Business leadership often mandates that new hires come from a specific industry or category background to try to reduce risk. It is considered the “safe” way to hire, and sometimes it may well be necessary. But often a fixation on a candidate who has been in a similar role previously can shut the door to best performers who are more likely to bring more to the table - creating change and driving the business strategy.
As part of our ongoing leadership engagement at Norman Broadbent, we are conducting a survey examining what skills are transferable across operational leadership and ultimately how leaders understand the benefits and challenges of considering candidates from different sectors/industries. This led me to think about the same principles within the Procurement function and how there are still certain sectors that will opt for the ‘safe bet’ when hiring at the senior levels. Is it worth Procurement leaders exploring the option of hiring someone from a different industry? What benefits are there in taking this route? And importantly, how do you identify the rare occasions when you do absolutely need to hire someone with certain non-transferable category or industry experience?
Working within the Procurement function for the last 7 years I have found the most important competencies translate to any industry and across many categories. Areas such as Procurement strategy building, Supplier negotiation, Supplier relationship management, Vendor management and Building stakeholder engagement are universal. This has real implications for hiring trends in the short-to-medium term. Over the last twelve months certain industries have been severely affected by COVID-19, while others have not - resulting in highly competent Procurement professionals from specific sectors on the market. Wily leaders will see the opportunity to not only secure top professionals for their team, but also harness the benefits of cognitive diversity and fresh ideas that an out-of-sector hire can bring. Focussing on competencies rather than experience, we have found often you can drop the best people in to any industry/category and they will thrive! The benefits of hiring from outside of industry can include:
- Bringing diversity of thinking and perspective, when a candidate is forced by circumstance to learn a new industry, they will naturally apply what they’ve learned in other industries, and might be able to bring a fresh perspective to the table.
- People who have performed the same or similar jobs over and over may become calcified in their traditional methods, these are the worst candidates to hire if you want someone to rethink or re-imagine a function/category, streamline a process or improve operations.
- Someone who has performed an identical job in a different company is not going to question or reconsider processes, decisions, methods, or strategies as easily as an outsider will.
- When hiring someone who lacks industry/category experience, it can challenge the managers and stakeholders by having to answer questions they haven’t answered for years or ever. This in turn challenges the business to consider processes, methods, and technology afresh.