You have a steady stream of talent submitting resumes, engaging on job sites and coming through referrals. When everything is on the up and up, there are days when hiring feels like a breeze. Why would you ever need a Freight and Logistics Recruiter?
For most companies the majority, say 60-70 percent of your hiring, is completely manageable through these channels. However, the freight and logistics market is volatile. Competition is fierce, top talent is hard to come by and if you’re not keeping up with customer demand, you run the risk of losing customers.
In the lifecycle of any transportation company there comes a time, that remaining 30-40 percent, when you could use the help of an experienced Freight and Logistics Recruiter. We tend to see this when one (or any combination) of the following factors come into play:
1) You need to hire quality talent, fast and haven’t curated a pipeline of top talent.
2) You have a hard to fill position and there’s scarcity in the marketplace.
3) You need to hire but haven’t fully built out your internal recruiting team yet.
4) Hiring a position for the first time and need guidance on market rate, how to define a role and a network of talent.
5) You’re time stretched. Internal teams simply don’t have the resources to proactively source for all upcoming roles.
6) You’re struggling to get top talent to respond.
1) You need quality talent, fast.
Whether you only have one recruiter or a team of six, if your hiring goals shoot up so does the need for help. It’s unreasonable to think that a team who was previously filling two roles a month can now fill eight with the same resources.
Without an experienced freight recruiting partner, you run the risk of making some not-so-great hires, which has detrimental long-term effects on the business.
For example, we had a partner who wanted to double their brokerage division across 12 markets. The goal was to accomplish this in under three years. This meant building out experienced, revenue-driving sales teams, essentially from scratch, in unfamiliar markets.
For them, it made sense to partner with a Freight Recruiting Firm who knew the space, had experience hiring high-performing brokerage teams and understood the markets. Read the full case study to see what happened next!
2) You have a tough to fill position and there’s scarcity in the marketplace.
Have a few positions that you just can’t seem to fill? Specialized roles or those requiring specific vertical expertise can be incredibly taxing on your resources. The indirect costs of these vacant roles are substantial. Consider the additional time required from your hiring team, the inability to expand, the direct impact on the bottom line and overall employee morale as factors.
If you’ve been struggling to fill a role, it’s probably time to partner with a recruiter who specializes in finding the freight and logistics talent you need.
3) You need to hire but haven’t built out your internal team yet.
Maybe you just closed your first round of funding and have aggressive hiring goals but no hiring team. Or, your internal recruiters are new and haven’t built out a pipeline of talent yet. The right recruiting partner can ensure you meet hiring goals while an internal team gets hired and up to speed. At Talent Solvers, we can even hire and train an internal recruiting team for you so you’re set up for future success.
This is exactly what happened when we partnered with project44, a leading advanced visibility platform for shippers and third-party logistics firms. With no internal recruiting team, project44 needed a partner who knew the Freight and 3PL market and could hire quality talent, fast – all while building out their internal team to eventually lead future hiring needs.
Prior to partnering, project44 was hiring four to five new employees per month. In the 90-days Talent Solvers was onsite, they hired 50 new employees (a hiring velocity increase of 240%)! This included a three-person recruiting team, fully ramped and building a talent pipeline of their own (read the full case study here!).
If you can’t put off hiring while you ramp up an internal team, or need help building one to begin with, it’s incredibly helpful to have recruiting experts by your side.
4) You’re hiring a role for the first time and could use guidance.
Maybe this is your first time hiring a Sales Engineer. Or, you’re looking for a new VP of Specialized Services and have little familiarity with what to look for in a logistics leader. It could take weeks researching market rates and months trying to build a network for that right person.
In these cases, it’s great to have a recruiting partner by your side. Chances are, Talent Solvers has hired for the role you’re looking for (multiple times)! From speaking with companies every day to reviewing hundreds of job descriptions, we have deep knowledge on everything from comp structures to skill sets.
5) You’re time stretched. Simply not enough resources to source for upcoming roles!
How often do you find yourself in a situation where you’re behind on hiring? Did you need to fill a position, like, yesterday?
If your hiring needs are skyrocketing faster than you can manage, it’s likely time to connect with a freight recruiting partner. This is especially true if speed is a factor. Even if you were to hire more internal recruiters, it would take a fair amount of time for them to build a pipeline of qualified candidates. They would need a deep understanding of the different roles, the market, time to build relationships and source before delivering qualified talent.
This can create bottlenecks in your organization and impact every team’s ability to scale. The best chance of avoiding this fate is enlisting the help of an experienced Freight and Logistics Recruiter to get the relief you need.
6) You’re struggling to get top talent to respond.
You’ve sourced a pipeline of quality talent, but they rarely accept an invitation to speak or show little interest when you catch them on the phone. Why? A corporate recruiter is forced to share their cards upfront. Maybe your company just went through a major leadership change and your Glassdoor reviews aren’t so hot. Or, a few bad ex-employees are spreading unfavorable rumors that you can’t seem to shake. Perhaps they’ve never even heard of your company and immediately dismiss it.
Candidates may also have a pre-conceived notion of what the culture is at your company and may not give you the opportunity to explain all of the positive things happening.
A great Freight and Logistics Recruiter should be an extension of the client’s brand, with the advantage of being able to create curiosity in the candidate to learn more without divulging the actual company name. Once on the phone, a great Freight and Logistics Recruitment Agency has the ability to build rapport and find out what a candidate is looking for in their next role before sharing the name of the company they’re representing.
This allows us to explain why they may have heard old rumors or read bad reviews. A chance you may never get if you’re reaching out from the company directly.
By igniting curiosity and selling the opportunity, recruiters can explain all of the good things happening at your company while the candidate is in a positive mindset.
_____
Nothing is more important to the organization than your ability to hire and retain top talent. If you’re already crushing hiring goals, props to you! Keep it up! But, if you’re faced with one of the above scenarios, it’s always good to have a trusted freight recruiter in your back pocket that you can call upon.
Feel free to reach out to the team at Talent Solvers at any time to see how we can help you either now, or in the future!