As leader of a growing industrial business, your success ultimately depends on your people. You rely on your key team members to deliver against the business plan. Whether you’re expanding into new market segments, scaling production capabilities, or building out your commercial team to drive revenue, people with the right attitude, values, skills and specialized knowledge are your impact players. You may need to make changes to the team along the way to ensure that success continues. But the process of doing so is on no leader’s top-ten list of preferred activities.
For over 30 years, Thomas Brooke has helped leaders of industrial companies transform the challenge of key talent acquisition into a strategic asset. We match needed technical expertise with the business acumen your growth strategy demands, while reinforcing the core values and culture of the business.
Understanding the Complexity of Hiring in Industrial Manufacturing Businesses
Strategic Talent Acquisition in Industrial Manufacturing and Distribution companies is complex. Your company probably doesn’t fit neatly into a single category. You might serve multiple end markets, or have production lines with entirely different processes. Distribution can be equally complex with both internal and external stakeholders. Your unique combination is your competitive advantage, but also creates challenges for hiring.
What Characterizes Industrial Manufacturing Talent Acquisition:
- Cross-Industry Knowledge Requirements: Your leaders may need to understand multiple market segments, both present and future; while your individual contributors may need to be either broad or deep.
- Technical-Commercial Balance: Success requires people who can discuss technical specifications and also close deals
- Scalability Demands: Growth-stage companies need leaders able and willing to adapt their roles as you expand. Willing to do heavy lifting today, able to think strategically for tomorrow
- Nimbleness: Your people must be able to pivot and as market opportunities come and go in today’s constantly-changing landscape
- Operational Excellence: Not just kpi’s – the right kpi’s! Insight to ensure the right focus is essential to maintain efficiency during growth
Choices In Hiring Strategy
Most outside recruitment firms operate on a transactional contingency model, i.e. they get paid when you hire someone, regardless of whether that person succeeds long-term. This approach incentivizes speed over fit, resulting in a revolving door that costs you time, money, and momentum during critical growth phases. Their high-risk, deal-based business model doesn’t have room for dedicated effort and thorough market research or deep candidate vetting.
If you stick with the internal approach, the best people aren’t reading job ads. And does your HR or internal recruiting team know how to dig deeper for talent? How much bandwidth do they have to devote to the intensive work of recruiting? What resources do they have to look beyond the obvious?
Either way, how much of your leaders’ valuable time is spent on reviewing, interviewing and administrative back and forth with barely-vetted candidates? What if there was a better way that turned a burden into a value-add?
Our Different Approach:
At Thomas Brooke, we operate as your partner, on a retained basis with a full year placement guarantee because we’re invested in supporting your success by finding candidates who deliver lasting results. When we commit to your search, we’re committing to understanding your business, your growth strategy, and the specific expertise your next hire needs to contribute immediately as well as in the longer term. We provide “white glove” service, handle the heavy lifting and take care of all the details of project management along the way.
What This Means for You:
- Dedicated Search Process: We’re working exclusively for you, not running the same candidate to multiple competing companies
- Deeper Insight: Our 30+ years in industrial markets means we know how to recognize winners – and we have the tools and resources to find them!
- Quality Over Haste: While we always work for a timely outcome, we’d rather take the time to find and fully vet the right person than rush a placement that doesn’t last
- One-Year Guarantee: We stand behind every placement because we’re invested in your long-term success
- All-US-Based Team: Direct communication with experienced recruiters who understand American industrial markets
Real Results for Growing Industrial Companies: Case Studies
Building Market Presence Through Strategic Sales Leadership
A primary investor in a mid-sized manufacturer serving multiple industrial segments approached us when the company recognized their growth was limited by their sales team’s market knowledge. Despite having strong products and efficient operations, they couldn’t penetrate adjacent markets effectively.
We placed a Business Development Manager with overlapping expertise in their existing markets plus deep knowledge of segments they’d never accessed. This person had the technical background to understand product applications and the commercial acumen to create detailed market entry strategies.
The result? Double-digit revenue growth within the first year by systematically entering new market spaces with minimal product modifications. The hire brought both the entrepreneurial drive to pursue opportunities and the strategic thinking to prioritize profitable growth.
Strengthening Operations to Support Growth
The commercially-focused, values-driven CEO of a growing batch process manufacturing company struggled to meet EBITDA targets due to manufacturing quality problems and excessive hourly production employee turnover. He had hired a new Manufacturing Director; but the individual was not equipped to deal with the issues, and lacked strategic insight. The business was heading for a stall unless they could fix these problems quickly.
We placed a COO who shared the CEO’s core values and was willing to step into a direct manufacturing leadership role in the beginning. From the trenches, he was able to diagnose root causes and fix the turnover problem, instead creating an environment with high morale and empowerment through engaged leadership. Spending time daily on the shop floor was a game changer. Once he stopped the bleeding, he was able to focus on the forward growth strategy.
The result? Business stabilized. Identification and pursuit of the right kpi’s delivered the needed operational efficiency improvements to meet EBITDA targets again and ensure production output met demand. Employee turnover went to almost zero. The CEO was able to fulfil his vision of building a profitable company that made a real contribution to his local community through solid employment opportunities. Almost three years on, the company is thriving, quality is a cornerstone of the business and the CEO sees his vision come to life.
Expanding American Operations for International Manufacturers
An international company with successful European operations needed to establish credibility in American industrial markets quickly. Their investors expected measurable results, but they lacked the necessary market presence to effectively access decision-makers.
We identified candidates with established relationships across their target industries—professionals who could open doors that would take years to unlock through cold outreach. These weren’t just salespeople; they were strategic hires who understood how to build market position in competitive industrial segments.
The placements delivered results so consistently that we’ve now helped this company expand its teams in both America and Europe, becoming their long-term recruiting partner for strategic growth initiatives.
Roles We Fill in Industrial Manufacturing & Distribution
As your partner, we can help you across the org chart. While we’re always glad to help with just one position, we excel at building high-performing, values-aligned winning teams. Our experience spans the full range of roles growing industrial companies need, from Operational leaders to Commercial and Technical leaders who can drive expansion, to specialized commercial and technical contributors with niche expertise. Here are some of the roles we work on most frequently:
- President and CXO
- VP Operations, VP Sales, VP Product Development
- Business Development Manager
- Market Development Manager
- Sales Director
- Regional Sales Manager
- Key Account Manager and Industrial Sales roles
- Applications Engineer & Technical Sales Engineer
- Technical Director
- R&D Scientist
- Product Development
- Chemical Engineer, Mechanical Engineer
- Production Managers and Operations Leaders
- Quality Control leaders
- EHS & Regulatory leaders
With experience in building products, machinery & automation, automotive components, consumer goods manufacturing, electronics, oil and gas supply, mining & minerals, and many other industrial markets, we’ve spent over thirty years deeply involved in industry, finding and matching the talent our lower to mid-market client companies need to win.
Making Your Next Strategic Hire
If you need confidence that your business plan won’t stall for lack of the right talent, then you need a reliable, trustworthy talent acquisition partner, functioning as an extension of your own team and adding powerful expertise in this one critical function. This turns a structural weakness into a competitive strength of your business.
Our clients come back to us repeatedly because we deliver candidates who become key contributors to their growth stories. Our longest-standing client has been with us for over 28 years because we’ve always delivered for them.
Ready to accelerate your growth with strategic hires who understand industrial complexity? Let’s discuss how Thomas Brooke can help you find the talent your expansion plans require.
