Case studies
Gateway Housing
Roles
- Senior Finance Officer
- Finance Manager
Client Profile
Gateway Housing is a well-established community-based housing association with 3,000 properties primarily in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
They are uniquely the largest provider of sheltered housing in Tower Hamlets and were the first registered provider of older persons shared ownership in the borough. Gateway Housing are particularly proud of their new build properties for leasehold, shared ownership and direct sale which are low density and high quality. Their purpose is ‘to provide great homes for people in East London and to support communities to thrive.’
Assignment
After outreach from the team, Gateway Housing approached Robertson Bell for help in finding a suitable candidate to assume the position of Senior Finance Officer as quickly as possible.
The incumbent post holder was due to finish very soon and the finance team was unsure as to their next move. They had utilised the services of an external recruitment agency before working with Robertson Bell, but with mixed results. Gateway Housing were looking for someone specific, who had the financial experience but also a sound working knowledge of the housing sector itself, which limited the available pool of talent within which to search.
The successful candidate was also required to have the confidence to come in, hit the ground running and make an immediate impact. It was a brief that was both frustrating and challenging for the client.
After the first successful assignment was completed by the team at Robertson Bell, the client reapproached us for a second role of Finance Manager. This was partly because they knew the team here understood them as an organisation and their culture, but more important was our understanding of the specific nature of each role and the urgency by which a successful candidate was needed.
Considerations and challenges
The client was in a difficult situation where they needed to fill two roles as soon as possible and had been struggling to find the right people.
For the first position, with the salary that they were offering, they were struggling to get the right candidate. They wanted someone with that confidence to come in and make a positive effect from the word go.
The financial team were a close-knit team of eight so it was important for them to bring people in who would be a good fit for the team and the company, which may have been even more important than the experience
Solution
For the first role, the consultant had already built a relationship with the candidate he was placing from a previous role. This gave the client extra confidence in their ability to procure the quality and knowledge they sought in their ideal applicant.
In both cases creating an extensive and thorough brief to ensure that we were completely clear on the needs of the client was key. It was important to get a sense of the whole picture of who they wanted, going beyond the knowledge to look at aspects such as being a team player and whether two years of experience would be enough or if they really wanted several years.
This level of detail proved to be pivotal and allowed the team to have a comprehensive and complete understanding of the person specification, enabling them to go away and source the correct talent.
Outcome
For the Senior Finance Officer - after outreach from the team, the client asked Robertson Bell for help and our consultant was able to take a thorough brief and then sent an application over within the following hour. The candidate was interviewed and offered the job on the same day.
The client was extremely pleased with the quick turnaround of the placement and reached out again two days later to fill the second role of Finance Manager. After taking a detailed brief, Robertson Bell sent over three applications to the client, interviews took place that day, which again resulted in an offer being made on the same day.
This outcome was extremely positive for the client but also for the Robertson Bell team who were proud to be able to place two candidates so quickly, at a time that the client really needed support.
Robertson Bell was able to demonstrate their understanding of the market but also show an appreciation of the need for finance teams to attract candidates with the correct experience but also that have the right attitude and confidence.
The prior rapport that the consultant had built with the first candidate also gave him greater insight into whether the applicant had the confidence to really hit the ground running and provide the client with what they needed.