M&B Search Group’s strategy to help an organization in the government sector with an executive leadership hire and multiple additional hires to better support their CFO.

The situation:

A government municipality originally came to us because they had a senior leadership role in one of their specialty divisions they were hiring for as part of a succession plan. This would allow the new manager coming in to work for a couple of years with the current director. They needed a strong leader to support their team as well as someone who had the technical knowledge to build a trust with their team as well as their city council. After we completed our search, and the assistant director was hired they asked us to work with their CFO. The finance division was in the process of restructuring their team after they had a system conversion to support ongoing development of this ERP system as well as add layers of management to support the CFO for ongoing staff development and growth.

Our process:

For the initial director search we went to market quickly to build a network of contacts that met the requirements of the technical aspect of the position. This search became a regional/multi-state search so that we could build a pipeline of talent. The next stages of the search included building a more in-depth relationship with the hiring manager to understand the right personality that would fit what they would need to allow this role to be successful.

For the finance/accounting searches we worked closely with the CFO on a plan on how they wanted the department structured, key goals they had to create efficiencies for departmental processes as well as plans to more effectively use their ERP system. This included a search to hire two finance managers where one was over operational accounting and procurement and the other was over general ledger accounting/month end close process and teams. Next, they came to us to search for a systems analyst to be the subject matter expert on the ERP system and continue to make enhancements as well as a procurement specialist to support the operational accounting manager. We then searched for a budget manager that would work closely with the CFO on monthly and annual budget planning and preparation for council meetings. Lastly, we recruited for an Accountant that reported to the accounting manager that was over the month end close process.

Our results:

For the assistant director search we narrowed it down to three outside candidates that we sourced and also led the process for three internal candidates that moved forward to the panel interview process. An outside candidate was selected from this interview and has been successful in the role.

Our finance/accounting searches were specifically tailored to target talent in the government sector that could bring immediate impact to the division. This included doing a local and regional search for talent. The appeal our candidates had to the CFO were their tenure within the government sector but also having tenure within the same organization. At the time of these searches the talent market was tight, and candidates were receiving multiple offers. We worked closely with hiring managers to ensure we had a swift interview process that allowed candidates to build relationships with the team, understand the benefits of coming to work with our client, but not lose them in too lengthy of a hiring process.