Hiring For The New Service from Scratch: The 4-step Moxie Process.
1) First up - we listen and learn.
It was important that Sam understood Matt’s expectations before getting started - working in line with our client’s values is a biggie for us, and so we like to have a natter about this to get the ball rolling. It turned out that the team had worked with recruiters before, to differing levels of success. Their biggest challenge had come from recruiters not understanding their business and motivations. Unsuitable candidates would be pushed on them making it tough, demotivating and time consuming to wade through the options.
‘I reckon I’m a good judge of character, and I could tell that fulfilling our needs and making this a genuinely enjoyable experience was Sam’s primary motivation. He made it clear that he would find the right person, rather than trying to shove anyone through the door.’
In addition, Matt was clear that this needed to be a highly expert role. It was a completely new route for the company, and one that would help them further stand out from their competitors. Experts in sustainability were high in demand, and this would be a particularly challenging position: the successful candidate would not only need the skills and qualifications to tackle all areas of ESG, but they also needed to be personable, engaging and motivated enough to build their own team.
It was a newer area for #TeamMoxie, but that didn’t stop us. The plan was to take a holistic approach to recruiting for the role, focusing not only on the experience but the values and personality that the person would bring to the team.
2) Tapping into the right talent.
Since we knew Matt was looking to expand the ESG and Sustainability service offering for Jones Hargreaves, it was important that we looked past skills and experience alone and found someone who not only could deliver on projects, but also had the passion and drive to grow a full service offering.
It’s easy enough to read a CV and job spec and match accordingly. It’s another challenge finding someone who truly cares about the work they do and craves the opportunity to make something their own.
By delving deeper into the candidates motivations and getting to understand their drivers and ambitions, we could deliver applicants who we knew would be in it for the long haul and truly committed to the amazing opportunity on offer.
‘We haven’t had huge success with recruiters before - you get the idea that they don’t understand what you do as a business, and instead bombard you with unsuitable candidates. It’s time consuming and frustrating. Another great thing about Moxie is that they never tried to ‘sell’ us people who weren’t a good fit. They took their time to get to grips with what we did and who we needed rather than pushing anyone on us. There was constant honesty in their work.’
3) Filling the spots with the perfect candidate.
Huw Davies was one of the first candidates that we put to Matt - immediately, he knew this was going to be the right person for the job.
Huw came to us with over 10 years’ experience in environment and sustainability fields across a huge range of sectors. His knowledge and thirst for development was clear from the word go, and he also showed enormous passion and enthusiasm - two things that were important to Matt and the team. He was the perfect fit: ambitious, interesting and easy to be around. From the first communication between Matt and Moxie, a job offer had been made less than six weeks later.
In Matt’s words: ‘We needed to fill the role but there wasn’t a huge urgency - it was more important to us that we found an exceptional person for the job. Sam managed to find someone incredible and in a pretty quick time period. It was a definite success!’
4) Post-placement care and onboarding.
After Huw had accepted the role, he had a hefty notice period to work through; we therefore ensured he was kept up to date on all things Jones Hargreaves and maintained the communication going between him and Matt.
Thankfully, Matt Williams made the onboarding process super easy for us by ensuring Huw felt like part of the team before he even began. He invited Huw to a company event at the rugby and made sure he felt like an integral part of the organisation before even stepping into the office for his first day.
