How Can Manufacturers Build Proactive Talent Pipelines? Ask PPG

PPG paints the world — literally. Three out of four walls globally feature PPG products. The company's coatings protect aircraft cruising at 30,000 feet and marine vessels navigating deep waters. With 53,000 employees across more than 70 countries, PPG Industries represents a manufacturing powerhouse.

Yet most job seekers have never heard of the company.

"PPG is the best kept secret," explained Laetitia Nicod, EMEA Talent Acquisition Leader at PPG Industries. "We have such a large range of products and such a footprint on the industry, but we are not spontaneously attracting candidates because they would not immediately recognize our name."

This brand visibility paradox created a fundamental talent acquisition challenge. How does a global manufacturing leader compete for skilled workers when competitors with household names dominate candidate attention?

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What manufacturing talent challenges did PPG need to solve?

The numbers told a stark story: 40% attrition among frontline workers meant constant recruiting pressure. A 40-minute application process drove 34% of candidates to abandon before completing their submissions.

Decentralized operations across Americas, LATAM, APAC, and EMEA meant facilities developed their own recruitment approaches. Countries worked differently. Consistency didn't exist. The TA team lacked visibility into analytics, making data-driven decisions impossible.

"We had decentralized processes, facilities doing their own things, and some countries working differently," Nicod shared. Every open position meant starting from scratch. No talent communities. No pipelines. Just reactive recruiting that left the business waiting.

PPG needed to shift from reactive hiring to proactive talent pipelining while harmonizing processes globally and respecting regional differences. Most critically, they needed technology that would enable relationships rather than replace them.

Why did PPG choose Phenom for proactive talent pipelining?

PPG established specific solution requirements: seamless Workday integration, flexibility across regions with global consistency, and the capability to build genuine talent communities. Phenom delivered on all fronts.

1. Phenom Career Site became the attraction foundation. A career site with real-time personalization showcases PPG's breadth across industries — aerospace, architectural coatings, protective marine coatings — helping candidates understand the company's reach despite limited brand recognition. The redesigned experience addresses the application abandonment crisis directly.

2. Phenom Talent CRM shifted the paradigm from reactive to proactive. Unlike static candidate databases, their new CRM enables ongoing conversations with potential hires with the help of automated campaigns. Regional champions can customize tags for specific industries, identify silver medalists from previous processes, and maintain engagement over time. "What I really like about this is the possibility for us to have a tailor-made solution," Nicod said. "We create the tags we need for our industries. We can identify silver medalists in a process. We can build that as we want because it is very flexible."

3. Text-to-apply eliminated barriers for frontline workers. Many manufacturing employees lack corporate email addresses. Phenom's text-to-apply solution enabled mobile applications without email requirements, removing friction from the process. "We have to talk the language of our candidates. We have to meet them where they are," Nicod explained. "They are our clients as well when we recruit."

4. Phenom X+ generative AI job descriptions solved the messaging challenge. Manufacturing roles vary dramatically across business units. For example, aerospace positions require a different language than architectural coatings roles. Phenom's generative AI capabilities create market-specific descriptions while eliminating bias from postings, ensuring PPG speaks to each candidate segment appropriately.

5. Phenom Automated Interview Scheduling freed recruiters for high-value work. PPG piloted the solution in the Americas with immediate success, then expanded globally. The automation eliminated time-consuming scheduling coordination, allowing recruiters to focus on candidate selection and relationship building. "It makes the life of the candidates and of the recruiters much easier, and it's really giving us time to focus on the selection piece where we have way more added value," Nicod noted.

6. Phenom Talent Analytics enabled strategic decision-making. When a European facility struggled with recruitment between two major cities, Phenom's analytics mapped talent movement patterns, competitive intelligence, and candidate response data. The insights enabled data-backed recommendations to business leaders about benefits, positioning, and recruitment strategies. "Without data, it's only an opinion," Nicod asserted. The company even explored unconventional advertising channels based on Phenom's AI insights — data suggested Waze could effectively reach candidates in certain locations during their daily commutes. "If you want to meet your people, you can definitely use that because you see where they go," Nicod explained.

What results did Phenom deliver?

"We are a very data-oriented company, so believe me, the data has been measured at every step," Nicod said, as she shared their most successful metrics.

• Phenom Career Site cut application time by 43%. The streamlined experience directly addressed the abandonment issue they were experiencing, keeping qualified candidates engaged through completion.

• Career site conversion rates increased 15%. The platform didn't just attract more visitors — it converted them into applicants at higher rates, demonstrating that the experience resonated with manufacturing candidates.

• Phenom Talent CRM captured 17,685 previously lost candidates. These weren't new sourcing efforts. These were job seekers who would have disappeared during the application process or after unsuccessful interviews. Phenom's technology recovered candidates PPG had already invested in attracting. The solution added 40% net new profiles to their talent communities, building the sustainable pipeline PPG needed to shift from reactive to proactive recruiting.

• Phenom Automated Interview Scheduling reduced time to hire by 35%. The 15-day improvement rippled through PPG's entire operation, alleviating critical delays and accelerating approvals and decision-making across departments. In addition, PPG measured success beyond traditional talent acquisition metrics. Hiring manager satisfaction improved as recruiters delivered faster, better-quality candidates through more efficient processes.

How can AI help manufacturers compete for talent?

PPG's journey from manufacturing's "best kept secret" to a talent acquisition powerhouse demonstrates the competitive advantage that Applied AI solutions deliver: 43% faster applications, 35% faster hiring, 17,685 recovered candidates, and a fundamental shift from reactive posting to proactive pipelining.

But the numbers only tell part of the story. "Technology enables relationships. It doesn't replace them," Nicod emphasized. "The more you automate non-added value tasks, the more you can have added value on things where your talent acquisition partners are irreplaceable."

Ready to solve your manufacturing talent challenges? Get a complimentary Hiring Automation Audit to discover how AI can help you compete for skilled workers, reduce time to hire, and build sustainable talent pipelines.