Case studies
Cancer Research UK
Roles
- 2 x Finance Analysts
Client Profile
Cancer Research UK (CRUK) is the world's largest independent cancer research organisation. The charity conducts research using both its own staff and grant-funded researchers. It also provides information about cancer and runs campaigns aimed at raising awareness and influencing public policy.
The organisation's work is almost entirely funded by the public. It raises money through donations, legacies, community fundraising, events, retail and corporate partnerships.
Assignment
Through detailed conversation and relationship building with the Head of Financial Planning Analysis, Robertson Bell learned that CRUK was going through a significant period of change. Recruiting for two Finance Analyst roles would be pivotal and the appointments needed to be made as quickly as possible in order to alleviate some of the pressures on reporting and other tasks.
It was agreed that the two roles would both be hands on, with two similar profiles, but with slightly different skill sets.
Considerations and challenges
Outside of a quick turnaround, the organisation was seeking candidates who were partly qualified and who had a very strong technical skill set.
As a well-established charity, CRUK has very high expectations in terms of the applicants it brings on board – for example candidates were expected to be able to strongly evidence experience in financial analysis and in financial reporting.
The client was also looking for those able to perform well at interview. The nature of the role requires employees to be able to communicate complex financial information to the wider organisation and therefore candidates needed to be able to demonstrate this ability by clearly articulating responses to the interviewer.
This created a limited pool of candidates for the team to source from in a short period of time.
Solution
Given the urgency of these hires, the team worked with the hiring manager to set up a very tight schedule, including a designated day for the briefing, a set deadline for CVs to be sent over and pre-agreed interview days.
The brief was taken on the Tuesday and in order to fit around annual leave on the client side, the consultants set themselves a 24-hour window to shortlist for the two roles.
With the support of Robertson Bell’s resourcing team, the consultants were able to shortlist four suitable candidates, and met with the client to discuss the profiles of the candidates the next day.
The client was impressed by the shortlist and felt that all the candidates would meet the requirements of the role. Three of the four candidates were interviewed the next day, and the consultants met with the client post-interview to talk through any feedback. Following the interviews, the client decided to hire two of the candidates on the Friday.
Outcome
The time constrains and the high calibre of candidates required meant the Robertson Bell team were thrilled to be able to achieve such a successful outcome for a key client.
As the client enjoyed meeting all of the candidates, they decided to invite one of the unsuccessful applicants to interview for a similar role in a different team for which they felt the candidate would be a strong contender.
The client was impressed by the quick turnaround of the hires and the quality of candidates and as a result has worked with Robertson Bell extensively since, often on an exclusive basis. The team has supported on numerous roles from Finance Analyst level up to Senior Finance Manager.
Part of the client feedback spoke to the benefits of receiving expert support and being able to bounce ideas off the consultants, particularly in such a tough candidate market, in order to keep its hiring processes moving forward.