Foster Industrial Case Study

Earlier this year, we worked with Foster Industrial to support their recruitment campaign for a Buyer. This Case Study aims to show:

• The recruitment challenges Foster Industrial were facing
• What we did to support them
• The results we delivered from our permanent recruitment solution

Using the links above, you can quickly navigate to the section you’d like to read.

Who are Foster Industrial?

Foster Industrial is a welding supplies merchant founded in 1886. They remain a family-run business with fourth-generation foster brothers Richard and Charles managing the business. On top of supplying quality welding products including:

• Equipment,
• Consumables
• PPE  

Foster Industrial are specialists in providing additional welding solutions that aim to improve the processes of their clientele.

The Role: A Buyer in Shepshed

They approached us via LinkedIn, looking for a new Buyer to join the team. They had an opening due to an internal promotion, with their Buyer promoted to Operations Manager. 

They had realistic expectations for their ideal candidate. Ideally, wanting someone with previous experience in supply chain procedures, as they’d be able to go straight into duties. On top of this, their package was competitive for the market at that time. 

Why did they choose Stirling Warrington?

Given how many recruitment agencies there are, we wanted to know why they chose us. So, we asked the Operations Manager Joe Baxter to share his reasons:

“They were proactive, had a good media presence and actively engaged with our staff to get the best picture of our business. Although this happened during the campaign, we liked how they approached candidates they thought would fit rather than just the candidates that came forward to them.”

The Recruitment Challenge: Candidate Experience Not Aligning With Company Model

Foster Industrial had been recruiting for 3-4 months and was working with a different recruitment agency in Leicester.

However, they were unhappy with the calibre of candidates that this agency was submitting. They felt as though the agency was just sending over any candidate that applied. Many of the candidates lacked experience in supply chain procedures or they didn’t align with the business culture.

This approach wasn’t helping Foster Industrial and was interfering with their business function. This was made worse by the fact that the role had been live for so long.

So, speed was of the essence for this campaign.

Our Recruitment Solution: A Culture-Focused Recruitment Campaign

With a lack of experience and little work-culture alignment challenging us, we knew we had to approach this recruitment campaign differently. So, we put the company culture at the centre of what we did. Adam Dolman headed up the recruitment for this role; we did a few things to make this campaign work for Foster Industrial’s needs.

Firstly we ran a traditional recruitment campaign.

To start this, we created a searched-optimised job advert, honing in on the company value. So it was focused on what the candidate expected from Foster Industry. We opted to include important factors such as:

• Foster Industrials’ incredibly low staff turnover
• The reason why the position was open
• What the team are like
• And even being able to have a laugh

As specific buying experience wasn’t crucial to the role, we expanded our search, including candidates with great knowledge of supply chain functions. On top of this, we made it apparent throughout the campaign that knowledge of welding products wasn’t essential. Which, once again, opened up the candidate pool we accessed.

Maximising Recruitment Results

We enhanced the campaign by suggesting Foster Industrial use our Recruitment Marketing Solution. As part of this, our marketing team visited the site in Shepshed and created videos for both parties to use. The videos focused on the team and how the business supports its employees.

We also created a short informational video about the company and the Buyer role. We then used these videos in 2 ways:

• To increase awareness of the company by digitally sharing them.
• To show prospective candidates the organisation before interviewing.

After this, we then continued with the recruitment campaign. This followed your more traditional structure, with telephone assessments, in-person interviews and onboarding aftercare.

The Results We Delivered

Using our recruitment strategies, we quickly reached candidates and within 7 days, we screened and sent over 2 high-calibre candidates.

Foster Industrial interviewed both of our candidates as they both aligned with their requirements! The feedback recognised how well-prepared both candidates were for their interviews and the videos we created were really helpful.

By day 9 the offer was made and accepted! The candidate has been working at Foster industrial for a while now and has been doing extremely well.

Joe had a few words to share about the new buyer that joined the team:

“Great appointment, given other members of the team confidence that the person in the role is experienced and will get the job done. The appointment has allowed me to concentrate on other areas of the business that will drastically improve how we operate as a business as a whole.”

Unexpected Results from Our Recruitment Marketing

An unexpected result of the recording was that it became a team-building exercise. The team came together to watch and support their colleagues and it ended up being a lot of fun- the bloopers are proof of that.

The videos reached well over 10k impressions across our socials! Using this content through the recruitment process enabled us to streamline the assessment phase, and many candidates contacted us on the back of it!

We’ve included the videos we created for Foster Industrial for you to watch. As well as this, we’ve also created social-media-specific videos you can find on our page.

Why was this permanent recruitment campaign successful?

Our success with the campaign is largely down to our experience in this area, the thorough analysis during the site visit and trying new techniques. To quote Henry Ford:

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.

This is why we’re actively encouraging employers to look into their recruitment marketing strategies. As it’s a way for you to differentiate your brand whilst recruiting. Additionally, the recruitment videos that we created helped to speed up the hiring process. As candidates saw the company culture and see if this aligned with their values. So, we’re quickly able to determine if they were a match. However, we wanted to learn a little more about why our candidates felt that the videos helped. So we went back to Foster Industrial to speak with James. This is his feedback:

What Happened After?

Since working with Foster Industrial on their Buyer role, we have maintained a fantastic partnership. In fact, we worked with them again during their recruitment for a Finance Assistant – who has since settled in really well just like James.

As we had already created a series of ‘evergreen’ videos that covered the culture of the business, we were able to use them during the second campaign. This, once again, helped us to find someone that would align with the culture – it also helps candidates prepare for their interview.

Unhappy with your current results?

Are you hiring and unhappy with the calibre of candidates you’re receiving? Or do you not have the time or resources to create your own recruitment content? Then you should contact our team! We’d be more than happy to come and have a discussion about our services and see if they align with your requirements.