THE CLIENT
Gerald Edelman is a top 70 accountancy practice with offices based in Essex, Central London and North London. Established for 70 years, they have 16 Partners spread across the three offices and deal with clients from a wide mixture of sectors ranging from sole-traders to multi-national organisations.
THE CHALLENGE
Based in Whetstone, North London, a large accounts division headed up by Joanna Loizidou (Business Services Manager) needed to recruit in order to grow the team and handle the work coming in from new business being won. The original need was for one accountant, this quickly grew from two and then to four due to the success of the Partners and their business development. Whetstone is a difficult area to recruit for with multiple top firms based in the area and the pull from Central London appealing to most of the candidates. When you need to find not one but four, talented accounts to hit the ground running with a sizeable client base, it can be very tough.
OUR SOLUTION
From our long-lasting relationship with the Partners at Gerald Edelman, we were invited to meet Joanna Loizidou at the Whetstone office. We set some time aside to discuss the exact needs of the business, what sets them apart from their competitors, the internal culture and what candidates can expect in the future. After running through a full fact find, we worked out the exact steps we were going to take in our search process. The job specification was finalised and we knew what boxes needed to be ticked and exactly what my candidates would be facing with the interview process. Beginning with our database filled with passive and active candidates, we immediately went to work contacting and shortlisting the best candidates in the local area that was open to the opportunity. Following up with advertisements, targeting candidates that are not yet active on the market but match the specification and asking our candidates and clients for referrals – we managed to grow a strong shortlist of roughly 30 candidates and began presenting the best candidates to Joanna.
THE RESULT
Of the candidates we presented to Joanna, over the course of a short period of time, we narrowed our search down to just a few interviews. From the initial interviews, we picked up highly relevant feedback from Joanna helping us in our search moving forward and managed to secure two suitable candidates for the vacant positions. Shortly after we managed to arrange further interviews and filled the remaining two vacancies with minimal obstacles. In summary, of the 7 interviews arranged, 4 candidates were perfect and accepted an offer to join GE.
FOLLOW UP
We have a successful relationship with Joanna, we regularly catch up to discuss how her team is moving forward and how each candidate is performing, the candidates have been a great success and are now helping to grow the business and adding value to the company. “Pro-Finance has helped us shape the ideal team for our needs. Their efficiency and quick responses were crucial to securing the right candidates for us.” – Joanna Loizidou, Business Services Manager at Gerald Edelman.
