Listen. Advise. Deliver.

Recruitment Challenge: Attracting talent with commercial finance experience

Nick Sambridge, Finance Director – IT and Transformation, explains that his biggest recruitment challenge for Post Office Ltd is attracting senior finance professionals with commercial experience.

​“We engaged Cedar to assist us with a particularly specific brief. Their attention to the process was excellent, candidates were all of a high quality and they gave good quality advice to us throughout the search. Having worked in the industry I know first-hand how much effort they put into the search. Well done and thanks.”

“Cedar’s recruitment service is impeccable. Whenever we request candidates, the Cedar team go through all the CVs available to them and only send me relevant candidate profiles for the role. This saves me infinite amounts of time as I never have to review a CV or interview a candidate who is unsuitable for the role. The team are always on hand to give advice and give regular updates on developments with candidates – even when they are out of the office or on leave! The standard of the people they provide is extremely high and 99% of the time we recruit the candidate Cedar puts forward.”

“When I needed an interim Financial Controller at very short notice for my client, Dukes global, Cedar were the obvious choice. They were able to quickly understand the specific requirements that we had and within 48 hours, I had been sent five good quality CVs and “When I needed an interim Financial Controller at very short notice for my client, Dukes global, Cedar were the obvious choice. They were able to quickly understand the specific requirements that we had and within 48 hours, I had been sent five good quality CVs and had interviewed two candidates. The candidate we chose has provided excellent support to the business. Great service from Cedar.”had interviewed two candidates. The candidate we chose has provided excellent support to the business. Great service from Cedar.”

Recruitment Challenge : Finding people from the right vertical

Roger Castle from CenturyLink explains that his biggest recruitment challenge is finding people from the right vertical –  finding both commercial experience and the right sector experience for the role.

“We first tried Cedar when we needed a high quality candidate, fast. They didn’t disappoint, and unlike many other agencies we had tried, provided us a highly credible shortlist of suitable candidates. We could have filled the role several times over. Since then, Cedar hasn’t disappointed and each time we’ve needed to add to the team, Cedar have delivered credible candidates. They seem to know the candidates they represent well, and they have handled each of our engagements with swift efficiency, which has taken the pain out of recruiting for senior candidates. Happily recommend Cedar to anyone who doesn’t enjoy the recruitment process.”

​“We chose to retain cedar on a critical and urgent recruitment campaign. We found them to be structured, efficient and genuinely consultative throughout the entire process and were impressed with the candidates that they introduced to us. Cedar talk about the importance of business partnering their clients and this was clearly the case when we worked with them. I would have no hesitation in working with them again or recommending their services to others.”

“The Qualified Finance Team at Cedar possess a deep knowledge of the charity sector and have a wide and varied network of well-qualified individuals at their fingertips.   What I valued was that they took the time to understand our organisation and the requirements for the role which made the candidates presented to us already a good fit.  This was also helpful if they felt a candidate particularly shared our values and the same passion for what we do.

Having a partnership with Cedar significantly improved our time-to-hire and by working with them exclusively, they delivered the perfect candidate in just 2.5 weeks.  I will continue to use them in the future and would also recommend them.”