You hire great people. But three months in, they're struggling. Not because they lack talent because nobody showed them how to succeed in your specific environment.

1,800 learning management systems exist in the market. Most companies either don't have one, use an outdated "Stone Age" system, or have a platform that nobody touches after onboarding.

But here's what changed: AI emerged in 18 months and reshaped every job description. The skills your team had last year aren't enough today. And the "just hire ready-made talent" strategy isn't sustainable when unicorns are rare and expensive.

In this episode, Darryl Fitzpatrick, CRO of Intellek, breaks down why L&D infrastructure isn't just an HR nice-to-have, it's a competitive advantage for talent attraction, retention, and performance.

00:00 Introduction

00:28 What is an LMS and how do companies actually use them?

01:29 Why LMS engagement drops after week two

03:22 Why 300-person companies still don't have learning platforms

05:12 When your LMS is built on old HTML and nobody uses it

07:45 What separates Intellek from 1,800 other LMS platforms

09:24 "We're not ready for new software": What companies are actually saying no to

11:30 Why hiring only experts limits your growth

14:03 First impressions matter: How LMS impacts company culture and retention

18:09 The future of L&D: Alignment, AI, and building unicorns internally

Connect with us:

SCOPE Recruiting | https://www.scoperecruiting.com/

Connect with Friddy | https://www.linkedin.com/in/fhoegener/

Connect with Evan | https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-cave 

Connect with Daryl Fitzpatrick | https://www.linkedin.com/in/darylfitzpatrick/?originalSubdomain=uk 

About Procurement Pulse: Real conversations with supply chain and procurement professionals who've been on both sides—building teams, solving problems, and staying ahead of what's coming next.

About SCOPE Recruiting: SCOPE Recruiting is a boutique supply chain recruiting firm where every recruiter is a former supply chain professional. Co-founders Friddy and Melissa, both ex-ABB global category managers, built the company after seeing how many “generalist” recruiters didn’t truly understand supply chain, procurement, or logistics roles. 

By hiring professionals first and teaching them recruiting second, SCOPE delivers better matches, higher retention rates, and faster hiring results across manufacturing, procurement, logistics, and supply chain leadership.

If you're building a supply chain team and the usual recruiting approach isn't working, check out scoperecruiting.com. 

What does it take to walk away from Wall Street and build a $280 million manufacturing company in rural Alabama? And how do you scale culture across 1,000+ employees when half your corporate team works remotely?

In this episode of the Procurement Pulse, host Friddy Hoegener, Co-Founder and Head of Recruiting at SCOPE Recruiting, sits down with David Heacock, Founder and CEO of Filterbuy, who left his finance career to build a vertically integrated, tech-powered manufacturing brand.

David left his Wall Street career to build Filterbuy into a $280 million direct-to-consumer manufacturing company specializing in HVAC filters. But this isn't just another startup success story, it's a masterclass in scaling operations, culture, and people across multiple facilities while navigating the realities of American manufacturing.

Filterbuy operates seven facilities across the US with about 1,000 employees, including 50-60 remote corporate workers. David shares hard-won lessons, why geographic hiring requirements kill your talent pool, and his three-pronged approach to building real corporate culture: Model it, Articulate it, and Incentivize it.

What We Discuss:

00:00 Introduction

3:31 Why forcing geographic requirements limits your talent pool significantly

5:32 Which manufacturing roles can be remote vs. must be on-site

8:54 The three-pronged approach to culture: Model it, Articulate it, Incentivize it

15:55 How AI is transforming factory operations and data analytics

17:25 Why AI won't take your job, but people who use it will

21:21 The competitive advantage of building custom ERP systems vs. legacy solutions

25:14 Why next-day delivery matters more than you think for commodity products

27:11 The reality of bringing manufacturing back to America (and why it's not that simple)

Connect with us:

SCOPE Recruiting | https://www.scoperecruiting.com/

Connect with Friddy | https://www.linkedin.com/in/fhoegener/

Connect with Evan | https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-cave 

David Heacock | https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidfilterbuy 

Filterbuy | https://www.linkedin.com/company/filterbuy 

About Procurement Pulse: Real conversations with supply chain and procurement professionals who've been on both sides—building teams, solving problems, and staying ahead of what's coming next.

About SCOPE Recruiting: Every recruiter at SCOPE is a former supply chain professional. Freddy and Melissa, both former ABB global category managers, started the company because they were tired of recruiters who didn't understand the roles they were filling. The result? Better matches, higher retention rates, and fewer headaches for everyone involved.

If you're building a supply chain team and the usual recruiting approach isn't working, check out scoperecruiting.com. 

Why do so many supply chain hires flame out in their first year? And why does finding good talent feel impossible right now?

In this first episode of the Procurement Pulse, we break down what's actually broken in supply chain recruiting, and what companies that consistently hire great people are doing differently.

Host Friddy Hoegener, Co-Founder and Head of Recruiting at SCOPE Recruiting, along with co-host Evan Cave, Sr. Supply Chain Recruiter, talk about the reality behind the hiring process. Both worked in the supply chain before becoming recruiters.

Evan spent years at Randstad, one of the world's largest recruiting firms, before joining the company. He's seen both sides: the corporate machine that prioritizes speed over quality, and the boutique approach that actually works.

Before starting SCOPE Recruiting, Friddy was a global category manager at ABB, managing $80-90 million in procurement across everything from mobile phone contracts to aluminum casting. He's been the hiring manager trying to find the right person, and now he's the recruiter trying to deliver them.

Together, they explore why the best supply chain professionals never apply to job postings, which roles AI will actually eliminate (and which ones are safe), and the simple scorecard system that stops hiring managers from talking past each other in interviews.

What We Discuss:

00:00 Welcome to The Procurement Post

1:16 Evan's Background: From Gym Manager to Recruiter

3:53 Problems with Large Recruiting Firms

7:44 Why Speed Hurts Quality in Recruiting

8:38 Finding Passive Candidates

14:10 Friddy's Background in Supply Chain

18:08 Why SCOPE Hires Former Supply Chain People

20:42 Which Jobs AI Will Replace

24:18 Skills to Stay Relevant with AI

28:28 Problems with LinkedIn's AI Matching

33:46 Using Scorecards to Remove Bias

38:56 Large Companies vs. Small Companies

43:01 What's Coming in Future Episodes

Connect with us:

SCOPE Recruiting

Connect with Friddy

Connect with Evan

About Procurement Pulse: Real conversations with supply chain and procurement professionals who've been on both sides—building teams, solving problems, and staying ahead of what's coming next.

About SCOPE Recruiting: Every recruiter at SCOPE is a former supply chain professional. Freddy and Melissa, both former ABB global category managers, started the company because they were tired of recruiters who didn't understand the roles they were filling. The result? Better matches, higher retention rates, and fewer headaches for everyone involved.

If you're building a supply chain team and the usual recruiting approach isn't working, check out scoperecruiting.com

"Will AI take my job?"

Every supply chain professional is asking this question. But you're asking the wrong thing.

The real question isn't whether AI will replace you, but it's whether you'll learn to use it before someone else does.

AI isn't coming for entry-level jobs first. It's transforming how businesses build systems, make decisions, and compete. And the companies still clinging to SAP implementations and legacy ERP systems? They're about to get steamrolled by mid-sized competitors building custom solutions in weeks instead of years.

In this episode of Procurement Pulse, host and SCOPE Recruiting Co-Founder Friddy Hoegener sits down with David Heacock, Founder and CEO of Filterbuy, who's used custom-built ERP systems and AI-powered development teams to unlock competitive advantages that enterprise software could never deliver.

They discuss why "AI will take your job" is the wrong fear (and what you should actually worry about), how a development team is now shipping code 3-5x faster than two years ago, and why small and mid-sized businesses finally have a weapon against enterprise competitors.

What We Discuss:

00:00 The AI job question everyone gets wrong

02:07 How AI 3x'd development team productivity

02:50 Why custom ERP beats SAP (even for smaller companies)

04:04 The legacy system trap: Making systems work vs. building what works

05:00 Small business advantage: Agility over enterprise bureaucracy

05:23 What to look for when hiring in the AI era

Connect with us:

SCOPE Recruiting | https://www.scoperecruiting.com/

Connect with Friddy | https://www.linkedin.com/in/fhoegener/

Connect with Evan | https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-cave 

David Heacock | https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidfilterbuy 

Filterbuy | https://www.linkedin.com/company/filterbuy 

About Procurement Pulse: Real conversations with supply chain and procurement professionals who've been on both sides—building teams, solving problems, and staying ahead of what's coming next.

About SCOPE Recruiting: Every recruiter at SCOPE is a former supply chain professional. Freddy and Melissa, both former ABB global category managers, started the company because they were tired of recruiters who didn't understand the roles they were filling. The result? Better matches, higher retention rates, and fewer headaches for everyone involved.

If you're building a supply chain team and the usual recruiting approach isn't working, check out scoperecruiting.com.

Most companies fail at Lean because the people designing the process aren’t the ones living it every day.

Jared Paget, VP of Operations at ClearOne, explains how giving a voice to the people closest to the work leads to better decisions, smarter production, and a stronger culture.

What We Discuss:

00:00 Why you can't just build products and hope someone buys them — the S&OP foundation

01:32 Tying sales team compensation to forecast accuracy (and why it worked)

03:53 Every moment on the shelf is waste — the three types of waste to eliminate

04:09 The "most infant state" rule: Why customizing too early kills flexibility

05:26 The operator buy-in secret: Don't ask about efficiency, ask about ease

Connect with us:

SCOPE Recruiting | https://www.scoperecruiting.com/

Connect with Friddy | https://www.linkedin.com/in/fhoegener/

Connect with Evan | https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-cave 

Connect with Jared Paget | https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaredpaget 

About Procurement Pulse: Real conversations with supply chain and procurement professionals who've been on both sides—building teams, solving problems, and staying ahead of what's coming next.

About SCOPE Recruiting: SCOPE Recruiting is a boutique supply chain recruiting firm where every recruiter is a former supply chain professional. Co-founders Friddy and Melissa, both ex-ABB global category managers, built the company after seeing how many “generalist” recruiters didn’t truly understand supply chain, procurement, or logistics roles. 

By hiring professionals first and teaching them recruiting second, SCOPE delivers better matches, higher retention rates, and faster hiring results across manufacturing, procurement, logistics, and supply chain leadership.
If you're building a supply chain team and the usual recruiting approach isn't working, check out scoperecruiting.com.

You cut inventory by 50% and achieve 99.8% on-time delivery. Impossible? One supply chain leader did exactly that, but not by implementing fancy software or hiring consultants.

The secret? Sitting on the factory floor with operators and asking one simple question: "How can we make your job easier?"

In this episode of Procurement Pulse, host and SCOPE Recruiting Co-Founder Friddy Hoegener and co-host Evan Cave sit down with Jared Paget, VP of Operations at ClearOne, who's driven operational excellence across multiple continents and industries.

They dig into why most companies fail at lean manufacturing (hint: it's not about the process), how to tell if a company is serious about change versus just checking boxes, and why the person doing the job eight hours a day knows more than any consultant ever will.

Jared also shares the counterintuitive truth about AI in supply chain - he's been using it for 20 years, just not the way most people think. And why those entry-level tactical jobs aren't disappearing as fast as everyone fears.

What We Discuss:

00:00 Welcome to Procurement Pulse

00:39 Why SNOP is the foundation of supply chain success

03:15 The Nuvea USA story: 99.8% delivery and 50% less inventory

07:22 Keeping inventory in its "most infant state"

10:45 The furniture manufacturing cautionary tale

14:30 How to get operator buy-in without mandates

19:12 "You're just doing this to make yourself look good" — handling resistance to change

23:47 The real KPIs that prove lean is working

28:33 How to tell if a candidate actually knows lean (or just has it on their resume)

32:18 What companies reveal when they can't answer "What's the 6-month roadmap?"

38:55 AI in supply chain: We've been doing this for 20 years

43:20 Will AI eliminate entry-level supply chain jobs?

47:02 The one skill that matters most in operations

Connect with us:

SCOPE Recruiting | https://www.scoperecruiting.com/

Connect with Friddy | https://www.linkedin.com/in/fhoegener/

Connect with Evan | https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-cave 

Connect with Jared Paget | https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaredpaget 

About Procurement Pulse: Real conversations with supply chain and procurement professionals who've been on both sides—building teams, solving problems, and staying ahead of what's coming next.

About SCOPE Recruiting: SCOPE Recruiting is a boutique supply chain recruiting firm where every recruiter is a former supply chain professional. Co-founders Friddy and Melissa, both ex-ABB global category managers, built the company after seeing how many “generalist” recruiters didn’t truly understand supply chain, procurement, or logistics roles. 

By hiring professionals first and teaching them recruiting second, SCOPE delivers better matches, higher retention rates, and faster hiring results across manufacturing, procurement, logistics, and supply chain leadership.

If you're building a supply chain team and the usual recruiting approach isn't working, check out scoperecruiting.com.

Will AI replace your job, or make you irreplaceable?

Host Friddy Hoegener, Co-Founder and Head of Recruiting at SCOPE Recruiting breaks down what supply chain professionals need to do now to stay relevant as AI reshapes the industry.

The conversation reveals why learning to prompt AI is becoming as critical as knowing Excel, and why professionals spending 80% of their time on manual tasks need to level up fast. It also explores where AI still struggles - particularly with creative judgment in recruiting - and what that tells us about which human skills will remain irreplaceable in the years ahead.

What We Discuss:

00:00 Why learning to prompt AI is the new essential skill

01:54 The 80/20 rule: If you're spending 80% of your time on manual tasks, it's time to level up

02:27 Why AI still struggles with the creative side of recruiting (and what that means for you)

04:05 Why experienced recruiters can spot great candidates instantly (and AI can't replicate that yet)

Connect with us:

SCOPE Recruiting | https://www.scoperecruiting.com/

Connect with Friddy | https://www.linkedin.com/in/fhoegener/

Connect with Evan | https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-cave 

About Procurement Pulse: Real conversations with supply chain and procurement professionals who've been on both sides—building teams, solving problems, and staying ahead of what's coming next.

About SCOPE Recruiting: SCOPE Recruiting is a boutique supply chain recruiting firm where every recruiter is a former supply chain professional. Co-founders Friddy and Melissa, both ex-ABB global category managers, built the company after seeing how many “generalist” recruiters didn’t truly understand supply chain, procurement, or logistics roles. 

By hiring professionals first and teaching them recruiting second, SCOPE delivers better matches, higher retention rates, and faster hiring results across manufacturing, procurement, logistics, and supply chain leadership.

If you're building a supply chain team and the usual recruiting approach isn't working, check out scoperecruiting.com.

Most supply chain teams obsess over vendor onboarding - vetting suppliers, negotiating contracts, setting up systems. But there's a critical blind spot costing companies millions: what happens after you stop working with a vendor?

SCOPE Recruiting Co-Founder Friddy Hoegener and co-host Evan Cave discuss the often-overlooked vendor offboarding process with Tiffany Bray, Independent Consultant at Risk Right LLC.

What We Discuss:

00:00 Why "out of sight, out of mind" vendor relationships create massive data security exposure

01:36 Real examples of what happens when offboarding goes wrong (hint: it's not just about data)

02:42 Why you need a business continuity plan for critical vendors (and what happens when you don't)

03:39 What COVID taught us about single-source vendor dependency

04:44 Why many industries are dangerously immature when it comes to risk management

05:22 How to turn your risk management into a competitive advantage and sales tool

Connect with us:

SCOPE Recruiting | https://www.scoperecruiting.com/ Connect with Friddy | https://www.linkedin.com/in/fhoegener/

Connect with Evan | https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-cave 

Connect with Tiffany Bray | https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiffany-bray-mba-ctprp/ 

About Procurement Pulse: Real conversations with supply chain and procurement professionals who've been on both sides—building teams, solving problems, and staying ahead of what's coming next.

About SCOPE Recruiting: SCOPE Recruiting is a boutique supply chain recruiting firm where every recruiter is a former supply chain professional. Co-founders Friddy and Melissa, both ex-ABB global category managers, built the company after seeing how many “generalist” recruiters didn’t truly understand supply chain, procurement, or logistics roles. 

By hiring professionals first and teaching them recruiting second, SCOPE delivers better matches, higher retention rates, and faster hiring results across manufacturing, procurement, logistics, and supply chain leadership.

If you're building a supply chain team and the usual recruiting approach isn't working, check out www.scoperecruiting.com  

What happens when you force top talent to choose between their dream job and relocating to a specific city? You lose them to your competitors.

In this episode of The Procurement Pulse, host Friddy Hoegener, Co-Founder and Head of Recruiting at SCOPE Recruiting, sits down with David Heacock, Founder and CEO of Filterbuy, who learned this lesson the hard way when his attempt to centralize remote workers in Atlanta became a "largely failed experiment."

David shares how Filterbuy's $280 million manufacturing company discovered that the best candidates for niche roles often live in completely different zip codes, and why high-performing candidates will exclude companies that force in-office requirements from their job search entirely.

But this isn't just about remote work policies. David reveals his systematic approach to building authentic corporate culture in a distributed workforce, including his three-pronged framework for values that actually work: Model it, Articulate it, and Incentivize it. He also explains why quarterly in-person meetings are non-negotiable and how to hire and fire based on cultural fit even when it means letting go of high performers.

What We Discuss:

00:00 Why geographic hiring requirements limit your talent pool

00:45 The failed Atlanta office experiment

01:46 The difference between managing remote vs. in-person teams

02:08 The importance of quarterly in-person meetings

03:01 Building corporate culture with clear values

04:09 The three-pronged approach to authentic company values

Connect with us:

SCOPE Recruiting | https://www.scoperecruiting.com/ Connect with Friddy | https://www.linkedin.com/in/fhoegener/

Connect with Evan | https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-cave 

David Heacock | https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidfilterbuy 

Filterbuy | https://www.linkedin.com/company/filterbuy 

About Procurement Pulse: Real conversations with supply chain and procurement professionals who've been on both sides—building teams, solving problems, and staying ahead of what's coming next.

About SCOPE Recruiting: Every recruiter at SCOPE is a former supply chain professional. Freddy and Melissa, both former ABB global category managers, started the company because they were tired of recruiters who didn't understand the roles they were filling. The result? Better matches, higher retention rates, and fewer headaches for everyone involved.

If you're building a supply chain team and the usual recruiting approach isn't working, check out scoperecruiting.com. 

Is AI coming for your supply chain job? And which skills will make you irreplaceable when automation takes over tactical work?

In this segment from Procurement Pulse, host Friddy Hoegener, Co-Founder and Head of Recruiting at SCOPE Recruiting, breaks down the brutal reality of AI's impact on supply chain careers over the next five years.

Friddy explores why tactical procurement tasks like issuing POs and following up on invoices will be 90% automated, while strategic work like vendor negotiations and geopolitical sourcing decisions remain human-managed.

What We Discuss:

00:00 AI's impact on supply chain careers

00:27 Which tactical tasks will be automated first

01:15 Why strategic supply chain work stays human

02:28 Skills to focus on for AI-proof careers

03:46 Why AI can't replace human judgment in recruiting

05:01 How SCOPE uses AI for candidate profiling

06:21 Creating scorecards to eliminate hiring bias

Connect with us:

SCOPE Recruiting

Connect with Friddy

About Procurement Pulse: Real conversations with supply chain and procurement professionals who've been on both sides—building teams, solving problems, and staying ahead of what's coming next.

About SCOPE Recruiting: Every recruiter at SCOPE is a former supply chain professional. Freddy and Melissa, both former ABB global category managers, started the company because they were tired of recruiters who didn't understand the roles they were filling. The result? Better matches, higher retention rates, and fewer headaches for everyone involved.

If you're building a supply chain team and the usual recruiting approach isn't working, check out scoperecruiting.com.

A vendor you stopped working with years ago still has your customer data. They get hacked. Suddenly, your company is in the headlines.

Or your only aluminum can supplier goes on strike — and your product can’t reach customers.

These aren’t “what if” scenarios. They’ve happened to global brands, and they show how risk management is about more than compliance checklists or IT security. It’s about protecting every part of your business.

In this episode of Procurement Pulse, SCOPE Recruiting Co-Founder and Head of Recruiting Friddy Hoegener and co-host Evan Cave interview guest Tiffany Bray, Independent Consultant at Risk Right LLC, about why risk management needs to go way beyond onboarding and compliance.

They dig into overlooked offboarding steps, real supply chain breakdowns, and how some companies actually use risk planning to win new business. Tiffany also shares what other industries can borrow from banking’s “tight ship” approach to vendor management, and why a solid backup plan might be the best sales tool you have.

What We Discuss:

00:00 Welcome to Procurement Pulse

00:39 What third party risk management really means

01:24 The simple risk most companies overlook

03:01 The Volkswagen data breach case study

04:14 Why vendor offboarding matters

05:59 How banking does risk management differently

08:07 The Budweiser aluminum shortage crisis

12:11 Current tools and AI in risk management

16:54 Using risk management as competitive advantage

Connect with us:

SCOPE Recruiting | https://www.scoperecruiting.com/

Connect with Friddy | https://www.linkedin.com/in/fhoegener/

Connect with Evan | https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-cave 

Connect with Tiffany Bray | https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiffany-bray-mba-ctprp/ 

About Procurement Pulse: Real conversations with supply chain and procurement professionals who've been on both sides—building teams, solving problems, and staying ahead of what's coming next.

About SCOPE Recruiting: Every recruiter at SCOPE is a former supply chain professional. Freddy and Melissa, both former ABB global category managers, started the company because they were tired of recruiters who didn't understand the roles they were filling. The result? Better matches, higher retention rates, and fewer headaches for everyone involved.

If you're building a supply chain team and the usual recruiting approach isn't working, check out scoperecruiting.com. 

90% of Alibaba's revenue comes from supplier advertising fees. That means page one rankings are heavily influenced by who paid the most, not just who's best for your product.

Most procurement teams contact 3 to 5 suppliers before making a decision. Not because that's enough because contacting more is too time-consuming. But better pricing and better quality might be sitting with supplier #47.

Ricky Ho, Co-founder of SourceReady, explains how AI changes sourcing. His platform has indexed 1.4M suppliers using customs data from 80 countries, including factories with no website or online presence. Instead of manually messaging 5 suppliers, their AI contacts 50 or 100 simultaneously, collects responses, and ranks suppliers by match quality rather than ad spend.

What We Discuss:

00:00 Why Alibaba's page one is dominated by who paid most

01:59 How to find 1.4 million suppliers invisible on directories

03:55 The AI tool that contacts 100 suppliers automatically

Connect with us:

SCOPE Recruiting | https://www.scoperecruiting.com/ Connect with Friddy | https://www.linkedin.com/in/fhoegener/ Connect with Evan | https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-cave 

Connect with Ricky | https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricky-ho-a25a05104/ 

About Procurement Pulse: Real conversations with supply chain and procurement professionals who've been on both sides—building teams, solving problems, and staying ahead of what's coming next.

About SCOPE Recruiting: SCOPE Recruiting is a boutique supply chain recruiting firm where every recruiter is a former supply chain professional. Co-founders Friddy and Melissa, both ex-ABB global category managers, built the company after seeing how many “generalist” recruiters didn’t truly understand supply chain, procurement, or logistics roles. 

By hiring professionals first and teaching them recruiting second, SCOPE delivers better matches, higher retention rates, and faster hiring results across manufacturing, procurement, logistics, and supply chain leadership.

If you're building a supply chain team and the usual recruiting approach isn't working, check out scoperecruiting.com. 

Hundreds of applications. Zero callbacks. That's the reality for a lot of senior professionals right now. And it's not because they're underqualified.

The job market has quietly shifted. More competition, more AI-generated resumes flooding the same roles, and a hiring system that was built to process candidates, not advocate for them. Something had to give.

So what does it look like when the entire model gets flipped on its head?

In this episode of Procurement Pulse, Friddy sits down with Adam Feinberg, founder of My Personal Recruiter, to unpack what reverse recruiting actually is, why it's gaining traction right now, and what it reveals about the state of hiring in 2026.

Friddy and Adam get into how the traditional recruiting model has always served the employer and left job seekers to navigate a system stacked against them. They also tackle the AI question nobody is asking out loud: as more candidates use AI to bulk-apply and auto-generate resumes, does any of it even matter anymore? And if everyone looks great on paper, what actually separates the people who get hired?

Friddy also makes a prediction about where AI in recruiting is ultimately headed that stopped Adam in his tracks.

What We Discuss:

00:00 What reverse recruiting is and why it didn't exist before

03:03 How the job search actually works when someone else is running it for you

06:11 Who the job market is hardest on right now and why

10:08 The AI resume arms race and why it may be backfiring on candidates

14:53 Friddy's counterintuitive prediction: AI will matter less, not more

23:38 What happens to entry-level jobs and the leaders who were supposed to come from them

30:32 Where the job market goes from here

Interested in My Personal Recruiter? Use code SCOPE10 for 10% off.

Connect with us:

SCOPE Recruiting | https://www.scoperecruiting.com/

Connect with Friddy | https://www.linkedin.com/in/fhoegener/

Connect with Evan | https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-cave 

Connect with Adam | https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-fineberg/ 

About Procurement Pulse: Real conversations with supply chain and procurement professionals who've been on both sides—building teams, solving problems, and staying ahead of what's coming next.

About SCOPE Recruiting: SCOPE Recruiting is a boutique supply chain recruiting firm where every recruiter is a former supply chain professional. Co-founders Friddy and Melissa, both ex-ABB global category managers, built the company after seeing how many “generalist” recruiters didn’t truly understand supply chain, procurement, or logistics roles. 

By hiring professionals first and teaching them recruiting second, SCOPE delivers better matches, higher retention rates, and faster hiring results across manufacturing, procurement, logistics, and supply chain leadership.

If you're building a supply chain team and the usual recruiting approach isn't working, check out scoperecruiting.com. 

You contact 5 suppliers. Maybe 10. You pick one. Done.

But what if the best supplier for your product was never even on your list?

That's not bad luck. That's how the old system was designed. Gatekeepers with "books of vendors" who steered you toward whoever paid them the highest commission, not who was best for you.

In this clip from Procurement Pulse, Ricky Ho, Co-founder, SourceReady, explains why sourcing without AI is fundamentally a luck game,  and how the old purchasing agent model in Asia created hidden conflicts of interest that buyers are still dealing with today.

What's covered:

00:00 The purchasing agent model: gatekeepers, hidden commissions, and who really won

01:22 Why sourcing without AI means you're probably missing better suppliers

01: 58 How AI can vet 1,000 factories in minutes (what takes humans weeks)

Connect with us:

SCOPE Recruiting | https://www.scoperecruiting.com/

Connect with Friddy | https://www.linkedin.com/in/fhoegener/

Connect with Evan | https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-cave 

Connect with Ricky | https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricky-ho-a25a05104/ 

About Procurement Pulse: Real conversations with supply chain and procurement professionals who've been on both sides—building teams, solving problems, and staying ahead of what's coming next.

About SCOPE Recruiting: SCOPE Recruiting is a boutique supply chain recruiting firm where every recruiter is a former supply chain professional. Co-founders Friddy and Melissa, both ex-ABB global category managers, built the company after seeing how many “generalist” recruiters didn’t truly understand supply chain, procurement, or logistics roles. 

By hiring professionals first and teaching them recruiting second, SCOPE delivers better matches, higher retention rates, and faster hiring results across manufacturing, procurement, logistics, and supply chain leadership.

If you're building a supply chain team and the usual recruiting approach isn't working, check out scoperecruiting.com. 

Are you hiring for today or for 24 months from now?

In this episode, Darryl Fitzpatrick, CRO of Intellek, challenges the "plug-and-play" hiring mindset that's dominating procurement and supply chain recruiting right now.

His point: Everyone's chasing unicorns - ready-made experts who can hit the ground running on day one. But what happens when you hire someone without a development plan, clear milestones, or learning infrastructure in place?

You're not just setting them up to struggle. You're telling top talent that you haven't thought beyond their first 90 days.

The companies winning the talent war aren't just offering better comp packages. They're showing candidates a defined career path, meaningful metrics, and proof that people succeed there. That's what keeps unicorns from walking out the door six months in.

If you expect results in 6, 12, 24 months, you need to invest in getting people there, not just hope they figure it out.

What we discuss: 

00:00 Hiring with Future Intentions

02:51 The Challenge of Attracting Talent

04:43 The Importance of Learning and Development

Connect with us:

SCOPE Recruiting | https://www.scoperecruiting.com/ Connect with Friddy | https://www.linkedin.com/in/fhoegener/ Connect with Evan | https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-cave 

Connect with Daryl Fitzpatrick https://www.linkedin.com/in/darylfitzpatrick/?originalSubdomain=uk 

About Procurement Pulse: Real conversations with supply chain and procurement professionals who've been on both sides—building teams, solving problems, and staying ahead of what's coming next.

About SCOPE Recruiting: SCOPE Recruiting is a boutique supply chain recruiting firm where every recruiter is a former supply chain professional. Co-founders Friddy and Melissa, both ex-ABB global category managers, built the company after seeing how many “generalist” recruiters didn’t truly understand supply chain, procurement, or logistics roles. 

By hiring professionals first and teaching them recruiting second, SCOPE delivers better matches, higher retention rates, and faster hiring results across manufacturing, procurement, logistics, and supply chain leadership.

If you're building a supply chain team and the usual recruiting approach isn't working, check out scoperecruiting.com.

You search for a supplier, contact the top five, pick one, and move on. But what if the absolute best manufacturer for your product never showed up on page one—and never will?

Most buyers rely on popular directories like Alibaba, assuming the top search results represent the highest quality. 

In reality, visibility on many major sourcing platforms is heavily driven by advertising revenue, meaning the first page often showcases the biggest marketing budgets, not necessarily the best capabilities.

The secret to finding the actual top-tier factories isn't better keyword searches. It's looking beyond the standard pay-to-play directories at the one thing suppliers can't fake: objective, publicly available data.

In this episode of Procurement Pulse, host and SCOPE Recruiting Co-Founder Friddy Hoegener sits down with Ricky Ho, Co-founder and CEO of SourceReady. 

Ricky has built an AI-powered discovery platform that indexes 1.4 million supplier profiles across 80 countries, specifically targeting the world-class factories that don't rely on advertising to be found.

What We Discuss:

00:00 Why this founder left a thriving company to fix sourcing

00:47 The broken system behind how most companies find suppliers

03:50 What AI is actually good at (and what it will never replace)

09:49 Why the best suppliers are invisible and how to find them

14:49 How Source Ready stays bias-free (and why that changes everything)

17:57 AI is flooding suppliers with inquiries — here's what happens next

22:48 The signals AI catches that humans miss and vice versa

28:42 The death of the entry-level role as we know it

Connect with us:

SCOPE Recruiting | https://www.scoperecruiting.com/ Connect with Friddy | https://www.linkedin.com/in/fhoegener/

Connect with Evan | https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-cave 

Connect with Ricky | https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricky-ho-a25a05104/ 

About Procurement Pulse: Real conversations with supply chain and procurement professionals who've been on both sides—building teams, solving problems, and staying ahead of what's coming next.

About SCOPE Recruiting: SCOPE Recruiting is a boutique supply chain recruiting firm where every recruiter is a former supply chain professional. Co-founders Friddy and Melissa, both ex-ABB global category managers, built the company after seeing how many “generalist” recruiters didn’t truly understand supply chain, procurement, or logistics roles. 

By hiring professionals first and teaching them recruiting second, SCOPE delivers better matches, higher retention rates, and faster hiring results across manufacturing, procurement, logistics, and supply chain leadership.

If you're building a supply chain team and the usual recruiting approach isn't working, check out www.scoperecruiting.com.

When your team asks for development tools and you say "we're not ready,” what are you really saying no to?

In this episode, Darryl Fitzpatrick, CRO of Intellek, calls out the uncomfortable truth: "We're not ready for learning technology" actually means "We're not ready to invest in our people."

His take? Companies that said they weren't ready for AI 3 years ago are struggling now. The ones who committed early are thriving.

The tech is easy. It's cloud-based, simple to adopt. What's hard is admitting that without ongoing development, you're setting your team up to fail in a world that's evolving faster than ever.

So the real question: Are you building a team for today, or for what's coming?

What we discuss: 

00:00 The Readiness for Technology Adoption

02:55 The Importance of Continuous Learning and Development

04:08 Challenges with Outdated Learning Management Systems

Connect with us:

SCOPE Recruiting | https://www.scoperecruiting.com/ Connect with Friddy | https://www.linkedin.com/in/fhoegener/ Connect with Evan | https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-cave 

Connect with Daryl Fitzpatrick https://www.linkedin.com/in/darylfitzpatrick/?originalSubdomain=uk 

About Procurement Pulse: Real conversations with supply chain and procurement professionals who've been on both sides—building teams, solving problems, and staying ahead of what's coming next.

About SCOPE Recruiting: SCOPE Recruiting is a boutique supply chain recruiting firm where every recruiter is a former supply chain professional. Co-founders Friddy and Melissa, both ex-ABB global category managers, built the company after seeing how many “generalist” recruiters didn’t truly understand supply chain, procurement, or logistics roles. 

By hiring professionals first and teaching them recruiting second, SCOPE delivers better matches, higher retention rates, and faster hiring results across manufacturing, procurement, logistics, and supply chain leadership.

If you're building a supply chain team and the usual recruiting approach isn't working, check out scoperecruiting.com.

Supply chain isn't just about moving boxes. It’s about the human experience.

For too long, our industry has been viewed as a back-office utility. A cost center that simply "makes things happen."

But as Patrick Van Hull, Supply Chain Storyteller & Strategist, explains in this week’s episode, the leaders who win in 2026 aren't just the ones with the best data. They are the ones who can tell the best story about that data.

What We Discuss:

00:00 What it means to be a "supply chain storyteller"

02:11 The pivot table mistake that shut down a mining company

05:02 Why supply chain gets blamed but never gets credit

07:48 "Do good and talk about it" — earning your seat at the table

10:29 When supply chain isn't in the room from day one

12:57 AI hype vs. AI reality in daily operations

15:49 One AI platform or ten disconnected solutions?

18:33 Automating the work that burns people out

21:27 Entry-level roles nobody knows how to define yet

23:47 The new essential skills: Prompting AI and storytelling

26:47 Where to find Patrick Van Hull

Connect with us:

SCOPE Recruiting | https://www.scoperecruiting.com/ Connect with Friddy | https://www.linkedin.com/in/fhoegener/ Connect with Evan | https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-cave 

Connect with Patrick | https://www.linkedin.com/in/pvanhull/ 

About Procurement Pulse: Real conversations with supply chain and procurement professionals who've been on both sides—building teams, solving problems, and staying ahead of what's coming next.

About SCOPE Recruiting: SCOPE Recruiting is a boutique supply chain recruiting firm where every recruiter is a former supply chain professional. Co-founders Friddy and Melissa, both ex-ABB global category managers, built the company after seeing how many “generalist” recruiters didn’t truly understand supply chain, procurement, or logistics roles. 

By hiring professionals first and teaching them recruiting second, SCOPE delivers better matches, higher retention rates, and faster hiring results across manufacturing, procurement, logistics, and supply chain leadership.

If you're building a supply chain team and the usual recruiting approach isn't working, check out scoperecruiting.com.