Cast Metal and Die Casting Times Oct/Nov 2006
Finding The Person You Want
It is not very difficult to define the sort of person you want – be it a Production Manager, Sales Director or a Senior Metallurgist. It is far more difficult to attract and select the correct candidate.
To get the right person is more important to you and your company than your machines, products, systems and processes. All of these cost money, but are of little value without effective management. Recruiting and selecting the most suitable manager also costs money. It costs far more, however, to select the wrong person.
For some years we have specialised in the recruitment and selection of all levels of managers and senior executives within the foundry, casting and metals industries. A recent analysis of our results shows that we have succeeded in finding the candidate our client wants in the majority of our assignments. There is no mystique about the process but it does require considerable experience, skill and patience.
Perhaps too much has been written about how selection ought to be done and not enough about the actual operation and the outcome. Let us merely say that mistakes can be made even by executives skilled in personnel selection and placement techniques and even when they are trying hard to be wholly objective. Often the cause is that not enough is known about the candidate, however well the selected candidate may be recommended by others.
Often there is insufficient analysis of the candidate in relation to the need. Sometimes the shrewdest of minds are misled by people who are not what they appear to be.
In selecting candidates, error can never be entirely eliminated. Nevertheless there is a way to improve your success rate. We can help you to do this. The following case of selecting a Sales Manager may show you how. Names have not been disclosed in order to maintain our strict policy of candidate and client confidentiality.
THE PROBLEM
An overseas company based in the Far East manufacture a wide selection of specialised products for the metals industry. They decided to set up a subsidiary company within Europe to market and sell their products specifically to this geographical region. Existing customers within the region were attracted to their plans for the ease of delivery, availability and general improvement in communications and technical support. However, this market was wide open for additional sales opportunities but progress was delayed, because the company had not been able to find a suitable candidate to set up and expand their business at the rate or scale that they required.
THE PERSON THE CLIENT WANTED
When the company came to us we spent some time discussing in detail the person they need now and for the future. From these discussions we were able to establish a clear Appointment Specification for a European Sales Manager (Director designate). The successful candidate would eventually be closely concerned with establishing a new manufacturing unit in Eastern Europe but initially the main function would be to plan, sell and put into effect a market expansion in to the rest of Europe, Scandinavia and Russia.
This would involve:
• Establishing, training and developing a sales organisation and team.
• Planning a detailed marketing programme, initially for mainland Europe.
• Maintaining personal liaison with existing and potential new major customers and organisations whilst negotiating and developing business with them.
The candidate should therefore have experience:
• With a proven success record in sales and sales management.
• In planning and putting into operation a market development scheme.
• Setting up and developing a sales department.
• In trading and general business within Europe.
• Assessing, appointing and controlling agents.
In addition, the selected candidate should have the ability to operate on his or her own initiative with the desire to achieve a high income and to become, in due course, the Managing Director of the subsidiary operation.
RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION
The appointment was advertised in various trade journals, websites (including our own) and the international press. We carefully screened all applications against the Appointment Specification. A number of candidates were then interviewed and assessed at length.
A short list of candidates considered capable of undertaking the appointment was then finalised and presented to the client. This report contained a complete personal history of each selected candidate with a detailed assessment of him or her in relation to the appointment.
de Belder Associates and the client then arranged a further interview with the selected candidates.
THE CANDIDATE THE CLIENT CHOSE
The following was our assessment of the successful candidate:
Mr X made a favourable first impression being well presented with a positive manner and demeanour.
He came from a modest background and his early up bringing encouraged him to try to do the things he wanted and to achieve the highest standards, His educational record reveals considerably above average ability, which he could not initially utilise due to his family financial circumstances. However, these factors created in him a powerful urge for outstanding success, which has persisted throughout his life.
Through self-learning he managed to achieve a solid and fundamental understanding of the technical aspects of the product groups and throughout his career managed to achieve various recognised professional qualifications.
He soon realised he had an interest and natural ability in the field of selling and commenced his career with a manufacturing company whose products had a high level technical content.
Later, he became Sales Manager of a manufacturing organisation in which he managed to double the company’s sales turnover with good margin levels. He was responsible for a sales team within the United Kingdom and for more than 20 agents around the world including the Far East and Europe.
Four years ago he joined his present company and was promoted to Sales Director after two years service. The company has an international presence and produce a range of high quality products for industrial and production users.
Mr X has not yet found full satisfaction for his ability and ambitions and cannot see sufficient scope in his present company. He was attracted by the prospects and challenges of this particular appointment. If appointed, there is no doubt that he would expect increased responsibilities and financial rewards.
Finally, we consider that Mr X is a determined resourceful and imaginative person who has the qualities to make excellent use of a real career opportunity. In a sales situation he is quite capable of exercising effectively a great deal of tact and diplomacy while pressing his purpose with potential customers. He has a superior intellect, a wide breadth of interest, considerable verbal fluency, a sense of humour and the flexibility necessary to converse with a variety of people and cultures. Also he has a sales sense and the practical judgment to capitalise on sales and new business opportunities.
After a reasonable period of familiarisation, Mr X would need little in the way of personal attention from the Group Chairman. He would, however, need an occasional word of appreciation for a job well done and the monetary rewards he expects to accompany sales and productive achievement. He has the talents and the determination to take hold of this challenging assignment and to cope with major responsibility. He is unlikely to relax his efforts until he reaches his goal of top-level management. In addition, he has a real flair for organisation and is equally at home with technical concepts, figures and people. He is, in our view, well equipped to meet this demanding role.
The result of this highly specialised approach to searching for and recruiting someone who matched a very demanding Appointment Specification, is a company that now has the candidate it wanted.
As was stated at the start of this article, knowing the sort of candidate you need is the easy part. Finding that rare person with the right credentials capable of full filling ambitious plans for a developing role in advancing an organisations operations is best served by enlisting the aid of a specialist recruitment service of the type provided by de Belder Associates Ltd.
