scouts
Looking to make the most of out of your association dues? Many organizations undervalue the importance of joining Supply Chain associations. Supply chain associations, such as APICS or CSCMP, can be a goldmine for finding supply chain talent, building brand awareness, and serving as a continuous educational source for your employees.
To use associations and events to your advantage, consider using these simple techniques:
Conduct Workforce Planning Study
Conducting a routine workforce planning study is important for optimizing your organization’s ability to hire and retain supply chain talent. In a way, it’s similar to supply chain planning, but instead of planning for raw materials and finished goods, workforce planning involves developing a forecast for your talent needs over a time period and ensuring that your organization is aligned with the right strategies and resources to satisfy your talent demands.
Here are the key steps needed to get started with developing a workforce plan:
Right Size Your Supply Chain Recruiting Team
I have seen my fair share of talent acquisition programs that have ranged from good to great to poor. One of my most important observations is this: The most successful employers understand how to right size their talent acquisition departments to allow for a proactive recruiting function versus a reactive, “squeaky wheel gets the grease” function.
Streamline Your Supply Chain Hiring Process
Hiring within the supply chain discipline has changed over the years, as developments in technology created new roles and revolutionized the way we buy, make, sell, plan, ship and return goods. To keep up, it’s imperative that you focus on doing whatever it takes to remove bottlenecks that delay your ability to make quick hiring decisions.
Speed is critical with our tightening labor market, especially as it relates to how quickly you can move candidates through your end-to-end hiring process. Developing a streamlined hiring process that increases recruiter productivity, mitigates administrative burdens, and creates a positive candidate experience can give your organization a competitive advantage over your competition.
7 Creative Ways to Find Supply Chain Talent
To keep up with hiring demands in a tightening labor market, you’ll need to expand your candidate sourcing tactics beyond job postings in order to discover and land the strongest, most qualified individuals.
Here are a few candidate sourcing channels we recommend that can improve your ability to attract and recruit top supply chain talent:
6 Tips for Establishing a Supply Chain Mentorship Program
To keep up with hiring demands in a tightening labor market, you’ll need to expand your candidate sourcing tactics beyond job postings in order to discover and land the strongest, most qualified individuals.
Here are a few candidate sourcing channels we recommend that can improve your ability to attract and recruit top supply chain talent:
10 Ways to Maximize Supply Chain Talent
Hiring can be extremely challenging in supply chain management, particularly because of the current skills gap. Luckily, there are some low-cost, high-yield solutions that organizations can implement to attract and land the talent needed to keep their networks operating efficiently.
SCM Talent Group Expands Supply Chain Recruiting Services
ANNOUNCEMENT: SCM Talent Group, a leading national supply chain recruiting & executive search firm, is proud to announce the expansion of their recruiting services in addition to retained executive search and contingency search.
The new service offerings include:
Interim Executives: Leadership professionals to temporarily fill executive-level vacancies due to circumstances such as illness, abrupt resignations, turnarounds, M&A integration or due diligence, and related leadership needs.
Contract Staffing: Highly skilled, contingent professionals to lead or support critical, time sensitive projects such as distribution center start-ups and expansions or continuous improvement deployments.
Expanding Efforts Addressing Multi-Industry Supply Chain Talent Needs
As we were compelled to in 2017, our third 2018 prediction is that the supply chain management talent perfect storm will regrettably intensify in the coming year.
The current level of robust global supply chain activity coupled with the realities that many developed regions have reached full employment levels adds to the 2018 challenge. Rodney Apple, Managing Partner at SCM Talent Group observed that there remains too much emphasis on “post and pray” and that supply chain employers need to think like marketing professionals, emphasizing branding, compelling career content, and benefit to recruitment activities.
Expand Your Supply Chain Career Potential with Networking
Most people believe that you only need to network if you are actively looking for a job or if you have a career in sales, marketing or recruiting. Nothing could be further from the truth. Of the thousands of supply chain candidates who I have recruited over the last 20-plus years, the most successful have embraced networking as a critical career-development strategy. They use their robust professional networks to actively seek out mutually beneficial relationships that enable them to achieve a high degree of success. Following are some of the strategies these people employ:
Evaluating and Negotiating a Job Offer
During a job hunt, it’s common to spend weeks or even months researching career opportunities, sending out resumes and going on interviews. When you finally receive a viable job offer, you then find yourself in the precarious spot of contract deliberations. How will you evaluate the offer and negotiate the best possible terms?
Understanding Noncompete Agreements
In today’s job market, noncompete agreements are becoming increasingly common. Employers are using them to protect intellectual property, discourage workers from going to a direct competitor and prevent employees from leaving to start a similar business. Furthermore, gone are the days of noncompetes only being used for key executive positions and product-design and -development roles; employers now apply noncompetes to all kinds of business functions and to full-time, temporary and even hourly employees.
How to Dazzle at Your Next Interview
Increasingly, today’s employers are conducting behavioral interviews to assess core competencies necessary for success. The ability for an interviewee to articulate relevant and significant responses that tie into these competencies while quantifying achievements, is essential.
Here’s how-
Simple Steps for Optimizing Your LinkedIn Profile
This past December, Microsoft completed its acquisition of LinkedIn. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner wrote a letter to his team explaining the new mission of the combined companies, saying, “I’m more confident than ever that our move to join forces with Microsoft will accelerate our mission to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful and ultimately help create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce.”
Clearly, this is the time to make sure you have the best possible LinkedIn profile. Here are some tips.
Career Success in 2017
APICS magazine is pleased to introduce the department “Professional Development.” Here, APICS Career Coach Rodney Apple will share insightful career tips and advice designed specifically for supply chain management professionals.
Think about where you were with your career and related goals at this time last year. Did you achieve your objectives and reach your full potential? Are you satisfied with your situation today? If the answer to any of these questions is no, it’s time to develop a new course of action—one that enables you to take control and shift from idle to pedal-to-the-floor mode. Here are seven steps to formulating a career-growth strategy that puts you at the steering wheel.
Low-Cost, High-Impact Solutions to Combat the Supply Chain Talent Shortage
An upcoming webinar series will help your business improve its ability to attract, hire and retain top supply chain talent.
The supply chain discipline has been experiencing a talent shortage that many experts in the field are predicting will only get worse, before it gets better. Baby boomers are retiring rapidly, while the number of qualified candidates coming up through the ranks aren’t enough to close the gap. While macro-level solutions have been implemented, such as the expansion of university supply chain programs, it will most likely take years before any significant progress is made.
Considering a Career in Supply Chain Consulting? 4 Experts Share Their Wisdom!
A lot of young professionals and even graduate students are interested in pursuing a career path as a supply chain consultant.
For this important topic, I had to bring in help from some of the best experts in supply chain industry. So, 4 foremost experts from the industry will share their wisdom and guide you on various aspects of pursuing a career as a supply chain consultant.
Hiring Supply Chain Talent: What to Look for
Your business is growing, and it is time to hire. That means facing the challenge and overcoming the fact that there is a dearth of supply chain talent. Growth is very common right now, as job titles evolve and shift due to the rapid changes in supply chain management and new technological requirements. So more talent is in demand as many businesses try to remain competitive.
There are, of course, specific things your talent management program should be looking for as it reviews new candidates. Here are some attributes that top the list:
The Art of Overcoming the Supply Chain Talent Shortage
A recent report on the supply chain talent gap draws a sobering conclusion: The supply chain management profession finds itself in crisis. So what is an organization to do? How can you become better prepared and make your search for talent more effective?
Few people are better positioned to answer these questions than Rodney Apple, founder and president of SCM Talent Group. With almost 20 years of experience as a supply chain recruiter, he has filled more than 1,000 supply chain positions ranging from executive-level at Fortune 500 companies to leadership and staff-level roles across large networks of manufacturing and distribution facilities within the United States.
How To Solve The Supply Chain Talent Crisis: A Supply Chain Recruiter Shares His Ideas
The supply chain industry has a talent crisis. The question is: how can we solve this crisis? To answer this question I turned to Rodney Apple, founder of the SCM Talent Group. Apple has worked as a supply chain recruiter for the majority of his 19+ year career within the staffing industry and he has filled more than 1,000 positions within the industry ranging from executive-level in Fortune 500 headquarters settings to leadership and staff-level roles across large networks of manufacturing and distribution facilities within North America.
