Case studies
Platform Housing Group
Roles
- Head of Investments (Permanent)
- Category Manager (Permanent)
Client profile
Platform Housing Group is a social housing organisation that specialises in the rent and sales of new homes across the UK, developing around 2,000 homes per annum. The group was formed from a merger in late 2019 and upon the appointment of a new CFO in April of last year they began the process of restructuring their finance and procurement departments.
Assignment
Robertson Bell has formed a strong relationship with Platform Housing Group since the beginning of the year, meeting with senior members of the team multiple times across several months, strengthening ties and building up a strong understanding of what the Group is about and its overall objectives.
Robertson Bell engaged with Platform Housing Group in April this year to place two roles in its Corporate Finance and Procurement teams, a Head of Investments and a Category Manager.
Platform Housing Group had found the existing applicants weren’t what they were looking for, and so partnered with Robertson Bell to find candidates with the right skillsets to fill the roles. Due to the specialist nature of the roles, our industry insight positioned us well to source and secure high-quality talent under time pressures.
Considerations and challenges
- Both of the roles were in very niche areas of the sector, and so the client required the successful candidates to have a high level of expertise and skill.
- Following the COVID-19 pandemic, Platform Housing Group made a company decision to move to fully remote working which can pose both an opportunity and a challenge when recruiting new talent.
- Salaries for these roles were a core challenge due to the competitive marketplace.
Solution
Both roles within this assignment were particularly niche and specialist which meant that our consultants needed to carefully consider the skills and prior experience required for a successful assignment. Robertson Bell utilised its own network of public and commercial sector professionals to find suitable candidates.
For each role, our consultants created a ‘blind’ advertising campaign, not disclosing location or the organisation. This ran across a number of targeted job boards and social media platforms in order to reach the desired pool of candidates that held the skills and experience the roles demanded. We also leveraged our vast LinkedIn networks and performed a deep dive of our existing databases to reach passive and hard to find candidates.
Outcome
We are incredibly proud of our work with this client, and the long-standing relationship that we have with their Finance and Procurement teams. Our consultants have demonstrated the value that we can add, by identifying and suggesting high calibre talent from in-house databases and networks, further positioning us as a recruitment partner of choice.
Head of Investments (Permanent)
Our consultants heading up the process for Platform Housing Group took the time to build up a strong relationship with the client, meeting regularly over the course of the process to demonstrate our credibility and reliability to deliver the right candidates.
Robertson Bell found a candidate it had previously worked with who was looking for a new role. Our consultants maintain strong and long-lasting relationships with both clients and candidates, which allowed us to re-engage with this specific candidate to identify their skills and capability to undertake this Head of Investments role.
The client was impressed with the recommendation by our consultants, with the successful candidate due to start in their new role later in the summer of 2021.
Category Manager (Permanent)
Our consultants were engaged to undertake a search for a candidate with a public sector specific background due to the nature of procurement in this area. To secure this candidate, we searched through our database and used our active networks to meet new potential candidates.
The benefits of working from home means that Platform Housing Group are an extremely attractive organisation to work for and the flexibility can appeal to candidates who wouldn’t have previously applied. The shortlist we put forward consisted of five candidates who all saw the opportunity of working from home as an additional positive. The successful candidate has settled well into their new role.
Due to our consultants high understanding of their specific markets, Robertson Bell are able to successfully place specialist roles such as these. In dedicating time to each role, our consultants were able to present a final shortlist of candidates for each interview that had an impressive career history and mixture of industry experiences.
The successful candidates are now working, or are soon to start working at Platform Housing Group, and the client is happy with the high level of service and talent that was provided.