Do you know how to find employees who are the right fit, right away? It’s a specialist skill which can strengthen your employer branding, company culture, and succession pipelines. Robert Half finance recruitment specialist Charlie Clements reveals the benefits of a ‘right fit’ hire, how Robert Half supports clients at every stage to ensure they find a perfect match, and answers your hiring FAQs.
Recruiting talent: why finding a ‘good fit’ hire is critical
An investment in future business success
The right hire will be genuinely invested in your business and actively want to build its longevity via a long-term career with you. “The aim is that somebody will go into a business and be there long term,” says Charlie.
A positive addition to company culture
Company culture is built via many parts over many years. One bad hire is enough to spread discontent and underperformance throughout entire teams. In the worst case, a bad hire can even cause you to lose talented, legacy professionals through resignations. “A good fit hire is an excellent cultural addition to the business,” Charlie says. “If you get it wrong, it can be detrimental to the wider team and potentially the business's reputation.”
Strengthen your employer branding
“It doesn’t look good when a business repeatedly puts the same role out into the market,” says Charlie. Repeatedly hiring for the same role can serve as a red flag for eagle-eyed candidates monitoring market opportunities. In many cases, it reflects poorly on the company rather than the employees and suggests something is amiss with the culture, working conditions, or the hiring process.
How to hire employees with Robert Half
1. Do essential groundwork before reaching out
Before reaching out to a recruiter, Charlie advises looking at who you currently have on your payroll and assessing them as a potential fit before looking externally. “Is there anybody internally who might want to be considered for a vacancy?” asks Charlie. “You don't want to deprive people who might otherwise have applied.”
It’s also a great idea to map out the new hire’s responsibilities and assess whether any can be distributed elsewhere in the business. You can also improve retention by conducting a thorough exit interview with the departing individual to identify areas for improvement and increase transparency about the role for your agent.
“Ensure you've got a quality job spec — candidates prefer to understand their responsibilities and learn more about the business before applying. It's an introduction to the organisation,” says Charlie.
2. Send us your hiring brief
Once you have the groundwork in place, you can begin your partnership with Robert Half. Start by telling us what you need — send us your hiring brief via the webform here, or call your local office to speak to someone directly.
3. Meet your dedicated recruiter
Your dedicated recruiter will reach out to arrange a face-to-face meeting, especially if they haven’t worked with you before. They’ll also ask for a site visit so they can see the environment their candidate will be coming into — this helps them make a more accurate match. “Then we sit down and discuss the business's journey as well as the cultural aspects,” Charlie adds.
4. Discuss candidate requirements
Your recruiter will review the job spec with you to determine which skills and experience are essential and which are nice to have. This includes personality, soft skills, and the kinds of candidates you can expect for your budget.
“I'm currently working with a client who's recruiting for a newly created systems accountant role. Essentially, they need someone skilled in IT who understands finance. So, we shifted the focus to systems experience rather than accountancy qualifications,” says Charlie.
5. Get your shortlist
“I tend to give myself three to four working days to shortlist for a role. I typically book a shortlisting call with the hiring manager to talk through my top 4-5 candidates after I’ve gone out to the market and share these ahead of our call. On the call, I’ll give context around key experiences which relate to the hiring manager's requirements as well as personality traits/interpersonal skills, and humanise the person/CV,” says Charlie.
Your recruiter will have met the candidates they’ve recommended and obtained two recent references for each, as well as confirmation of their right to work and, if you require it, skills testing.
“I tend to give myself three, maybe four working days to go away and shortlist for a role. I then book a call, say, for four days' time, and often that'll be on Teams so I can screen share. But I will run through who I've shortlisted. I shortlist my top four or five candidates in the market, and I send them over before the call so that they can have a look,” says Charlie.
Your recruiter will have met the candidates they’ve recommended and obtained several references for each, as well as confirmation of their right to work and, if you require it, skills testing.
6. Hold first stage interviews
Once you’ve finalised your shortlist with your recruiter, they will synchronise diaries to arrange back-to-back interviews with your chosen candidates for a hosted interview. Charlie says:
“For the first stage, we look to support with the hosting of the interviews (behind the scenes) to allow the hiring manager to focus on the task at hand: the interviewing. We can host clients at our offices, using our boardroom and meeting rooms, or on-site at the client’s office, and we're there to meet and greet candidates and get their live feedback. At the end of the process, we sit down with the panel and discuss the feedback, resulting in candidates receiving faster feedback and a more efficient process.”
7. Hold second stage interviews
After the top three candidates have been chosen, your recruiter will arrange stage two interviews within two to three working days. “Candidates know it's already blocked out in the client's diary, so everyone's available,” says Charlie. “They meet for the second stage, after which we arrange a feedback call to ask who you’d like to present an offer to. And then we handle the offer.”
How does Robert Half add value to the recruitment process?
Speed to market
A fast, efficient hiring process is critical to securing top candidates. By utilising hosted interviews (as detailed above) and taking control of diary management to help condense timelines, it’s far easier to move through the hiring process with multiple candidates while enabling direct comparison.
“It keeps the candidate engaged. They go into the process knowing first-stage interviews are on Monday, second-stage interviews are on Thursday, and they will have an offer out by the weekend; that candidate is more engaged in the process because they know the company is invested in that hire,” says Charlie.
Strong matching capabilities
Robert Half is known for its impeccable matching capabilities, built on your recruiter’s extensive specialist knowledge and networks, as well as the other specialist teams behind them.
“Whilst you might deal with one consultant as your main point of contact, they're the tip of the iceberg,” says Charlie. “Behind them, there’s a wider team of other sector experts who are also able to supply candidates and give input. Before a hiring manager sees the shortlist, it’s been challenged internally by a wider team.”
Extensive candidate databases
Over the last 50 years, Robert Half has built an impressive internal database of passive and active candidates—the longest-standing database in the UK. “There are very few accountants not on it,” says Charlie.
“We're the longest-standing finance recruitment agency in the UK. Our database is a goldmine and includes talent we may have placed five or ten years ago who are still signed up to our mailing list and happen to be looking for a new job.”
Robert Half recruitment: answering your FAQS
How quickly can Robert Half find permanent candidates?
The initial engagement-to-offer stage lasts, on average, two weeks. For permanent roles, recruiters like Charlie will usually allocate three to four working days to mine the whole market thoroughly. “Don't limit yourself to candidates on the market. Give yourself time to explore the potential within passive talent,” says Charlie.
What types of roles can Robert Half recruit for?
Robert Half is a finance and accounting recruitment expert with specialist teams covering technology, marketing and creative, HR and admin, and legal. Charlie adds, “We've also got an Executive Search team. They cover senior roles across the business. It could be a Managing Director, a CIO, a Chief HR Officer — anything at the exec level. We span it all.”
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How involved will I be in the hiring process?
“Very involved,” says Charlie, “I see it as a collaborative search.” Your recruiter will work closely with you from that first meeting, in which they’ll talk extensively with you about your business, company culture, company structure, plans, and hiring needs. Your recruiter will present candidates, support the entire interview process, and stay in contact with both you and the candidate after placement to ensure a good fit.
Why should I use Robert Half instead of hiring directly?
There are several excellent reasons it pays to go with a professional recruiter. First, it’s incredibly difficult to find and hire the right candidate efficiently while managing other BAU duties and work responsibilities — that’s why organisations like Robert Half exist!
It’s also incredibly helpful—for both you and your candidates—to have an impartial third party acting as a buffer within the interview process. In this situation, your recruiter is perfectly placed to guide, negotiate, and advise on your (or the candidate’s) behalf, so everyone gets the best deal possible.
“I had a situation recently in which two candidates had reached the final-stage interview. The hiring manager asked me, ‘Who do you think is the most interested?’ I was able to give my honest opinion and save her time by rejecting the less interested candidate,” says Charlie.
Is it more effective to use multiple agencies or work exclusively with one?
Although it may seem like a more efficient way to mine the hiring market for top talent, Charlie is quick to caution against engaging multiple recruitment agencies simultaneously. “If you've got three recruiters trying to call you, trying to give you their top five candidates, you're then looking at 15 CVs. Everyone's trying to tell you that they have the best candidate,” she says.
You’re also much more likely to get a preferential rate when working exclusively with a dedicated recruitment partner. “Retained clients get access to co-branded advertising, which gives better brand awareness, more coverage in the market, and more engagement,” advises Charlie. “You get the best of the whole market rather than the 20% of people actively looking.”
Tell us your talent needs today and start your collaborative partnership with Robert Half. Do you still have questions about the Robert Half recruitment process or ‘right fit’ hiring? Get in touch with our experts today.
