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Training Your Hiring Team to Identify – and Hire – The Best Talent in Interviews

When you need to add a new member to your supply chain team, does your hiring process go something like this?

  • Someone collects and screens a pile of resumes, then chooses a short list of “best” candidates to bring in for interviews.
  • The person who does the interviewing may or may not have daily contact with the position being hired for or strong knowledge of it, and may or may not have training or experience in hiring.
  • The interviewer asks standard, maybe even canned, questions that are irrelevant to the actual position. They also don’t sell the position to the candidate or help determine whether the candidate is a good fit with the company’s culture or ethics.
  • Decision makers find it difficult to identify the best candidate, mostly because the interviewer didn’t ask the questions they needed answers to.

In a competitive hiring environment like supply chain, this type of process will keep you from being a contender. Hiring is a key component of your supply chain talent strategy. And if you fail to give it the proper time and attention from the start, you’re bound to do it poorly.

The solution? Train your interviewers. Once your supply chain recruiting partner has pared down the field to a few qualified applicants, it is time to start the interviewing process. Train your interviewers on  five areas to focus on when interviewing any supply chain job candidate:

  1. Their Experience. What previous activity and practice do they have in the specifics of the open position or something similar? What types of supply chain companies have they worked in?
  2. Their Proven Competencies. Do they have documented abilities in their job performance and achievements? Do they have the proven ability to learn new skills as the supply chain industry evolves?
  3. Their Track Record. Can they give you demonstrated examples of repeated or consistent success? Do they have concrete examples of their successes?
  4. Their Sense of Accountability. Can they substantiate their claims of responsibility and delivery?
  5. Their Cultural Behaviors. In other words, their personality, their strengths and weaknesses, their non-job-related competencies and other soft skills.

If your goal is to hire the best candidate in the market, not just someone who can do the job, you need to interview about specifics. You’re looking for competency and caliber, not interviewing skills.

Like any other skill, interviewing takes training and practice.  At ZDA Supply Chain Recruiting, we’ve had plenty of both. To discuss how we can help you hire the best supply chain talent, contact us at your convenience.

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