Hard work (and hard hats) pays off

The Mission

Our client, one of the top four banks operating in South Africa, approached us to assist them in recruiting 2 key roles within their Group Credit Management/Risk portfolio.  They had first tried the traditional, contingent recruitment route, but this had not yielded any suitable candidates and, by the time we came on the scene, the situation was critical, and they needed to fill these roles urgently.

With experience spanning more than 2 decades in the Risk and Analytics industry, we had a very good idea of where to start and how to expedite this process.  From experience, we knew well that the pool of suitably skilled candidates was limited and that many of these individuals were not actively looking for new opportunities.  We had to go to them – we had to identify them and ultimately present the opportunity to them.  We donned our hard hats, gloves and work boots, and got stuck into identifying and building a broad pool of talent for these 2 roles.

An intense, focused, research-driven skills mapping project was undertaken, encompassing Retail and Wholesale credit teams at the Group and Divisional levels, across the primary banks in South Africa.  It was all hands on deck due to the urgency, and we committed to completing the research, contacting and short-listing of candidates within 3 to 4 weeks.

Challenge and Outcomes

238 candidates were profiled and over 80% of them were approached to determine their interest, suitability and career drivers.  Of this, 75% of the candidates were not interested in considering a career move for several reasons.

The extent of our research meant that we were able to deliver real market insights to our client, including the depth of available skills, demographic representation, competitor operating models and remuneration structures.  We were able to build a picture of the key employee value proposition drivers that included innovation, personal development, business impact and global exposure.  This information is very relevant to a client who is hiring, it feeds directly into their talent management strategy and succession plans.

Our hard work paid off.  We presented a short list of relevant and interested candidates and it was then up to our client to assess and court them.  Happy client, happy candidates.