Bespoke solution: European client in the automotive sector

Outline:

A sales director at a major automotive supplier contacted us, having recently assumed a new position. He discovered that, for over a year, they had been searching for a commercial vehicle sales manager based in Sweden or the UK with one of the biggest names in recruitment but were not presented with suitable candidates.

Challenges faced:

Our competitor had already conducted a fairly detailed search of the market but was unable to identify suitable candidates. Antal had never worked with this company, and they had a significant business relationship with another recruitment company. Therefore, we had to deliver quick results.

The Antal Solution:

One strong competitive advantage of our office is our experience and extensive network in the automotive field.

In a candidate market (where there is a shortage of active and available candidates, and mainly passive candidates are present), we had to rely on both our capacity to approach the right talents and to use our network in the automotive field (Personal and Antal networks).

After extensive searching and networking, we found the suitable candidate in less than a month.

The Process:

As this was a new client, we proposed working in the same way as we did for other similar talent search engagements. We implemented a robust "Candidates Search Project" approach, including a clear statement of work with weekly reporting, etc. Throughout the project, we worked closely with the hiring manager, presenting candidates as we vetted them rather than waiting to compile a full shortlist.

We developed a specific list of questions for the interview to address both hard and soft skills, aiming not only to match the job description but also to align with the corporate culture of our client to ensure the candidates presented would be a perfect fit.

The Outcome:

We found the suitable candidate from our automotive network; he did not have an updated LinkedIn profile and was not easily reachable.

This success led to five more senior roles that were assigned to us in the successive months.

Source:

Case study written by our team in Luxembourg, November 2023 – led by Managing Partner, Jose Morente