SCOPE Recruiting is a specialized supply chain recruiting firm focused on supply chain, procurement, logistics, operations, demand planning, and executive search. Co-Founder Friddy Hoegener launched the company in 2017 after serving in supply chain leadership roles, including Global Commodity Manager at ABB and Supply Chain Manager at Baker Furniture. The firm emphasizes practitioner-led candidate vetting, with recruiters who have firsthand supply chain and operations experience. SCOPE primarily targets passive candidates, giving companies access to hard-to-reach talent that traditional job postings may miss. Pulse 2.0 interviewed SCOPE Recruiting Co-Founder Friddy Hoegener to learn more.
Friddy Hoegener’s Background
When asked about his background, Hoegener shared:
I founded SCOPE Recruiting in 2017 with a singular mission: to bring practitioner-level vetting to supply chain recruiting.
Before SCOPE, I served as a Global Commodity Manager for ABB (Fortune 500), managing a $120 million category spend across the US and Europe. I later joined Baker Furniture (Kohler) as a Supply Chain Manager, leading sourcing strategies for New Product Development.
We founded SCOPE with a clear understanding of the complexity of industries like supply chain, where industry knowledge can make a meaningful difference in how talent is evaluated. Our experience showed us how effective recruiting becomes when recruiters understand the work, the challenges, and the skills behind the role. That industry knowledge allows our team to evaluate candidates beyond resume keywords and assess real, on-the-job competency.
By targeting high-performing passive talent rather than active job seekers, my team delivers a 95% increase in first-year retention rates.
SCOPE is now a trusted partner for the manufacturing and industrial sectors, serving clients ranging from high-growth production sites to global brands like Google and Cisco.
How SCOPE Recruiting Started
When asked how the idea for the company came together, Hoegener explained:
SCOPE Recruiting began with a simple realization: supply chain is a complex industry, and recruiting for it requires more than understanding the hiring process.
My co-founder Melissa, a former Global Category Manager, saw this firsthand when she transitioned from supply chain operations into the recruiting world. She noticed a gap that still exists today: most recruiters are skilled at managing a process, but they lack the technical depth to truly vet a candidate’s supply chain expertise.
Recognizing that gap, Melissa and I co-founded SCOPE. As former supply chain leaders with backgrounds in global manufacturing and procurement, we built a firm around a simple idea: recruiters should understand the work behind the roles they fill.
Nearly a decade later, SCOPE remains dedicated to that founding principle. Our recruiters bring experience across logistics, procurement, and operations, giving them firsthand insight into the skills, challenges, and expectations behind the roles we recruit for. That industry knowledge allows us to evaluate candidates beyond resume keywords and better understand how their experience translates to the role.
What began as a shared vision is now a nationally recognized search firm. We help organizations hire with confidence, grounded in real-world experience, measurable results, and an unwavering focus on finding the right fit the first time.
Favorite Memory
When asked about his favorite memory working for the company so far, Hoegener said:
If you had looked at SCOPE’s website a couple of months after we launched, you probably wouldn’t have hired us. Melissa and I were in our twenties, navigating the sheer chaos of a new startup, with virtually no former clients to our name. Our digital footprint was, frankly, terrible.
Yet by some stroke of algorithmic luck, we had somehow managed to creep onto page one of Google’s search results.
That accidental SEO victory led to my favorite memory and the true catalyst for our company’s success.
It started with an incoming call from an unknown number. On the other end was a seasoned business consultant working with mid-market, family-owned companies in the Pennsylvania market. He had stumbled across our makeshift website and decided to dial. I remember bracing myself, hyper-aware of our lack of a portfolio and the polished facade most startups try to project.
Instead of an interrogation, it became an immediate meeting of the minds. It was one of those rare, instant connections where you realize you are completely aligned with the person on the other end of the line. Despite our lack of a track record, we saw the business world through the exact same lens. The conversation flowed effortlessly, built on a shared philosophy rather than a sales pitch.
That single phone call changed the trajectory of our business. He took a chance on a couple of twenty-somethings with a bad website and ended up introducing us to three of our first four clients.
Today, a full ten years later, we are still working with him. It is a constant, grounding reminder for me: while polished branding and flawless websites are important, the true currency of business will always be authentic, human connection.
Core Recruiting Services
When asked about SCOPE Recruiting’s core products and services, Hoegener detailed:
We offer supply chain recruiting services across Procurement, Logistics, Supply Chain, Demand Planning, Operations, and Executive Search.
I founded SCOPE in 2017 as a boutique supply chain recruiting firm. Based in Huntsville, Alabama, with a nationwide reach, Melissa and I left successful industry careers to solve a frustrating problem: standard agencies simply do not understand the complex roles they are trying to fill.
Having spent years working directly in supply chain and operations, I knew what it actually took to do the work. We built SCOPE to be the firm that finally speaks the industry’s language, relying on our firsthand experience to connect businesses with professionals who drive real results.
Building Greater Visibility
When asked about recent challenges in the recruiting sector and how SCOPE has addressed them, Hoegener explained:
Visibility has been a real one for us. We’re a small, tight-knit team, and we’ve spent most of our energy doing the work rather than talking about it.
We still have clients from our very first year, going on nine years now, which says a lot, but it also meant a lot of people simply didn’t know we existed.
We solved that by investing in marketing for the first time. We brought on a content manager who understands our brand and our message, and that’s helped us reach a much wider audience.
It’s still early, but we’ve seen strong results already, more inbound interest and more new client relationships than we’ve had in a while.
How Technology Supports Recruiting
When asked how SCOPE Recruiting’s technology has evolved since launching, Hoegener said:
Honestly, I’m pretty intentional about where technology fits in our process. There’s no shortage of tools promising to transform recruiting, but I’ve learned that no software can replace the clarity you need at the start of a search.
Understanding exactly what the role requires, what success looks like, and making sure every stakeholder is aligned before you ever source a single candidate. When that foundation is missing, searches stall or restart from scratch.
Where we do lean into technology is behind the scenes: AI-assisted job descriptions, scorecards, candidate profiles, meeting notes, and interview transcripts. Things that used to eat up hours.
That time savings goes back into the actual recruiting work, which is where our practitioners’ instincts matter most.
Key Company Milestones
When asked about some of SCOPE Recruiting’s most significant milestones, Hoegener highlighted:
We’ve placed over 750 candidates, and our passive placement rate and first-year retention rate are both above 95%.
Those numbers matter to me, but honestly, the milestone I’m most proud of is something harder to quantify: our clients keep coming back.
Many of the companies we work with today were with us in our first year.
Customer Success Story
When asked to share a specific customer success story, Hoegener said:
A company had been trying to fill a Supply Chain Manager role for months. They’d worked with other recruiters without success.
They came to us, and we filled the role in 10 days. We submitted four candidates, they were interested in all four, and one was hired.
They didn’t have an HR or recruiting team. Their CFO was running the search on top of everything else on his plate.
That’s the reality for a lot of mid-sized companies, and it’s exactly the kind of situation we’re built for.
Funding And Revenue
When asked whether SCOPE Recruiting could discuss funding or revenue metrics, Hoegener said:
SCOPE Recruiting is privately held and does not publicly disclose funding or revenue figures at this time.
Total Addressable Market
When asked about the total addressable market SCOPE Recruiting is pursuing, Hoegener explained:
My goal is to make SCOPE the number one boutique supply chain recruiting firm in the US.
The supply chain sector is massive and continues to grow in complexity, which means the demand for specialized recruiting expertise is only increasing.
That’s the market I’m going after.
Competitive Differentiation
When asked what differentiates SCOPE Recruiting from its competition, Hoegener said:
We are former supply chain professionals. That’s it. That’s the differentiator.
Every recruiter on my team has actually done this work. We’ve managed categories, led sourcing strategies, and navigated the operational realities our clients deal with every day.
That firsthand understanding changes everything about how we identify, assess, and place candidates.
Future Goals
When discussing SCOPE Recruiting’s future goals, Hoegener explained:
I want SCOPE to be the number one boutique supply chain recruiting firm in the US and grow our team to 10 or more recruiters.
We’re building something that lasts, and every hire we make, internally and for our clients, moves us closer to that.
Industry Expertise And Passive Talent
When invited to discuss another topic, Hoegener concluded:
One thing I feel strongly about: for critical, technical roles, the recruiter needs to actually understand the industry they’re recruiting for.
In supply chain especially, the job description rarely tells the full story. What a Demand Planner does at a 500-person manufacturer is completely different from the same title at a global enterprise. If you don’t know that going in, you’re going to miss the right candidate.
I’d also add that passive talent is being overlooked right now in a big way. With AI making it easy for applicants to mass-apply and for companies to process that volume at scale, a lot of organizations are caught in a loop that isn’t surfacing their best options.
A lot of the strongest candidates often aren’t applying at all. Reaching them requires a different approach, and that’s where my team spends a lot of our time.
