SCDigest Editorial Staff

SCDigest Says:

Companies must therefore think through the range of a potential candidate’s attributes and weigh the trade-offs around which experiences and skill sets are most important for a specific supply chain role. What do you say? Send us your comments here

As we’ve reported many times, the great news for supply chain and logistics professionals is that demand for supply chain talent – and with it compensation packages and opportunities – continues to grow.

As a result, a growing number of companies are looking outside their own ranks to bring in supply chain executive talent, whether to head the supply chain organization as a whole or to lead a specific function such as transportation, distribution, procurement, etc.

But the rapidly expanding set of skills companies now seek in these leaders, combined with the strong demand for talent, means it is increasingly hard for most companies to find the ideal candidate.

That’s what most executive recruiters who focus on supply chain positions have been telling Supply Chain Digest.

One example is Korn/Ferry International, which recently produced a white paper that addresses this very issue.

Authors Carlos Garcia and William Fello note that companies are looking for executive candidates who are strategic decision-makers with deep cross-functional expertise, strong customer and supplier relationships, a global mindset and demonstrated success as a “change agent” – often a tough order to fill.

(Supply Chain Trends and Issues Article - Continued Below)

(Supply Chain Trends and Issues Article - Continued)

However, they note that “Executives who have amassed the experience and skill sets that match this new profile are in short supply. Consequently, hiring teams face an array of questions and tradeoffs in their efforts to ensure that their search for a supply chain leader aligns with their organization’s current and future needs.”

In some cases, companies can try to attract even more qualified candidates by raising compensation packages to recruit more ideally suited executives. But that isn’t always a possible or desirable option. Companies must therefore think through the range of a potential candidate’s attributes and weigh the trade-offs around which experiences and skill sets are most important for a specific supply chain role.

The chart below, taken from the Korn/Ferry white paper, is interesting not only in providing a framework of attributes companies can consider using to evaluate supply chain executive candidates, but also for aspiring executives in terms of working to round out their skills and experiences in a way that will ultimately make them attractive to companies and executive recruiters.

Source: Korn Ferry Institute, “A New Acid Test
for Supply Chain Talent Management”

“By applying that rigor to the recruitment strategy, hiring teams can more effectively contend with the difficulties posed by the evolving supply chain and, ultimately, locate and attract the best available supply chain leaders,” Garcia and Fello conclude.

Are you having trouble recruiting supply chain and logistics talent? Are the skills sets sought today more demanding than the recent past?  How do you balance trade-offs in experience and skills? Let us know your thoughts at the Feedback button below.