5 Hacks for Recruiting in Supply Chain Management

Supply chain and logistics requires innovative, logical thinkers to be recruited in order to compete with rapid technology advancements and global expansion.

Finding the right candidate for your business is a challenge that requires broad advertising, rigorous interviews, and ultimately some give and take from both sides. Not only does the individual need to be aligned with company expectations, but your workplace must also appeal to the potential applicant.

To keep one step ahead of your competitors, keep in mind these five hacks for outstanding recruiting.

Determine What the Ideal Candidate Looks Like


Before you can attract the right candidate you will need to clearly define what you’re looking for. What does your ideal professional look like? Do they have more than 20+ years experience in supply chain? Or perhaps they’re a recent graduate of a logistics program with limited industry exposure but a fresh perspective? The secret to attracting unique talent is to understand exactly what that means to you.

When drafting your job listing it’s a good idea to break down the role into skills and attributes needed in order to succeed. Being able to translate these qualities into what is necessary, preferable, or a deal breaker will keep all applications as relevant as possible.

Push a Work-Life Balance

It’s no secret that a great workplace culture will attract great employees. The promotion of work-life balance is no longer an added bonus, but a serious expectation within many modern workplaces. A healthy worker is a happy worker and crucial for a seamless supply chain.

Highlighting work-life balance during the recruiting process will increase morale and could be the difference between an application to your company or a competitor down the road. It is also a great way to significantly reduce turnover rates and recruiting costs in the long term. Flexibility is a huge plus that should be highlighted in your listing.

Use Social Media

Social media recruiting is often overlooked by hiring managers. But when more than 2 billion people around the world have social media accounts, it would be a big mistake to ignore this opportunity. Social media is a sure-fire way to cultivate a relationship with potential candidates.

LinkedIn is a great resource, as a professional networking site that allows you to extend your reach to a motivated, like-minded community of supply chain and logistics professionals. Facebook and Twitter are other great platforms to take advantage of, with millions of diverse users available at the touch of a button. The most well-rounded approach would be to use all three to carefully target your applicants.

Let Your Employees Help

The pressure of sourcing, recruiting, and retaining talent in the workplace can take its toll on even the best manager. The good news is that there are potentially hundreds of other employees out there to lend a helping hand. Getting other workers involved can spread the word faster and to industry-specific applicants that are likely to fit in with your workforce.

Employees can inform friends and family of the job opportunity, as well as post links from their private media accounts to let others know of the listing. Even if the right candidate isn’t among their friends or followers, chances are more than one will share the listing, pushing the message further beyond the original network of connections.

RecruiT Internally

Recruiting from within the business is a great way to give existing employees the opportunity to apply for the job. It promotes succession planning and good career development within your business—both of which will appeal to the passionate, driven worker.

Promotions to higher-level positions and management roles will help to upskill individuals and reward the positive performance of employees. It is important that this process is undertaken in a way that is fair and consistent for everyone.

Ultimately, great recruiting requires good research and understanding. Often the right candidate will not be actively seeking a position or may be employed currently. An exemplary job listing will be widespread, highly specific, establish the great reputation of the business, and pose a unique opportunity for any supply chain professional willing to take the plunge.

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