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Building the right team

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Others have said we’re good at what we do which is providing advice and guidance about pensions, investments and finance in general.

We have a confession to make. We’re not quite such a polished act when it comes to recruiting people.  There is a good reason for that; we don’t do it very often.

Fifteen years with the same team

Prior to last year we hadn’t needed to recruit anyone as our team had remain unchanged for 15 years or so but that had to end one day. Just before Christmas 2013 Lisa left on maternity leave and some months later Lisa confirmed that looking after baby Sammy was far more fun than a 5 day a week commute to London. Professionally we were disappointed as Lisa was a wonderful employee but as her friends we were delighted that being a mum was indeed more fun than working at Gibson Lamb.

Our historic recruiting strategy

Vicky joined us from Standard Life and in modern parlance that means we headhunted Vicky.  In reality we asked nicely if joining us would appeal and we’re very glad Vicky said yes.  Emma responded to an advert in the Evening Standard and breezed the interview process. Lisa knew someone who knew we were looking and joined us having recently left Legal & General.  Allegedly the interview took place in the pub below the office but we couldn’t possible comment on that.

Finding a new person

We realised we didn’t have the time or expertise to recruit and this time we didn’t know anyone looking for a new challenge.   We thought that an advert would generate too many replies and we wouldn’t know where to start so we decided to use a recruitment company.

Total waste of money

One such firm said that had an ideal candidate who had the relevant experience, skills and knowledge.   Our interview technique consisted of a few chats and the chance to meet the team but, and here is the lesson, we didn’t stop to think we needed to actually check the recruitment agency had made sure the requisite skills were as published.

Sadly we found out all too soon that we had a (very nice) peg in a square hole and it wasn’t going to work.  We were naïve for sure but we also trusted a professional only to find that was, well, silly of us,

Sometimes things happen for a reason

The good news is rather randomly a new candidate appeared out of the blue asking if he could find out a bit more about us and whether we had a role for him.  Being someone who knew us, or at least knew of us, we didn’t need to place either an advert or pay any more recruitment fees.

Tim started in June and we hope we don’t need to write another blog about recruiting for another 15 years.