SCOUTING FOR TALENT

DAVID GHITELMAN

When the going gets tough, tough companies conduct tough job searches.

The good news for supermarket executives, according to recruiters in the retail food industry, is that companies are hiring. The bad news, recruiters said, is that companies are raising the bar on qualifications.

In short, the jobs are out there, but the hurdles to getting them have never been higher.

Some recruiters said the overall economic environment has not diminished the number of available jobs. Norm Wills, senior partner, Craig Search, Dallas, told SN, "I don't think the slowdown has affected us at all. Companies are always looking to upgrade, looking for the top 10% of employees.

"When the economy gets tight, we do better. People become more interested in security."

Observed Mary Jane Schermer, Boulder, Colo.-based managing director for Cook Associates, Chicago, "The needs of companies in this field are unique. It's still as difficult as ever for supermarket chains to attract and retain good workers."

However, recruiters caution, the retail landscape is in flux, the pace of change in the field accelerating.

"It's a fallout from the acquisitions of recent years," said Jose Tamez, managing partner, Austin-Michaels, a San Antonio-based executive recruiting firm. "Companies are much more likely to move swiftly with organizational changes. The kinder, gentler days have been gone for a while."

Recruiters pointed to a number of shifts in the job market over the past year:

People with a proven record in saving money or driving traffic are being offered top dollar. The demand for technology specialists is weak.

Specialization in general remains very much in vogue.

Companies continue to search for talent, including talent at the highest level, outside the industry.

While recruiters differed on whether there is a glut of available talent, they agreed that job searches tend to be longer now than a few years ago.

Driving Traffic, Saving Money

As companies strengthen their focus on organic growth, perishables specialists, who oversee some of the highest-margin departments, are finding their services very much in demand.

Wills noted, "Companies want to upgrade in perishables. They want people who are professional. Meat, seafood, produce and floral -- these are high-margin areas. We've seen some significant raises."

Schermer said, "Perishables is a tough category. It's hard to find good talent. You need someone who's not only a good merchandiser, but who also understands the supply chain, someone who can run a business unit.

"You've got to be able to drive traffic. Without traffic and turn of inventory, you're not going to be profitable."

As in years past, people with strong experience in such cost-cutting areas as logistics remain in high demand.

Wills explained, "Distribution is a cost-center. If you can find someone who can run the same function at a lower cost, that's very attractive.

"Category management is the same thing. You want people who can get you the same product at lower cost."

Schermer said, "It's the same that we've always seen. Any job that's related to the supply chain will be in demand."

Supermarkets are also looking to hire people for positions that, although not newly created, have recently grown in importance, Schemer noted. These jobs include running such in-store departments as natural foods and prepared meals, as well as such headquarters-based posts as ethnic marketing and strategic planning, she said.

Not in demand at the moment are technology specialists, the recruiters said. Many companies brought a lot of computer experts on board to deal with Y2K issues. With the softening of the technology market, many of them have remained in the supermarket field.

This year, in a marked departure from the recent past, salaries for tech jobs were flat, or even declined.

Tamez said, "We are way down in terms of doing searches for technology jobs."

Schermer noted, "Last year and the years before, there was a desperation to find good technology people, particularly at the middle-level and below.

"That has gone away. There is a greater abundance of that talent around. With the downsizing at technology companies, there is more of that talent coming at us.

"However, at the senior level the need for good people is as strong as ever, and I don't think it's going to change."

Specialists Wanted

While the precise specialties that companies are looking for may change with the general economy and management trends, recruiters said the demand for people with great depth in narrow fields has not been changing.

Commented Wills, "Companies do not want to take the risk of having to train somebody."

Tamez said, "This industry does not move at the speed of light, but the criteria that make someone an attractive hire have changed.

"Companies want someone with a history of producing results that can be measured in a much more tangible fashion. Companies want people who can show numbers of how they boosted same-store sales, cut shrink and saved money."

Operators want people who have mastered very specific tasks, the recruiters noted. Tamez told SN he had a client that was looking to hire a director of dairy and a director of frozens at a $90,000-to-$100,000 salary range for each position. The recruiter suggested the retailer hire one person at $120,000 to do both jobs. The retailer told him no.

"He said he wanted someone who was a specialist to leverage each specific category," Tamez recalled.

Outside the Box

However, all these specialists need not have honed these skills working in a supermarket.

Schermer pointed out that companies looking to upgrade their prepared meal offerings will often seek people from the restaurant industry.

"The focus is on the casual dining industry, chains like Applebee's, rather than fast food," she said. "The supermarkets want to use prepared foods to both drive traffic and get people to stay a little longer in the store. They want shoppers to sit down and enjoy a meal there."

Strategic planning is another skill one doesn't necessarily pick up bagging groceries, replenishing shelves or even managing a store. Increasingly, companies are looking outside the industry for people with broad, high-level managerial skills.

Tamez said he had recently been approached by two multiregional chains looking for people to fill corporate planning positions. "The job descriptions clearly did not identify anyone currently in the industry," he noted. "They wanted someone with experience at a Big Six accounting firm, not someone homegrown in our business."

Tamez said people with that sort of background are usually not a natural fit for the supermarket industry. "Attracting them is one thing," he said. "Actually attaining their services is another.

"The supermarket industry may not be extremely interesting to them. Are they going to stick it out once they experience it? The industry has rarely tapped this sort of individual. Both parties have to be patient."

He added that companies have to be patient in the hiring process for these positions as well. "The search can take half a year. The companies are saying, 'We want someone to come in here and do business in a way we haven't done in the past."'

Schermer said she expects the willingness to fill jobs, even top-level positions, with people from outside the industry is likely to grow. "The supermarket industry has been a little bit of an old boys' network," she noted. "More and more companies are going with new kinds of leadership; they are seeing the necessity of bringing in new thought and new talent.

"And companies can now see proven examples of people coming from the outside and being successful."

The Big Search

Executives looking to change jobs can also find that searches are taking longer, recruiters told SN.

Recruiters offered a variety of possible reasons for this.

Tamez noted that there are a lot of people out there looking for new jobs.

"Is there more available talent? Yes, this is more of a talent glut," he said.

Schermer suggested the cause may be the overall economic environment. "Because of the economic slowdown, many clients are a little more cautious about making big moves," she said. "They may have a lot of big plans on their plate, but they are being a little more cautious moving forward."

And Wills offered job-seekers some classic advice. "Maintain discipline," he said. "You have to work as hard finding a job as you do in the job you have now."