How one of Anglo’s best senior consultants successfully fills specialist Government requirement within a 72hr deadline and beats hundreds of agencies.
Project Summary:
Client: UK Central Government Department
Challenge: Anglo Government Division was given 72 hours to fill a very niche technical role for major Government digital transformation project.
Being a relatively new technology discipline meant we were evolving within a candidate-short market where professionals demand high pay rates.
Solution:
The Lead Consultant first spoke with the client to share mutual hurdles and road blocks that we were experiencing along the way.
Secondly, we looked for alternative ways to source candidates as most candidates were already known to the client.
We searched for candidates through diverse social media platforms and targeted the ones that were already working at Government departments on the same digital transformation programme/ project.
Result: We sourced a candidate from the exact same Government department on a similar project, however we needed to be sensitive about submission due to candidate’s current role. The candidate was interviewed and then offered the role which he happily accepted. Anglo’s Lead Consultant was praised by the client, as he saw an opportunity/ solution for them which they could have realised internally.
The Story:
The client is a key department of the UK Government along with a few other major departments who were leading the new digital transformation programme nationwide. Anglo was given 72 hours to fill an urgent requirement for a senior position to join their nationwide project which had deadlines of delivery to be met.
The main challenge was related to the lack of experienced candidates with public sector experience. The demand for this expertise is always increasing due to digital change in all industries however the low number and complex availability of these professionals makes it effectively a battle between agencies to get there first. The 72-hour window and hundreds of agencies competing were a constraint too.
Being fairly new to the Government framework, Anglo’s Lead Consultant for this project knew he had to get things moving very quickly as the competition may have already had candidates in mind and ready to contact. He changed his methodology quite quickly due to the fact that any candidate he did find and contact, had already been contacted by another agency. This clearly meant he was behind in his searches and the competition was already a step ahead. This is when he started to “think outside the box” and started using resources such as LinkedIn and Twitter to see who was already working within the government departments with the same or similar role. The strategy led him to a candidate who was already working for that government department, in the same location but just different office. His initial plan was to have a conversation with them to learn in detail what the digital project entailed and what key skills were needed in this role. The candidate’s current short-term contract was coming to an end so he decided just to pop the question and see where it led him. Fortunately, the candidate informed us that his/her managers were interested and decided to go through the agency route and to be represented by Anglo. After checking terms and agreement contracts with the client, Anglo then submitted the candidates CV.
Within 72 hours, Anglo had found and submitted a candidate who would definitely be of interest to the client. After a single interview, the candidate was offered the role with a higher pay rate due to urgency. The client was surprised yet impressed that a recruiter managed to source the expertise they were looking for from right under their noses. Anglo is now a tier 1 niche supplier on this framework.
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