Case studies
United Response
Roles
- Group Financial Controller
- Head of Risk and Internal Audit
Client Profile
United Response is a charity that helps adults and young people with disabilities live the lives they choose. That includes those with learning disabilities, physical disabilities, autism and mental health support needs. It works with over 60 local authorities around the country and supports day-to-day living, finding a house or a job, education, and activities in the local community.
Assignment
The Robertson Bell team ran a campaign for two senior permanent roles: ‘Group Financial Controller’ and ‘Head of Risk and Internal Audit’. The client had previously engaged with multiple other agencies but, due to a number of unsuccessful interviews, had failed to fill these positions. The Robertson Bell team offered a helping hand and, after pitching to run an exclusive recruitment campaign, both roles were offered on an exclusive retained basis.
The Group Financial Controller position involved managing a team of around 25 people and so required a candidate with this level of seniority and ability, to start making an impact straight away.
For the Head of Risk and Internal Audit vacancy, the client was looking for an ambitious candidate who was eager to progress and ready to take a step up. The candidate didn’t necessarily require previous experience in that exact role.
Considerations and challenges
Throughout the hiring process, the client was undergoing significant change, so the main considerations centred around reassuring candidates that they would be joining a cohesive organisation, despite shifts in the workforce.
To add to this, both hiring campaigns took place during an audit, making a speedy and smooth hiring process more challenging.
The seniority and highly skilled nature of the Group Financial Controller position made sourcing suitable candidates difficult and the calibre of some of the initial applications was not to the necessary standard. Therefore, the consultants had to utilise their networks to tap into a wider pool of talent.
On the flip side, as the Head of Risk and Internal Audit vacancy was more flexible, the consultants received a strong response rate and were able to choose from some great candidates ambitious for the role.
Solution
The team ran a branded campaign for both vacancies via outreach on the Robertson Bell website, a number of job boards and LinkedIn. For this exclusive recruitment campaign, recorded video interviews were also implemented. This involved the line manager setting three questions for the candidates and Robertson Bell recording their responses in short video clips, allowing them to get a better grasp of the applicants, attitude and communicative skills and ultimately suitability for the position.
As the Group Financial Controller role required a senior candidate with relevant experience, the consultants interacted with their networks through platforms such as LinkedIn to source more candidates that fitted the client’s specifications. Four interviews with suitable candidates were secured before the successful applicant was chosen.
After the Head of Risk and Internal Audit role went live, there was a four-week search time followed by a two-stage interview process, whereby out of the six applications sent over, five resulted in interviews.
The successful candidates were offered their roles six weeks after the jobs had gone live, which the client was extremely pleased with.
Outcome
For both roles, the client felt that the quality of the candidates found was extremely high and the charity was able to secure their first choice of candidate in both instances.
As a result, the client was highly complimentary about working with Robertson Bell and felt it was the exact approach that it needed after a previously negative experience with failed interviews. This strong rapport has since seen the charity request support in filling an interim role.
This is testament to the consideration that went into the brief stage of the process. The team met with the client to have a detailed discussion about both vacancies and nail down the exact requirements and what skills and attributes would be most important to them. This greatly informed the candidate search.
One takeaway from this assignment was the desire from candidates to have a face-to-face interview in order to get a better feel for the team and organisation that they would potentially be joining. This was communicated to the client and amended accordingly. Post-pandemic, the team is seeing an increased appetite from applicants for in-person contact, even in the form of a quick informal chat, before making a decision on an offer. Robertson Bell is extremely pleased to have been able to not only find two brilliant new employees for United response but to have also been able to work with them to redefine and tweak their recruitment processes to set them up for further success.