Would you apply to your own job posting?

This is an excerpt of the original article. It was written for the May-June 2022 edition of Supply Chain Management Review. The full article is available to current subscribers.

May-June 2022

I recently returned from three days in Atlanta at the Modex trade show. Although advertised as a supply chain event, it’s really a materials handling automation show with a handful of logistics providers thrown in for good measure. Heading out the door to the airport, I had no idea what to expect. The two-year absence from the trade show and conference scene had me, and many of the individuals I spoke to before the show opened, wondering what’s next—not just for the show but for operations in general. If the turnout and the enthusiasm is any indication, I think supply chain is in pretty good shape these days, despite the disruptions we’ve…

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Ever visit a job posting site and been less than inspired by what you read? Indeed, you have.

Some postings feel incomplete. Others read as if they were written from a script of interchangeable words with little meaning to a specific job or company. Still other postings leave you no better informed about the job or the company advertising it than you were before reading it.

We’ve all been there. Worse yet, some of us might even say the same about postings for jobs in our own company, or, even worse than that, our department.

It’s actually shocking how poor so many postings are. Yet not a day goes by that someone doesn’t remind us of the current difficulties in finding people for open positions. You would think that alone would be motivation to get the next posting right to reach suitable candidates. While it’s not working that way now, it can in the future.

We evaluated more than 400 job advertisements for procurement positions. We also contacted 256 procurement professionals about the skills they considered most important for various procurement jobs. Our conclusion: There’s a huge mismatch between the postings and the expressed requirements of the procurement professionals.

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