This case study illustrates Next Phase’s ability to provide tailored recruitment solutions, and appropriate personnel, to meet the requirements of a client that needs to grow quickly by hiring people with very specific technical skills.
Situation
Next Phase was introduced to “Partner” in October 2019 through a mutual customer who utilise Partner’s RTSM technology within their clinical trials. When we first started to recruit for Partner they had around 90 staff and were about to embark on a fast expansion, due to the success of their software products, increasing customer demand and significant external investment.
Task
The task for Next Phase was to complement Partner’s Talent Acquisition team and assist in the recruitment of multiple technical roles. Job titles included Integrations Lead, IRT Study Design Manager, Systems Support Manager, Study Configuration Engineer, Technical Project Manager, DevOps Analyst, Software Test Analyst and Business Analyst. Candidates were to be sourced in the US, UK and certain European countries, in some cases for office-based roles and in some cases to be home-based. Given the specialist nature of the individuals required, it was important for Partner to partner with a staffing agency who would make appropriate, proactive approaches to relevant individuals, where the right introduction and first impression of Partner would be crucial.
Action
The relationship between Next Phase and Partner has grown and evolved steadily over the last 2½ years. Following 2 introductory meetings and agreement of terms of business, Next Phase allocated a Project Manager to front the Partner account, backed with 3 Recruitment Consultants who specialise in different areas (RTSM Project Management, Software Development and Quality respectively), with additional support from Next Phase’s Delivery team. A clear way of working was agreed from the outset, so that Partner knew how quickly to expect CVs and Next Phase knew how soon to expect feedback from the hiring managers, and how the interview process would operate.
Next Phase offer a recruitment portal in order to centralise every submitted CV in a GDPR-compliant way. This was utilised initially before being replaced by Partner’s own portal once this was installed in 2021. CVs have also been presented to Partner in a standardised format, to Partner’s specifications, ensuring a consistent presentation of key candidate information. Additionally, to enhance the candidate experience, and being mindful of preserving Partner’s company culture through significant expansion, all candidates are presented with a comprehensive information pack, which Next Phase helped Partner to create.
Results
Within 2½ years, Next Phase has placed 31 new starters with Partner in permanent roles, across different territories including the UK, East & West Coast US, Netherlands, Ireland, Germany and Belgium.
As a business, Partner has expanded to over 300 staff, trebling in size, and Next Phase has been responsible for around 15% of these new starters.
While Partner aim to hire as many people as people through their internal TA function, they have continued to partner with Next Phase as their preferred (and sometimes sole) external agency for specific positions.
It has not all gone smoothly, of course. As is normal in the creation of a new recruitment partnership, there have been some instances where candidates have declined job offers, candidate profiles have not been quite the right match, and the recruitment process could have been swifter. However, each of these situations has presented an opportunity to modify processes (including implementing a weekly progress review call), improve communication and systems, and gain a better understanding of the market for candidates with very specialist skills.
Summary
This case study illustrates Next Phase’s ability to provide tailored recruitment solutions, and appropriate personnel, to meet the requirements of a client that needs to grow quickly by hiring people with very specific technical skills.
To learn more about how Next Phase can be your ideal recruitment partner to support your fast expansion, please contact us on +44 (0)1403 216216. To read further case studies, To learn more about how Next Phase can be your ideal recruitment partner to support your fast expansion, please contact us on +44 (0)1403 216216 . To read further case studies, click here.