case study

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Our client were looking for a Head of Residential Property to develop and grow their property team across the West Midlands.

The brief

The existing Leadership Team had overseen significant growth of the business and were now planning for succession which required additional support to make the necessary structural changes whilst supporting a significant jump to the next level of growth. 

Although a well-established firm with high quality work,  the owners struggled to find candidates who could fulfill the role.

Our client had been on the lookout for a potential Head of Residential Property over the previous 6 months, including utilising contingent recruiters, advertising the role in local media publications and social media platforms. None of these had delivered any suitable candidates – but had incurred significant cost and time.

We spent time with the client to get a really good understanding of the business and, really importantly, the cultural feel of the workplace. Having reviewed the client’s previous attempts to recruit this individual, we identified the key challenges as follows:

• Qualification – the successful candidate had to be a solicitor
• Location – the role was 100% office-based 
• Sector experience – identifying an individual who had experience of delivering significant growth in the sector and had a minimum of 5 years PQE
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To address the qualification requirement we undertook research into locating individuals who fitted the need of the client.

We undertook an in-depth search, casting a broad net across an agreed reasonable commute time, based on the fact that the role was fully office-based.

Finally, although we scoured candidates with 5 years PQE, we also identified candidates who had proven experience of delivering a seismic shift in growth within a shorter space of time. 

Ultimately, from a long list of 134 candidates, whittled down to a short list of 5 for the client to interview, the successful candidate had the perfect mix of skills and experience for the role. They had previously worked as a Senior Associate and demonstrated the commitment and drive needed to support the ambitious growth plans of the firm.