Supply chain management requires knowledgeable, experienced professionals with a highly refined set of skills, so finding professionals to fill positions can be a daunting task. It would be wonderful if qualified procurement professionals stood on every corner, holding up signs reading Here I am! so you could simply scoop them up. Unfortunately, locating the right candidate is far more difficult. The staffing shortages we’re seeing across the board in the function prove procurement pros are in high demand and hard to find. One significant factor that can close the gap between sorely missing a procurement candidate and welcoming the right one to your company: expanding your search from local and regional job sites and sources to taking a global approach. When you’re on the prowl for someone with a very specific set of skills, the pool of qualified candidates tends to be smaller and spread out it’s likely your dream professional is halfway around the world, and if you’re going to connect with them and bring them on board, you have to be able to reach them.
When searching for procurement talent, many firms quickly discover that simply posting an ad on a general job-search site doesn’t cut the mustard. The practice of throwing up a HELP WANTED ad on Indeed.com requires prospects to take a very specific path to reach you. If you don’t finely craft the perfect ad with the right keywords, for example, it might not come up in their search. If your office is in Chicago and their geo search is centered on San Francisco, they’ll likely miss you again. Then, there’s the arguably biggest problem with expecting candidates to reach out to you, and not the other way around: they’re not currently looking.
As we mentioned before, expert procurement professionals are in short supply and high demand and because of this, the most talented among them have little incentive to hunt you need to search for and reach out to this desirable talent, because they might not make that first move. Consider searching in the region where your supply chain is centered. It’s true that procurement tends to require talent with a global sourcing perspective, and an ability to capably work with diverse people in various regions and cultures. However, if your firm’s needs call for a heavy amount of activity in a specific region, acquiring a professional familiar with the climate, culture, infrastructure and other aspects of that region can provide an edge. For example, if you’re looking to increase sourcing of your raw sugar cane supply from Brazil, hiring someone who knows the intricacies of the country’s business culture, infrastructure challenges, political climate, major suppliers and other unique characteristics can provide an edge over hiring someone whose familiarity with the area is less intimate and more academic.
The biggest question, then, is how do you connect with these hard-to-find procurement professionals? Even if your company has international offices, it’s obviously impossible to be everywhere at once. This is where the skills and services of a global supply chain recruitment firm prove invaluable. Just as a procurement professional offers a desirable set of skills, knowledge and contacts, a recruitment operation with contacts in diverse fields around the globe can deliver the resources to make that connection. MRA Global is part of the MRI Network that operates around the world with hundreds of offices and resources that MRA can tap to support their clients. MRA has contacts in a wide range of industries and has a successful track record of connecting talented professionals with motivated companies. If you’d like to learn more, contact MRA Global. Our global sourcing network is engineered to connect you with the right person for the job, no matter where they are.