3 things to remember when hiring director roles in FMCG

Hiring at any level is still a struggle that most sectors are dealing with, but the most senior roles have some obvious complications. 

  • There are far fewer people with the necessary skills and experience 
  • They are likely to be particular about where they move and when, since the roles they take at this stage will have an enormous impact on their careers 
  • They will likely have particular ideas about the direction they want to take the brand and their department, and those ideas need to complement yours 

With that in mind, here are three tips for hiring for FMCG director roles. 

1. Offer an attractive package

That hardly sounds ground-breaking as a tip, but there’s a lot of complexity to crafting and offering an enticing employment package. 

You’ll almost certainly be looking for talent from other FMCG businesses, because much of the experience you’ll want is sector-specific. Meanwhile, HR departments in other brands are incentivised to make ‘poaching’ their people difficult, and to make leaving the business painful. Your offering needs to be worth the struggle of leaving, or in FMCG terms, the juice needs to be worth the squeeze. 

Firstly, salary. Market intelligence is your starting point, because you don’t want to take part in a blind auction and risk offering something unnecessarily high or insultingly low. Working with a search partner makes that easy, because they’ll know exactly what the ‘going rate’ is. There’s also the reality that you can expect a candidate to negotiate after the initial offer, so there’s a balance to be struck between offering an attractive figure and having to agree to more. 

Secondly, there are the additional perks — things like bonuses, insurance, flexibility, and home working. Again, the market can dictate a lot of that, but don’t forget to focus on where you can really compete. If you’re offering something that will uniquely fit someone’s priorities or lifestyle then they’ll find it difficult to look elsewhere for their next role. 

2. Craft the role smartly

Rather than starting from the title and the role and finding your ideal candidate, you might do better to consider your ideal candidate and offer a role to suit them.  

Let’s say you’re hiring a marketing director. Some FMCG businesses treat customer service as an extension of their marketing department, and that’s a perfectly legitimate choice, and it works brilliantly for those who know how to do it well. However, there will be incredible marketing director candidates who find the idea of leading the customer service department deeply unappealing. If you’ve folded those responsibilities into the role, that candidate could lose interest immediately. 

Your search partner should have a thorough idea of what works and what will tempt your target hire to join you, so make sure to take advantage of their knowledge.  

When it comes to job titles, you can tailor them a title to your targets, but it’s a good idea to stick to the ‘vocabulary’ of FMCG director roles. When people hear ‘Sales Director’ and ‘Marketing Director’ they understand a lot about the role straight away. That way, they know it’s worth pursuing and you streamline the hiring process. 

If you’re a challenger brand or simply trying to stand out in a crowded market, it can be tempting to craft bespoke job titles that catch the eye. Elon Musk awarded himself the title of ‘Technoking of Tesla’ and named his CFO as ‘Master of Coin’, but emulating that isn’t likely to serve you well. It’s far more effective to state the role in unambiguous terms, because that will be ultimately more attractive to people who are looking for the roles. You or your search partner will end up having to explain the ‘real’ title anyway. 

3. Prepare a thorough role profile and candidate pack

If you could use one item that would excite good candidates about working for you, and help those who aren’t a fit to realise it, wouldn’t you use it? That’s exactly what a candidate pack does, and if you’re not using one for each of the director roles you’re hiring, you’re making a huge mistake. 

So, what should a candidate pack contain? 

  • An ‘about us’ to introduce your business  
  • A detailed description of your values and culture with any version of a ‘mission statement’ that you have 
  • Your products and services, the market, and client profiles 
  • Employee and client testimonials 
  • A role profile 

 A well-crafted candidate pack saves you a lot of time and effort. Aside from clarifying to less compatible candidates that the role might not be for them, those who fit well will advance through the hiring process more bought-in to the idea of being part of your business. 

In the current market, the more effectively you can ‘sell’ your business the better your chances of finding the talent you need. Once again, an experienced search partner can help you craft a candidate pack that will resonate with the sort of candidate you want to attract. 

Finding your perfect candidates

With the right search partner, you’ll find that your candidates are a superb fit. In that case titles, salaries, and packages are details to iron out, rather than deal breakers. 

You won’t find a partner that knows FMCG like Lime Talent. The founders alone have over sixty years’ combined experience in consumer goods, and Lime Talent has been helping businesses fill their boards with rare and sought-after talent. 

Call 020 7042 3800 and start the search today.