Planning a Startup or Expansion?

Project Recruitment Services May be a Solution for Your Organization

One of the greatest challenges to launching a new manufacturing facility is getting optimal talent onboard in a timely and efficient manner.  Internal talent acquisition teams are often not prepared to scale to the short-term increase in demand for talent and senior leadership are often unaware of the benefits that can be gained from engaging a competent service provider to support it. The service delivery model Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) or what we at The QualiFind Group refer to as Project Recruitment can be your solution to the many dynamics associated with a commercial or industrial startup.  There are numerous benefits that a project recruitment delivery model can deliver to include the following:

1. Specialized Expertise:  Project Recruitment or RPO providers are focused on the recruitment and talent acquisition function on a full-time basis and as a result bring extensive knowledge and experience in manufacturing and startup recruitment.  An experienced provider will have years of experience developing tailored recruitment strategies, designing job descriptions, and identifying the specific skills and competencies as well as knowledge of compensation and available talent in the area required to support each phase of the startup.  Additionally, you will want a recruitment provider that has cultural fluency and experience supporting startups in the region you will be launching.

2. Scalability:  Launching a manufacturing greenfield or startup typically involves aggressive growth plans and fluctuating demands for skilled technical and managerial talent within a short timeframe.  You will want to work with a recruitment provider that has the infrastructure and resources to scale their services to meet your needs.  Your chosen provider should be able to quickly identify needed talent in relevant markets, ramp up recruitment and candidate engagement efforts, help you craft a compelling message for passive talent, handle high volumes of applicants, and simultaneously manage multiple job openings.  Regardless of whether you need to hire 5, 100 or 1,000 employees in 90 days or 18 months, in one or three countries, a competent recruitment provider should be prepared to scale to meet your needs.

3. Cost-Efficiency:  Recruitment providers with the needed expertise and ability to scale can provide cost and time savings compared to adding to or building an in-house recruitment team.  By outsourcing the recruitment process during the ramp-up phase, you avoid investing in internal recruitment infrastructure, technology, and ongoing training that will often lack the broader experience that can be found in an established recruitment firm.  An experienced recruitment provider will deliver greater benefits in responding to time constraints, the fluctuating volume of hiring, and geographic reach to effectively optimize recruitment costs and minimize time-to-fill vacancies.

4. Streamlined Recruitment Process:  Experienced recruitment providers can streamline the recruitment process by leveraging time and project-tested tools, technologies, and best practices. They can handle the broader aspects of the recruitment process such as sourcing and engaging candidates, supporting your employer brand through better messaging of the opportunities, conducting initial screenings, managing deliverables via a CRM or applicant tracking system, coordinating interviews, managing pre-employment assessments, and reference checks.  This gives you the ability to plug into the recruitment provider for the short term to ensure a more efficient process in meeting time, cost, and resource constraints without negatively impacting the other critical aspects of either your day-to-day operations or the demands of the manufacturing startup.
If you are reviewing multiple recruitment providers, you will want to ensure they have developed their practice with experience supporting various client organizations.  Some of The QualiFind Group’s earliest client organizations were site launches for large multinational organizations such as Toyota, Audi, and Honeywell.  Each of these companies required our firm to rapidly adapt and scale to meet their timelines and talent needs and align our processes to their own.  The experiences gained from these earlier projects have served as building blocks to the robust process, ability to adapt and scale and deliver efficient results against aggressive timelines.     

5. Access to Technology and Talent Networks:  An optimal recruitment provider will have established access to extensive networks of both passive and active candidates across industries, functional disciplines and geographies.  They should have the necessary research and support staff in place to allow them to tap into these networks and fill out the recruitment pipeline for their team of recruiters assigned to your project.  Competent recruiters will be able to work across both active and passive talent networks to deliver talent that’s targeted to search mandates regardless of whether they are reading online job posts or being engaged directly by the recruitment team.  This ensures your stakeholders in the hiring process are given greater hiring options, deeper access to the talent pool, and an overall increased chance of finding the best available candidates.
Your chosen recruitment provider should also have the appropriate technology to deliver candidates to you in an organized manner.  For example, The QualiFind Group uses a Cloud-based password-protected portal for client hiring managers to access short-listed candidates as they are vetted for consideration.  This allows your hiring managers to access candidates in a central location rather than searching through a historical list of emails.  The portal also offers our client hiring managers the ability to add notes to short-listed candidate profiles which further aids in the collaborative process.

6. Employer Branding and Candidate Experience:   You will want to ensure that your chosen recruitment provider can message the values associated with employment with your organization along with their record of treating candidates with due respect and courtesy.  Your startup or site launch is an opportunity for you to build on your employer brand by ensuring that the process is conducted by an experienced recruitment service provider.  They should be able to provide you with examples of their developing attractive employer value propositions, create compelling job descriptions, and optimize the candidate experience throughout the recruitment process.  Today’s market for high-performing talent is more competitive than ever before and you will want to leave little to chance in attracting top talent while enhancing the perception of your manufacturing startup in the local job market.

If you are planning or managing a greenfield project, you owe it to yourself to consider hiring a recruitment service provider to support you through the startup phase.  My team and I within The QualiFind Group have been delivering specialized expertise, scalability, cost-efficiency, streamlined processes, access to talent networks, enhanced employer branding, and all via a state-of-the-art CRM system.  We use technology as a tool in providing a more tailored and efficient approach to meet your need for talent – when and where you need it.

– Carlos Acosta


Carlos Acosta is the Practice Leader of The QualiFind Group based in San Diego, California.  The QualiFind Group is a Forbes-ranked professional & technical recruitment firm with an established global network of recruiting professionals.  The QualiFind Group has supported a broad range of manufacturing startups, turnarounds, expansions and topgrading projects for multinational organizations throughout the US, Mexico and Canada since 1999.  We have extensive expertise supporting such industry sectors as automotive, aerospace, agricultural equipment, building materials, consumer products, HVAC, industrial automation, renewable energy, and others.


Would you like to learn more about
the benefits of project-oriented recruitment services?

Contact Carlos Acosta at 619-240-2638 or Warren Carter at 619-921-1795

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