The Brief
The roll out of new banking products and services that our retail banking client had ambitiously planned, was dependent on key tech skills in specific disciplines at Architect, Analyst Developer and Developer levels.
What they faced was a massive skills shortage in the market, within all similar financial services companies, and an unusually high number of ‘hands-off’ agreements, which made the pool of potential candidates even smaller.
And, consequently, some big challenges in meeting their goals and deadlines.
So when the hurdle to overcome is a talent-related one, with seemingly impossible deliverables, that’s when our client typically makes a call to us (+ 27 21 4256677). Could we uncover and access enough of these skilled professionals to provide our client with some hires now and a talent pipeline for the future?
Challenge and Outcomes
We proposed a combined process, which took the form of two research and headhunting projects running concurrently – targeting two key skill areas at all levels of competency.
Our special projects team spent four weeks of painstaking research to build target pools of candidates with the requisite skills – and six weeks of overlapping headhunting ensured that every single person on the list was approached (about 165!).
The result: a shortlist of candidates currently available and interested in the roles on offer – with two immediate hires! And a longlist of candidates suitable, but not currently available, for the client to engage over time.
The insights from the process informed some critical client decisions about the future IT strategies and internal talent development opportunities.
When our processes inform client strategy for the next couple of years and further, we consider that to be a great outcome!
