THE CLIENT
Maersk is the number one shipping company in the world and has operations across shipping and logistics in over 130 countries.
THE CHALLENGE
The tax team at Maersk is almost 10 people strong across the UK; they have VAT and Corporation tax in-house however they were still outsourcing all Employment Taxes across the UK. The Head of Tax, Simon Paler, wanted to bring Employment and Expatriate Tax in-house due to the increase in secondments with Maersk Oil. Simon wanted a specialist agency that had a strong network in this area because employment and expatriate tax candidates are rarely on the market. Maersk has an internal recruitment team and their process is for the recruitment team to resource directly for a period of 2 weeks before releasing it to agencies. Simon requested that we work alongside the resourcing team during that two-week process. Having made two placements in the last 12 months with Maersk they came to us due to the strength of the relationship that had built up between Pro-Tax and the team. Pro-Tax knew what the office environment was like, the people and the personalities as well as technical expertise.
OUR SOLUTION
Pro-Tax met face to face with Maersk prior to the start of the recruitment process to ensure the best possible understanding of the role, the softer skills required and the needs and visions of the existing management team. Rather than simply being a service provider, Pro-Tax acted as an extension of Maersk’s resourcing team. Pro-Tax managed the entire recruitment process throughout. We pre-screened and conducted face-to-face interviews, conducting competency-based interview as well as extensive CV screening and exploring in detail what the candidates’ motivation for wanting to work at Maersk was.
THE RESULT
Pro-Tax put five candidates forward to Maersk of which four were interviewed at first stage. We managed all of the arrangements including managing diaries, co-coordinating people coming into London from Manchester and Bristol. We then arranged three 2nd stage interviews. After such thorough interviewing, Maersk felt 100% confident that they had the best candidate possible. As such, they offered, and the candidate accepted and relocated to London.
FOLLOW UP
Twelve months on and the successful candidate is doing a brilliant job. Simon is very happy with Pro-Tax. We had a wonderful celebratory lunch at Oblix in The Shard and we speak regularly with him and the team, as well as having placed another Tax Assistant into the team. "Loved the service I had from Pro-Tax - open and honest communications, rapid response and always helpful. This is what I want from my agencies and I will use Pro-Tax again," - Danielle Cummings, HR Business Coordinator at Maersk
