Outnumbered Nearly 2 to 1, Our Candidates Won Every Plant Leadership Offer
Inside two plant leadership searches at a specialized food manufacturer, where the client interviewed candidates from every source and hired only ours.
At a Glance
Industry: Specialized food manufacturing
Client size: $50M to $100M in annual revenue, 200 to 500 employees
Site location: Mid-Atlantic
Roles filled: Plant Manager and Superintendent, run as two separate executive searches
Result: 3 of 3 offers and 2 of 2 hires went to our candidates, who made up 25 of the 74 candidates the client interviewed
Context
An international food manufacturer needed a Plant Manager and a Superintendent for one of its sites. Instead of handing the roles to a single search, it ran an open process and interviewed candidates from multiple sources at the same time. Its team put about 134 hours into those interviews, so every source got a real hearing.
The Obstacle
Most of the plant leaders on the market for these roles had built their careers at much larger plants. On paper, that looked like more experience. At a site this size, the leadership role sits closer to the floor, and big-plant experience doesn't carry over automatically.
Location narrowed the field further. The site is about 2 hours from the nearest large market, which puts it outside easy reach of the region's deepest candidate pool.
The two roles also weren't one search. A Plant Manager and a Superintendent drew from different candidate pools, so one slate couldn't serve both.
Every source in this process was working the same market. The question was which one would read it correctly.
The Solution
We started from the site, not the market. The right leaders for a site of this size and location wouldn't match the larger-plant profile the market offered by default, so we defined who fit before deciding who to present. That's Precision, the first principle of our PATH methodology.
From there, the work ran along two lines.
Two pools, two searches. We ran the roles as separate searches, each with its own slate. For the Superintendent, we presented 15 candidates. The client interviewed 11 of them and made 2 offers. For the Plant Manager, we presented 19 candidates. The client interviewed 14 of them and made 1 offer.
No home-market advantage. We're based in White Bear Lake, Minnesota. This site is in the Mid-Atlantic, well outside the market we know best, so there was no local network to lean on. That's Access, the second principle of PATH: reaching the right leaders across two separate pools for a site far from home.
Slates of 15 and 19 reflect depth across two separate pools, not a narrow shortlist. The better measure is what the client did with them: it chose to interview about 3 in 4 of the candidates we presented.
The Outcome
The client interviewed 74 candidates across both searches. We supplied 25 of them. The other 49 came from other sources.
Side by side, the two groups ended very differently:
- Our candidates: 34% of the interview pool, 3 of 3 offers, and 2 of 2 hires.
- Candidates from other sources: 66% of the interview pool, and no offers across 49 interviews.
We supplied about a third of the candidates the client interviewed, and every candidate it chose to hire. The client made each of those calls through its own interviews, with every source in the room.
We supplied about a third of the candidates the client interviewed, and both candidates it chose to hire. The client made each of those calls through its own interviews, with every source in the room.
The Superintendent search showed the depth behind that result. The first offer went to one of our candidates, who then accepted a role elsewhere. The second offer went to another of our candidates, who accepted. The search never had to restart. The Plant Manager offer was accepted as well, so both roles are now filled by candidates we presented.
The Impact
The client filled both plant leadership roles with candidates we presented, through an open process where every source competed in the same interviews. We supplied 25 of the 74 candidates it interviewed, about a third of the pool, and won all 3 offers and both hires. The 49 candidates from other sources received no offers. When the first Superintendent offer was declined, our slate already had a second candidate ready, so the search never restarted. The client now has plant leaders chosen for its site’s size and location, not for the larger-plant profile most of the market offered.
The Takeaway
This site needed plant leaders who fit its size and its distance from a large market, and the market's default candidate didn't. We read that from outside our home market, built two searches around it, and produced every candidate the client decided to hire in a process open to every source.
Filling a plant leadership role the obvious candidates don't fit? Talk to us.
