JMJ Phillip

JMJ Phillip Featured On Recruiterbox

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The ebb and flow of mixing generations has never been as dynamic as it is today with the baby boomers and millennials. Recruiterbox asked Dennis Theodorou, Vice President of Executive Search and Operations, the question of how to make it all work in today’s world. If you have seen the movie, “The Intern,” you kind of have an idea of how things went.

“Millennials need to stop looking at the age gap of baby boomers and ask themselves how all of this person’s experience can help me,” says Dennis Theodorou, vice president of JMJ Phillip Executive Search. “We see this often as one of our companies is specialized in succession planning. We will interview a baby boomer with 40 years of years of experience and our board thinks that bringing in the up-and-coming star with an MBA can replace the baby boomer with a ‘little grooming.’ It doesn’t necessarily work that way.”

To read the entire story visit  JMJ Phillip on the Baby Boomers and Millennials

JMJ Phillip Featured On Computerworld

Posted on by JMJ Phillip

Dennis Theodorou, Vice President of Executive Search and Operations, was recently featured on Computerworld. The discussion of STEM degrees often comes up with our clients and candidates. The question is, does school matter when it comes to STEM jobs?

“Dennis Theodorou, vice president of operations at JMJ Phillip Executive Search, agrees that a top-tier school will open more doors for an undergrad. But after 10 years “it’s really about the experience you have.”

If you have worked at an Apple or Google, “you’re still getting the call from a hiring manager – even if you only have a community college degree.”

To view the entire article see JMJ Phillip on STEM Degrees

Technology Recruiting Case Study

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IT Turnaround in the Social Media Era

(IT Executive Recruiting)

You checked LinkedIn, talked to a couple of IT Executive Recruiters and you feel like you are one step away from making a bad decision in hiring a CIO that can turnaround your organization. Do you make the decision on your own? Do you hire a Technology Recruiter to find you some paper? In the end, how do you increase your chances of making the right hire because you do not have any margin of error this time around?

In most cases partnering with an IT Search Firm is going to increase your chances of seeing some new faces, but are they the right people for the job? A majority of all IT Recruiters focus on finding you as many bodies as possible to view. Our approach is to align your vision with our unique skill sets to identify the top candidates of their industry.

But how do you separate the handful of great IT Recruiters from the rest? How about working with a firm where one of the founders was one of the youngest to receive MCSE in Michigan in the 1990’s? A firm where one of the founders is also a venture capitalist in the emerging Technology sector? Or lastly, where another JMJ Phillip founder has been involved in the technology sector for more than 15 years across many different levels?

Those same points are what brought a new client to us recently as they wanted to hire a new CIO to not only turnaround their technology department, but to also drive revenue to new heights by leveraging social media and Web 2.0 principals. As one of the JMJ Phillip original founders has said “The CIO position has become as important as the Vice President of Sales and Marketing in terms of driving revenue, and maybe even as important as the CEO. Through the Web alone companies can drive hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue by simply leveraging web technologies in the correct manner”.

The IT Executive Recruiting Team assembled a plan of execution that specifically weeded out anyone that did not display a strong desire to be #1. In this case when your company is going toe-to-toe with your competitors on the web, prime real estate is limited and only the most competitive and creative are going to win. We found dozens of candidates that could turnaround and implement the existing infrastructure plan, but it was going to take a special individual to not only manage the technical backend but who could also bridge the gap with marketing a plan so it could be translated into something that worked well on the web.

Our clients end result was the perfect placement of a CIO that not only had the technical knowledge for even the largest of organizations but more importantly was a true visionary. The key to this successful placement was not just identifying the correct individual; it was the actual allurement which in this case came down to in person meetings and dozens of phone calls since our client was 25 times smaller than the candidates current employer.

To learn more about our recruiting capabilities for IT and Technology positions please visit IT RECRUITING SERVICES

Global Supply Chain Case Study

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$13B Manufacturer Brings Supply Chain Back In-House

(Supply Chain Recruiting)

What happens when you decide to move your Supply Chain Management
and 3PL back in-house to have more control over your operations, only to
witness your large national recruiting firm not deliver the hundreds of
supply chain professionals you need to sustain operations?
Utter chaos ensues, fingers are pointed, production rates drop and delivery
expedites of both materials and finished goods soar.

This is what led a $13B Global Manufacturer to a Detroit, Michigan-based
Supply Chain Recruiting Firm, The JMJ Phillip Group. If you could think of
anywhere in the country that would have a deep understanding of supply chain
operations it would be Detroit, Michigan simply due to the large scale complex manufacturing
operations of the automotive industry.

Our new client explained their mass hire problem while noting that they are already 90 days
behind schedule and banking on our Executive Search Firm to not only make highly qualified
placements, but also expect them to be done under extreme time constraints.
Their Supply Chain Recruiting problems were also compounded with trying to fill positions
all across the United States in both major metropolitan areas and rural areas where
relocation was the only option.

The Supply Chain Executive Recruiting Team assembled a plan of execution that
included an “any means necessary” approach to driving candidate referrals. Understanding
the supply chain sector is only a small component of a great recruiter, one must also
be a top notch sales professional and negotiator when it comes to making highly targeted rapid
placements in not only in major metros but also in the more undesirable areas of the country. These
unique and rare skill sets are not found in most recruiting firms but we can attribute the same
skill sets not only to our success with this client but also to our continued success for well
over a decade now.

The end result for our clients was the rapid and strategic placement of their most imperative
and hard to fill supply chain positions in multiple locations. Not only did the JMJ Phillip
Executive Recruiting team get them back on track, they also ended up saving them
hundreds of thousands of dollars in cost overruns and damaged customer relationships.

To learn more about our Supply Chain Recruiting capabilities please visit SUPPLY CHAIN RECRUITING SERVICES

Manufacturing Recruiting Case Study

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Companies Target Detroit for Manufacturing Recruiting

(National Manufacturing Recruiting)

The amazing thing about the recruiting business is that where you are located often does not matter. With technology today, as long as you have the right tools you can operate from any location. With that aside, companies often choose to work with a particular recruiter based on their location simply because of their roots in a certain industry. A great example of this is the financial markets, where you would often choose a recruiter in Chicago or New York City and in our case for Manufacturing Recruiting many will choose Detroit, Michigan. Companies from all over the world have come to the JMJ Phillip Group for all of their Manufacturing recruiting services based on our deep understanding of manufacturing and our reputation in the industry.

Our reputation and know-how is what leads companies to our Detroit, Michigan Headquarters. One client in particular came to us nearly a decade ago and still does business with us today. With over 50 placements made ranging from recent grads to executives all across the nation for this client, we once asked, what led you to us? Ultimately after striking out with their local recruiter for candidate flow and lack of understanding of their business they sought out someone that has the manufacturing recruiting experience they desired. Even with our client being located on the West Coast in Southern California it was not long before we became their #1 Executive Search Firm partner, and still remain their top supplier today.

We like to think of ourselves as trusted advisors and we want to maintain the kind of relationships that last several decades. In order for us to do so we must deliver precise results time and time again much like we have with this client. But what happens when the phone rings and you need to fill 3 key director positions ASAP? These are the kind of situations that sink many recruiting firms. Can they handle 3 key positions under difficult time restraints?

Our clients end result was the strategic placement of all 3 director positions with one of them being local. Hard work and consistency has been the winning formula for the JMJ Phillip Group for nearly 15 years. When you decide to make organizational changes who will you consider a trusted advisor?

To learn more about our recruiting capabilities for Manufacturing positions please visit MANUFACTURING RECRUITING SERVICES

Amazon’s One Day Delivery Reminiscent Of The Old Kozmo.com

Posted on by JMJ Phillip

 

If you remember the good ole days of the tech boom or happen to have watched the movie e-Dreams then you remember Kozmo.com. 15 years after the failure of Kozmo.com, Amazon is launching their one hour delivery service in Manhattan. Was Joseph Park really 15 years ahead of his time? It seems things haven’t changed in America since then; we want everything and we want it an hour ago.

In 1999 it seemed people wanted same day delivery so was it a matter of execution, lack of technology or has the world grown so impatient that the willingness to fork over more money to have something “right now” has directly created a demand for the service? We don’t see the lack of need or value going away for same day delivery, it’s just a matter of execution on Amazon’s behalf. Highly dense areas such as NYC make sense with a hub and spoke distribution configuration, but it should get interesting if they ever launch it in a widely dispersed suburban area. Joseph Park eventually ended up working at Amazon at some point in time, so now we have to wonder what he thinks about Amazon taking on the marketplace he once wanted to conquer.

 

Corporate Culture And The Sound Of Laughter In The Office

Posted on by JMJ Phillip

The executive search business is interesting. I have heard people call executive recruiters everything from a bunch of motivated misfits to crafty extroverted intellectuals. It’s often a cyclical business much like consumer goods mixed in with the emotional highs and lows of the tech boom in 2000 which can greatly affect the office environment.

We often have the highest of highs and lowest of the lows. Highs where you think the party is never going to end and lows where you question why you got out of bed in the morning. It is never boring; our sector deals with nothing but humans on both sides of the coin all day, every day, nights and weekends (and I am not talking about your Verizon plan). Some people are rational, some irrational, but either way, candidate or client, people surprise you in every way possible.

With the eclectic mix of people in our business who are often aggressively fueled by quad lattes, combined with all of the ups and downs we face, there is one thing I have grown to love about our company: Regardless of the day, I can hear laughter throughout the office as I just did at 11:40am EST on December the 11th, 2014.

The laughter and excitement wasn’t the signing of a new client, it wasn’t the placement of a VP of Manufacturing for a Fortune 500 nor was it the announcement of what is for lunch. It was simply the laughter of a team enjoying their jobs, their colleagues, and the culture that we have created.

The day you walk into your office and cannot smile and laugh as you do your job and grow both professionally and personally is the day you should start to change the environment around you. I think we all agree that those engaged with their environment and teams will produce greater results.

The next time you hear a silent office ask yourself: How many people walked in this morning excited to be here?

Then ask yourself what can I do to change it?

Make someone laugh in your office today, you will find it to be contagious.

Starbucks Supply Chain Woes From The View Of A Life Long Customer

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Full Discloser: I am a Starbucks “fan,” an overall coffee junkie and most importantly a loyal customer.

Being in the business, in which I mean an executive search firm for the supply chain sector, internally or between our offices, free time is often spent talking about supply chain strategies of major corporations. More often than not, these debates or complaints about issues are usually food based, as it seems food has become more talked about than politics these days.

For me personally to be able to measure anything retail QSR I need to visit them often enough to see trend, be it micro trends or macro trends. I would say I visit a Starbucks store at least 6 out of 7 days. For business days I often visit twice, and that is usually different locations with one being a drive-thru window and another as a walk-in.

With that being said I go often enough to see the trends. In fact, if Starbucks is using big data they can likely figure out exactly who I am, as I am a one trick pony: Venti Mocha or Venti Mocha with a Ham and Cheese Square. Now you know what a Café Mocha is, but if you haven’t tried the Ham and Cheese Square you have done yourself harm, great harm. Go try one ASAP.

But wait, your chances of getting that ham and cheese square may be slim! Certain locations we frequent only had them in stock about 50% of the time over the last few months. Others in our office have noted the same thing. So how can a corporation like Starbucks let this happen? You create a product that brings me back to your store for a second time that day but you cannot make the sale conversion because of the lack of inventory. We expect that from a local coffee shop start-up but not from Starbucks.

Wait again! Multiple times they haven’t had coffee sleeves or drink stoppers. Often I will grab 4 or 8 drinks to bring into the office and doing so with Detroit and Chicago roads without stoppers only makes a mess. One location was kind enough to offer me straws I can bend over and use as stoppers if I wanted to try it. Thanks, I guess?

Those are just some examples, but for the last 12 months we have consistently seen a lack of availability in food products, often extending for weeks, on top of some of the basic necessities to operate a coffee shop like sleeves and stoppers.

Often we ask our customers, “What type of career background would the ideal candidate have?” They say anyone who has experience from a world-class supply chain company such as Amazon, Starbucks, Proctor & Gamble and Apple.

Starbucks has everything going for them from great products to a loyal customer base, but has growth and expansion into foods caused their supply chain stress?

Well, I am off to get mocha and a ham and cheese square, or so I hope…