Head of Team (f/m) Service

Initial situation / Preliminary considerations

Our client, a well known German company in the special purpose machine manufacturing industry, is looking for a Team Leader for the service department of its refrigeration business unit.

The company operates worldwide and employs more than 20,000 people. Many companies in Germany are doing commercial refrigeration (e.g. for supermarkets) but only a few develop complete refrigeration solutions for industrial usage (e.g. for production plants) like our client. It is a very crucial and challenging job to lead a service team within this industry and handle the servicing of products such as huge refrigeration compressors, tunnel freezers or screw packages. The candidate must also have the necessary experience to become the Service Manager for the entire DACH (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) area. Some large companies within our client‘s industry sector are also specialized in constructing and manufacturing huge refrigeration solutions, while many smaller companies only offer maintenance and after sales services.

Procedure / Project realisation

140 companies are included on the target list and are agreed to by our client at the beginning of the search. The identification department then finds 160 potential candidates. After the initial contact with the candidates, we then know whether or not they have all the necessary qualifications for the specific position (e.g. management experience, mobility). Six weeks from when we began the project, we have presented three candidates and our client chose someone from a direct competitor. Shortly before the candidate is set to start their new position, the person changes their mind and decides not leave their current employer. In order to successfully complete the search, the target list is extended to more than 200 companies. After another eight more weeks of intensive searches, initial contacts and prescreen interviews, our client decides to meet with another group of candidates. One of them, again from a direct competitor, is hired by our client. By the end of this project, we have spoken to more than 300 candidates for this position.