Generator Group - Talent Management and Recruiting

Job Search: Head of Product Design - Protective Gear

Our consumer products recruting team is currently working on a new lead design and development position for a leading protective gear company based out of southern california.  The Head of Design to lead the company’s product creation efforts. Design and development is a collaborative process at the company and the superior performance of their product is what sets them apart from their competitors. The Head of Design will be integral in driving the process to create better product and get it to market on-time. Ideal candidates will have a minimum of 5 years of design management experience within action sports gear and/or protective gear categories. Must bring experience with hard goods, industrial design, injection molding, and carbon fiber. This is a hands on and results oriented position.

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Product Line Manager – Adventure Gear

If you love to travel and love the outdoors then this might be the opportunity you have been waiting to find! Our client, the industry leader in adventure travel gear is looking for a strategic thinker with an entrepreneurial mind to drive innovation and growth of an already successful product line. An eye for design, natural leadership and influencing skills, and strong written communication and presentation skills are a must. The ideal candidate will be astute in channel distribution and adept in identifying opportunities for each channel.

Requirements:

o        3-5 years prior product line management experience

o        Apparel, footwear, or equipment product management, and/or retail buying/merchandising experience desired

o        Travel gear, luggage, and travel accessories a plus

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Job Search: GM Direct Channels - New Job Posting

Overview:

Our client is a premium apparel brand. The line includes predominately men’s and women’s sportswear: bottoms, tops and jackets. In addition to their significant wholesale business, our client operates two retail stores and will be launching a direct to consumer catalog.

What's cool about this position:

• Opportunity to have a tremendous impact on a growing, entrepreneurial company.
• Opportunity to define the business strategy for retail, e-commerce and catalogue channels.

This position is for a leader with strong management skills and a track record in branding, sales and business development.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree (B. A.) required, MBA highly preferred.
• Solid experience with direct sales and marketing through a variety of channels.
• Adept at managing a significant direct and retail business.
• Understanding of retail and apparel (and category associated complexities).
• Experience growing an early stage, entrepreneurial venture strongly preferred.

Very competitive compensation and benefits, DOE.

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Industry Survey Exposes Top Hiring Challenges

By Roy Notowitz

In an effort to provide insight into the hiring challenges that our clients face, we recently surveyed 44 hiring executives (wholesalers and retailers) in apparel, footwear, and sporting goods companies around the nation to get a sense of what their concerns and issues are currently as it relates to hiring. Titles included: CEO, GM, President, Vice President, Director, and Manager. The survey spanned both large and small private and public companies ranging from 5 million to over 10 billion in annual revenues.

Of the companies we surveyed, “lack of qualified candidates” was the biggest recruiting challenge articulated by over 50 percent of respondents. Of those surveyed, 83 percent acknowledged having made at least one hiring mistake resulting in having to let an employee go in six months or less. Regrettably, 38 percent also admitted to multiple hiring mistakes.

Also revealed in the survey:

• Top Reasons Why Employees Leave
• Toughest Jobs to Fill by Job Title
• Most Effective Candidate Sources
• Reasons Why Candidates Reject Offers

If you are interested in receiving the full report please call Roy Notowitz at (888) 621-9934 or email roy@generatorgroup.net.

Hiring may cool during the holidays, but recruiting is hot!

It is a common misperception that the holiday season is a terrible time for recruiting. It may be true that hiring and active job searching slows when the egg nog flows, but recruiting top passive talent in December is can be as fruitful as a fruitcake. Here are the reasons why:

1. EASY TO REACH: During the holiday season people minimize business travel and stay close to the office to wrap up projects and plan for the next year. You are more likely to reach a passive candidate at their desk during December than you are in January when the trade show circuit and business travel ramps up again.
2. TIME TO REFLECT: I have found that this is a great time for people to also reflect upon their career situation. It lends itself naturally to engaging in a conversation about job satisfaction, direction of their company, professional interests, career aspirations, and potential motivations for making a job change.
3. HOLIDAY SPIRIT: Even if your passive candidate lead is not interested in making a move, they may be more likely to take a few minutes to help you out with some referrals and contacts for further networking.
4. TIME FOR INTERVIEWS: Less business travel and built up vacation time may enable potential candidates to update resumes and to fly in on short notice for interviews at your company. You may also have more time to evaluate more candidates.
5. LESS COMPETITION: Recruiters who think that the holidays are a “bad” time for recruiting could be spending their extra time online shopping while you are connecting with and hiring industry superstars.

Hiring for key positions can take as long as 60-90 days, so starting your recruiting process in December will put your job offers a month ahead of the competition’s when vying for top talent in the New Year. Remember to call us if you need help getting a jump on your 2008 strategic staffing plan.

Job Search: Sourcing Manager - Alpine / Snowsports / Endurance - Ventura, CA - New Job Posting

Overview:

Our client is searching for someone who is as passionate about new fabrics and vendors, and materials as they are about the outdoors.

Our client's definition of quality includes a mandate for building products and working with processes that cause the least harm to the environment. They believe in using business to inspire solutions to the environmental crisis. The Sourcing Manager is critical to this mission.

The Sourcing Manager is responsible for developing vendor relationships, sourcing new factories, and delivering quality product in a timely, consistent manner. Developing plans and strategies that address the company’s delivery and margin goals, while at the same time leading efforts to certify each factory for social responsibility, quality assurance and environmental objectives are the cornerstones of this position.

Responsibilities:

1. Establish and oversee both the short and long-term sourcing strategy for the company’s Alpine, Snowsports and Endurance product lines. Actively participate in departmental sourcing reviews that plan and allocate products within the existing sourcing network.
2. Collaborate with Merchandising, Design, Product Development, and Quality Assurance to insure the department’s 4-Fold Sourcing approach is adhered to.
3. Actively work with the Merchandising and Design staff to anticipate future outerwear technologies and how they can be achieved through the company’s current factory network. Develop new vendors as needed that are capable of producing highly technical product using advanced manufacturing techniques.
4. Negotiate and confirm prices for all product falling within the Alpine, Snowsports and Endurance product lines to achieve the company’s goals for gross margin and profitability. Manage all vendor negotiations in a way that builds partnerships while at the same time resulting in the fairest possible prices.
5. Lead the effort to insure that all vendors adhere to sourcing requirements. Specifically, each vendor must meet and attain capacity/delivery/margin requirements, social compliance certification, quality assurance standards, in addition to continually reducing their environmental footprint.
6. Develop and mentor a staff of 2-3 Contract Managers within the Sourcing team. This staff is responsible for day-to-day communication with factories, the timely review of all factory Work-In-Process reports, maintaining the company’s systems, and communication of WIP status within our corporate community.

Qualifications:

1. 5-7 years sourcing experience.
2. Experienced in dealing with factories direct. Must have traveled overseas and participated in negotiation, costing, representing our client's philosophy. Experience in sourcing new factories and materials.
3. Must understand technical fabrics and technical garments including: Gore-Tex, welding, seam taping, glued seams, laser cutting, alternative fabrics, experience in developing proprietary fabrics, etc.
4. Strong management experience. Must have hiring/firing experience. This individual will develop and mentor a staff of 2-3 contract managers within a team.
5. This individual should have strong financial acumen. Comfortable with numbers, costing, spreadsheets. Must have experience analyzing several different types of spreadsheets.
6. Must embrace our client's philosophy of quality, social compliance, and reduction of environmental footprint

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Job Search: Product Manager - Hardgoods

If you're searching for a Portland company that offers long-term growth, stability and is in an exciting new phase of expansion, then this Product Manager position is the one for you!

As the Product Manager (PM), you will be able to leverage the company’s unique design engineering and manufacturing capabilities to develop new products to meet customer needs. You will be able to confidently expand into new market categories knowing that you have a strong foundation of innovation, quality, and brand recognition to draw upon.

Success will require a unique blend of business and technical savvy; a big-picture vision, and the drive to make that vision a reality.

Learn more about the position qualifications

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Generator Group Executive Search and Recruiting Services

Industry hiring trends survey deadline is coming to a close

We would really appreciate your insight if you have not already taken time to fill it out. The survey takes about 10 minutes to complete. Your responses are confidential and your company's identity will not be revealed in any of the results. Survey closes on October 1, 2007.

To qualify to take the survey you must work at an apparel, footwear, or sporting goods company and have been involved with hiring. As a participant in the survey, you will receive a free copy of the valuable results. 

SURVEY LINK:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=76gR_2f6wc1AZiA_2fqac4cxaA_3d_3d

Please contact Lisa Peyton at (503) 224-4811 X100 (lisa@generatorgroup.net) if you have any questions about the survey.

Job Search: Outerwear Designer - Wisconsin - New Job Posting

Overview: 

Our client is a leading direct to consumer brand that is well known for it's classic casual wear and home products. As a result of growth, they are searching for an Apparel Designer create well designed and constructed technical outerwear.

Responsibilities:

In this position you will be responsible for designing and developing technical outerwear product by interpreting design inspiration concepts into finished product. This includes developing themes, color, fabrication, and silhouettes for the upcoming season as well as working with mills to develop original textures and patterns. Other responsibilities include the development of presentation boards and presenting lines in concept meetings. The position will require raw material research, market research, fashion illustration, knowledge of technical product specs, and fabric/trim research.

This is a lead position, so there will be the opportunity to develop and coach assistant designers as well as build working relationships with Merchandising and Quality departments to ensure product execution.

Qualifications:

• 5-10 years of apparel design experience with a thorough understanding of textile construction, color and printing techniques.
• Minimum of 3 years of technical Outerwear design would be ideal.
• Ability to do flat drawings/sketches for design prototypes.
• Able to interpret trends and translate them to our customer.
• Knowledge of industry resources.

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Generator Group - Executive Recruiting Search Firm

Job Search: Footwear Designer - Baltimore, MD - New Job Posting

Overview:

Our client is in search of a talented Footwear Designer to create innovative performance footwear. We need a strong creative mind with current design vision, who has a solid understanding of footwear construction and materials, and who has a passion for athletics.

Responsibilities:

• Work on a multitude of categories including: Football, Baseball, Golf, Running, and Soccer.
• Develop and express models and ideas through hand-sketching
• Create and execute clear and detailed technical packages for development
• Understand and construct patterns, blueprints, molds and materials
• Manage manufacturing techniques and work at the factories on development issues

Qualifications:

• BFA or BID in Industrial Design
• 3+ years of footwear industry experience
• Working knowledge of Illustrator, Photoshop and Alias Sketchbook Pro Use,/li>

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  Generator Group - Executive Recruiting Search Firm