Hudson supports Global Bakery’s Restructure by Recruiting Senior Purchasing and Buying Roles 

The Client

A major global baking company serving bakery products for 25 years, in over 50 countries was looking to recruit two key senior roles: a new head of purchasing and a senior buyer.

The challenge

The greatest challenge of this assignment, for both Hudson and its client, was the very short timeframe in which to source, screen and interview the highest quality professionals. Additionally, the company required candidates to possess ‘like-for-like’ industry experience.

During turbulent economic times there were fewer jobs and more candidates available than usual, however finding food management specialists with such specific experience would still prove to be difficult. Additionally, there was stiff competition from other FMCG firms, also competing for the same talent.

Our solution

The client appreciated the challenges and decided to approach a large number of recruitment firms (between seven and ten) in the hope of finding candidates with the right skills and experience.

Hudson was chosen as the preferred supplier to work with due to its specialist sector knowledge and capabilities in procurement recruitment.

A dedicated Hudson consultant managed the entire recruitment process and worked closely with the client at every stage, benefiting from the specialist industry knowledge provided. This included detailed information on market employment trends – invaluable for the client as it could benchmark both roles against other similar positions in the sector, and ensure the level of remuneration and benefits offered for both roles would be attractive enough for the industry’s top talent.

Due to the challenge of finding suitable, qualified candidates at a senior level in the food management industry, a headhunting strategy was deployed using Hudson’s exclusive networks and contacts. Hudson also followed the traditional route of advertising on a variety of websites to attract candidates, as well as a database search to source candidates directly.

Once the consultant had a strong selection of candidates to put forward for interview, a competency and skills checklist was used during a series of screening meetings to ensure all candidates fully met the requirements of both roles.

All the search and screening methods used proved effective with a result of two strong short lists for both roles, each with four qualified candidates. The client was extremely impressed with the calibre of candidates recommended for the roles and chose to interview all of them.

The results

At the end of the process, Hudson was successful in placing both these roles within the set time frame and budget. The candidates placed were high-calibre professionals, who had closely aligned skills and experience.

Hudson continues to have a good working relationship with this client, and help with recruitment for all of its supply chain and procurement roles.