Whether your business is new to the market or a well-established player, attracting the top procurement and supply chain talent is vital. The trouble is, recruitment is an increasingly competitive world and you need to be able to entice the best people before your competitors do.
This may all sound rather unfriendly on the budget, but it needn’t be. Candidates are increasingly seeking out employers that offer something special. Whether that be a strong commitment to diversity, an amazing workplace culture, or a learning and development program that they just can’t resist. While we highly recommend that you offer these benefits in your workplace, you also need to know how to reach these candidates in the first place.
This article will talk you through everything you need to know about attracting the top procurement and supply chain talent. From defining your brand message to enlisting the expert support of a procurement and supply chain recruiter, read on for some tips on how to boost brand awareness to attract the top talent.
Define your brand message
Today’s procurement and supply chain candidates want to work with authentic, credible, forward-thinking companies. If you haven’t got a good grasp on what your brand stands for, the top talent will see straight through you. Now is the time to define your brand values. Sit down with your marketing and communications team, your product developers, sales team and any other relevant stakeholders and identify the things that make you special. Then find the right words and sentiments to express these attributes. That doesn’t mean shoe-horning in loads of meaningless superlatives and marketing speak. It means finding your unique voice and expressing yourself honestly to the world. Which leads us neatly onto the next point…
Promote your brand message
Promoting your brand message on the right channels is key to your success. You should have a pretty good idea of the kinds of demographic you are trying to attract and the social media channels they use. Think about the news and ideas they would like to hear about from you and in the formats they would appreciate. You can then work with your marketing team to devise an actionable, audience-focused communications strategy that will promote your brand to the right people, in the right place at the right time.
Promoting your brand and attracting the best people is incredibly important, but talent isn’t all you need to succeed. Check out our top tips for building your perfect procurement and supply chain team.
Get employee recommendations
One of the best, if not the best, trust indicators is recommendations from your employees. Not every colleague will feel comfortable about leaving online reviews. But where appropriate ask your teammates to post a recommendation on Glassdoor saying they enjoy working for your firm and explaining why. This might be the brilliant training you provide, the ongoing support they get or the feeling of camaraderie that runs throughout your organisation. Anything that will instil trust and confidence in someone who is considering working at your company.
Outsource your recruitment
The best procurement and supply chain recruiters work hard to build your brand on your behalf. Not a bad deal I am sure you’ll agree! At Bramwith, for example, we ensure we get a thorough understanding of your business and its USPs; the great reasons to work for you and what you can offer the right candidate. We then present this information to the ideal candidates and make sure you are at the forefront of their minds when they are considering their opportunities.
We also work proactively to source procurement and supply chain candidates who aren’t even actively looking for a new role. So, we can put your business at the front of the queue when they decide to take the next steps in their career.
Promote your business and your team
When looking for their ideal procurement and supply chain job, the majority of candidates will check a company’s social media channels and website to get a feel for their ethics and values, as well as what they actually do. It’s therefore a good idea to include a hub or a few pages on your website to show what you stand for as a brand and what you offer your people. A meet the team page works well though if you have a large workforce you would need to limit it to the senior management. But make sure you make the profiles friendly and approachable!
Another good way to present a human face to your brand is to include employee video interviews, talking about what they like about working for you, what their average day is like, the challenges they face and how they overcome them, and so forth.
We hope this short guide on how to boost brand awareness to attract the top talent has been useful and informative. If you need any help with recruiting the very best candidates to your business, contact us today. We are experts in filling the top procurement and supply chain jobs and we would love to help.
