THE CLIENT
The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) is an international conservation charity devoted to the worldwide conservation of animals and their habitats, whose vision is a world where wildlife thrives.
THE CHALLENGE
I was asked to assist the Head of Finance with the recruitment of an interim Transaction Services Manager at ZSL, which presented itself with several challenges from the outset. Firstly, the role was requiring a candidate who could start immediately and who could commit to at least 6 months, as due to budget requirements they were unable to market the role as permanent in the first instance. Secondly, due to internal staff movement, the Head of Finance had asked me to present candidates who were immediately available for an interview within a day or two and to start shortly thereafter. Finally, the person specification was explicitly looking for an experienced head of function within a large, complex organisation and someone who had improved both staff performance and systems efficiency in the past.
OUR SOLUTION
I took a three-staged approach to this challenge. Firstly, due to the urgent and well-defined scope of the role, I prioritised this position above the others in my portfolio which had a longer lead-time and reached out to my large network (via LinkedIn, email and text). Secondly, I ran a search on our comprehensive CRM (Bull Horn) which instantly built a short-list of registered candidates with Pro-Finance who had the skills and background required. Thirdly, to attract candidates who may be passively looking or whom have just entered the market, I put together an advertisement to hit various job boards including Total Jobs, Reed, Charity Jobs and Pro’s own job portal.
THE RESULT
In the end, it was a well-known contact of mine who was coming to the end of a contract and who I was able to secure for this role. With one interview, she secured the role and both ZSL and the candidate were thrilled to bits.
