Supporting our clients through growth and change

Understanding a Client’s Business

In 1998, a telephone call started a relationship that has become one of our most enduring.  A dynamic chief executive wanted advice on his search for a new appointment.  After a meeting, he found a CEO role with the healthcare subsidiary of a European conglomerate. Recalling our willingness to advise him, he called us within a week of landing the job.

The business had been de-listed and taken private months before he joined and a new finance director was needed to strengthen financial control.  This was the first of 15 appointments we have helped the company with over the past decade and involved the appointment of every board director and nearly every second tier-senior manager.  The business focuses on marketing and sales but appointments have included general management and senior specialist roles.  On many assignments, we report to directors who we helped identify and for one in particular who was promoted from a second-tier appointment we handled three years earlier.

All appointment searches were conducted through research-based headhunting and specialist advertising.  Our knowledge of the company and sector has enabled us to reduce substantially appointment timescales, and our fee charges are the same today as they were in 1998.

Appreciating the challenges our client faces, we provide market information and input ideas that help them manage their business.  We are asked to give views on business issues such as succession planning and management development  enabling us to maintain a close relationship enhancing our ability to provide a high quality appointments service.

 

Finding Specialist Candidates

Allander Noble is the UK partner of an international search consortium, ISG (now part of Horton International). Interesting assignments frequently arise and an assignment with this leading chemicals business is one of the more unusual ones.

Our German partner searched Northern Europe for the Head of a Pain Research laboratory in Germany.  A German speaker was sought with first-class credentials in pain control.  Other criteria stipulated by the client suggested that the assignment was all but impossible, added to which the package offered would not attract high level candidates from most countries.

Our partners had scoured Germany and Northern Europe to no avail.  We reviewed our approach to identifying candidates and concluded that search was the only option.  An impressive list of medical researchers resulted from a database search and a contact programme resulted in 40 telephone conversations with researchers across the world.  The same names were mentioned again and again.

We had researched the client’s organisation and the role content meticulously and worked with the client to redefine and detail a candidate specification, through which we reduced our shortlist to 5 individuals who we believed were German speakers and qualified for the role.
 
Long telephone conversations were held with candidates based in Australia, Canada, and California.  Two agreed to discuss the role with our client and came to London.  An outstanding individual, a professor from the University of California, was appointed.

Our client and search partners were pleased with the outcome.  So was the 60 year old professor who wanted to complete his career working in Germany.

Providing a recruitment service that meets a client’s needs

Making a Senior appointment places heavy demands on management’s time and financial resources.  Recent assignments completed for the leading UK economic development consultancy shows that both time and cost can be reduced significantly.

In 2005, we were commissioned to undertake a search for practice heads to lead small business development teams.  Technical knowledge demands were exacting but a well-defined advertisement in The Economist proved an ideal starting point attracting 165 worldwide responses.  It was supplemented by a targeted search of management consultancies, financial institutions and international development organisations.

32 candidates were interviewed and reported upon.  Our client met a dozen candidates and selected 2 to join the consultancy.  Several other applicants agreed to put their CVs forward for future projects with the consultancy.  Our assignment required 25 consultant days.

In 2006 and 2007, the exercise was repeated resulting in 2 further appointments and adding 45 names to the consultancy’s resource database.  The work involved was considerably lessened as our knowledge of the leading players in the sector enabled precision search.  The charge for both assignments was in total less than 75% of the original assignment cost.

Our knowledge of the client’s requirements and an appreciation of their culture also enabled us to reduce the number of candidates their board had to meet to fill the appointments.  As board members spend much of their time abroad and meetings are hard for them to schedule, a partnering approach to senior and specialist staff appointments achieved a welcome saving of time.

A Not-for-Profit Change Management Appointment

The Trustees of a top 20 charity (by asset value) wanted to extend their care remit from a solely residential provider into residential and outreach care. This required a Chief Executive with strong leadership and change management skill.

Our involvement with the Trustee board started with producing a detailed brief and job specification.  The Trustees were voluntary and wanted the highest level of openness in the selection procedure but not too much involvement in the selection process.  Advertisements appeared in the national, local and social work press attracting nearly 350 applications.  Every application was analysed and summaries provided to the Trustees.

An initial interview programme led to 38 preliminary interviews and as many telephone discussions.  20 detailed candidate reports were presented to the board from which 10 candidates were selected for interview.  The final 3 were interviewed for a second time and references taken up.

The candidate appointed was already managing a charity, Scotland’s 2nd largest.  His background was thoroughly checked – 10 references were taken up – and   his credentials as a change manager proved impressive.  Persuading the best candidates that the charity was positioned for change proved challenging, and our representational role played a significant part in gaining the candidate’s acceptance of the Board’s offer.

The charity now provides life-maintaining support to 2,500 people from around 200 when the new Chief Executive joined.  The whole interviewing programme required just two days from 5 Trustees.  We were recommended by the appointee to his then-employer who retained us to find his replacement.

Finding Specialist Senior Talent

One advantage of our non-sector specific approach to executive recruitment is that we are free to search across 95% of businesses in any sector without affecting past relationships.  Another is that we can bring a wide breadth of experience from related sectors to the recruitment exercise.

An example of this arose following our retention by Singer & Friedlander’s Head of Banking to find an assistant director to head their Basel II implementation.  As the implementation deadline drew near, every issue of FT Appointments carried numerous advertisements for such roles.  We were aware that response rates were minimal and the quality of applicant too junior. 

Search was proposed to identify candidates.  Although a good six-figure package was on offer, it was apparent that attracting a candidate from a similar institution would call for a significantly larger package than our client would be comfortable with.  The remuneration had to be in line with jobs of similar responsibility in the bank.

Apart from appropriate experience and affordability, speed was of the essence.  Through our contacts, we secured a good insight into the Basel II compliance field outside comparable banking institutions.  Within 2 days of initiating the search, a prospective candidate was identified working as a principal consultant with a leading management consultancy’s financial services practice.

A meeting was arranged to brief him on the role, assess his suitability and ‘sell’ him the advantages of the position and company.  With his agreement, a report was handed to the client 4 days after our initial briefing on the role, and he was interviewed the following day.  A week from commencing the search, he accepted the role and took it up a month later.  Subsequently, he was promoted to the banking division board and is still with the client 3 years later.

Attracting and recruiting the best

We were approached by a Surrey based Accountancy partnership; a twelve partner firm that focuses on corporate clients,corporate finance and high net worth private clients, to undertake search for an experienced Tax Partner who already had a high profile mixed portfolio of clients.

This brief was demanding even at a basic level; to seek an established practice leader, with the right mix of leadership and technical skills that would fit well in the client partnership.

The issue was more complicated than might first appear, we were effectively being asked to find and convince an established and successful Tax Partner, with a lucrative client base, to move away from their existing partnership into a new environment. By any standards an extremely difficult assignment, encouraging a change of partnership and culture, to a new role in a business that might have a different market positioning, against the backdrop of being settled in an existing partnership that would inevitably do whatever it might take to retain their Tax Partner. With mutual acceptance that success might not be achieved, we embarked on the search.

We undertook a very detailed search and then began the process of conveying the opportunity and engaging suitable candidates, presenting two candidates on the short list – a very successful first step. We had to manage client and preferred candidate, through a lengthy negotiation and offer process, involving each partner in the client, whilst at the same time engaging and encouraging the candidate to remain focussed on the opportunity, whilst coping with day o day work pressures.

We eventually reached a point where the successful candidate accepted and gave notice. Given the candidate’s profile in the business community, it became evident that the current employer would not give up their most valuable human asset and the situation became entrenched, between client and the candidate’s existing employer. A demanding six month negotiation ensued, requiring very close management and regular communication, to keep the candidate motivated towards the client opportunity and we eventually succeeded in bringing the partner onboard, despite several counter offers from the current employer.

The engagement, whilst demanding has proved to be a phenomenal success. The candidate has now fully integrated into the partnership, and our relationship has grown, the client having subsequently discussed future development opportunities with the Allander Noble team.