Strong Relationships With Contractors Ensured A Skills Gap Was Easily Filled

The client's challenge...

We’d had an awareness of this client in the legal sector for some time, and we had built up a professional relationship with one of the hiring managers at the company for a while before they needed support with an IT contract placement.

Within 24 hours of the client engaging us for a Service Desk Analyst role, we sent them 6 CVs, 5 of which were offered an interview, this included contractor A who had previously been contracted by the company and Contractor B, who we believed was the best fit for the contract.

After the interviews, our client had difficulty choosing who to hire from the great shortlist of candidates. In the end, they chose to go for contractor A whom they had worked with previously. Although contractor A had not performed as well as contractor B at interview, the client thought they were the best fit and we respected their choice to go with a known contractor. However, when contractor A ended up not being fully capable of fulfilling all of the tasks that were expected of them, the client was unsure how to proceed.

After exiting Contractor A, the client requested more CVs to look over as they were sure that the candidates they had talked to nearly 3 weeks before would no longer be available/ interested. However, because we understand the contract market and how quickly things can change, we have processes in place to ensure that relationships with our contractors are developed and nurtured, so that if something goes wrong, we already have the knowledge of how to fix it. Thanks to this, we knew that contractor B who had excelled during the original interview process was still available.

We talked through the client’s concerns around whether to re-engage contractor B or to look for more contractors. Sourcing new candidates would have taken more time, more resources and did not guarantee the best outcome. We knew that the contractor B had impressed the client at the original interview, so we advised them to give contractor B a second interview, whilst we went ahead and found new contractors as a back-up. The client trusted us and agreed to re-interview contractor B who was then interviewed within 24 hours and sent an offer within 48 hours.

Our actions...

• Kept in contact with the client and contractor A during the onboarding process. By doing this, we were fully knowledgeable about what was going on and had oversight when issues started cropping up.
• Ensured open and transparent lines of communication with the hiring managers throughout the first onboarding process in case there were issues and the client needed a replacement.
• Remained engaged with the candidates from the hiring process in case we needed a replacement for the original starter.
• Supported contractor A and the company during the exit procedure and offered insights into whether they should re-engage the previous candidates or not.
• Ensured the contractor B was still available and interested due to keeping consistent contact.
• Set up a new interview with contractor B and supported them and the organisation through the new onboarding process.

The outcomes...

Due to our consistent communication in the month between the original set of interviews and when the client re-engaged with contractor B, the contractor was hired and onsite for their first day of work within 1 week.

We kept a keen eye on the onboarding process to make sure it went smoothly and visited the client and the contractor onsite one week into the contract to ensure everyone involved was happy with the outcome. Contractor B was performing their tasks exceptionally and continues to do so.