Finding local talent for a major US food and beverage manufacture

The pandemic drove up demand for this food and drinks manufacturer’s products but when it needed talent to ramp up production it restricted itself to hiring only local talent. That led to a drop in the number and quality of candidates. So they turned to SThree to find a solution.

It’s not uncommon for companies in the food and beverage manufacturing industry to wait months before having someone ‘in seat’. So we committed to a one-week turnaround from job intake to position fill. To deliver on this promise, we had to create a custom recruitment solution that included both reactive and proactive strategies.

We started to market-map the local areas and began approaching talent that matched the criteria, leveraging social media platforms and posting advertisements on job boards to source resumes and vet talent. The proactive strategy included employing our gold accredited candidate bench and tapping into referrals. This enabled us to place a Facilities Engineer and a Senior Project Developer in just one day.

In the span of just nine months, SThree supplied over 20 highly qualified individuals to the client’s plants in Oregon, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina and Florida. These individuals spanned different disciplines, including construction management, site management, food science, research and development, quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC), project engineering, project management and facilities engineering.

After building trust with the client and proving ourselves capable of delivering, we were appointed by an executive within another division of the company to support his division’s employment needs. We have now completed several key projects contributing to the client’s operational and monetary growth, from robotics and automation to sustainable packaging and labelling.

Despite the uncertainties created by Covid-19, SThree has matched the client with 24 skilled individuals to date and has achieved a healthy 3:1 interview-to-hire ratio, surpassing the industry average. Since establishing the relationship, we have become their trusted partner and the strategic partnership continues to grow.