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November 30, 2024
November 25, 2024
Re-Writing the Recruitment Book for CFO Hiring
Time is money and no one understands that better than a CFO. These experienced professionals help create a structure out of complex business processes to ensure sustainable financial success for a business. CFOs employ their financial expertise as operational and strategic leaders, creating value for the company, along with its stakeholders. Hence, it is crucial for a company to hire CFOs that have what it takes to do what needs to be done. This is where FINANCE People Solutions GmbH comes in.
FINANCE People Solutions GmbH was founded in 2014 by Paul Taaffe, an expert CFO himself. He founded the company in Frankfurt , now the finance Capital of Europe, serving international customers from all industries including a significant Private Equity business. After experiencing several frustrating candidate searches during his own recruitment experiences as a CFO, Paul decided to improve the process for the industry and hence, FINANCE People Solutions was born.
Paul has immense experience as a chief financial officer for many renowned brands, including Pepsi-Cola, Dell, and Nike, to name a few. He has also worked extensively as a portfolio-CFO for reputable international private equity firms, like CVC Capital, the Texas-Pacific Group and Advent International. Today, Paul is a successful recruiter who provides top-notch candidates to work not only as successful CFOs but also all of their direct reports and their complete teams.
“Since 2014 we have been successfully staffing companies with CFOs and CFO teams for permanent and interim management positions ” says Paul. The world-class recruitment firm operates with a small team of highly experienced skilled recruiters. The company aims to keep their operations lean and leverages the power of digitalization to expand on virtual platforms. It also aims to foster better experience for their clientele by providing the best options for CFO candidates in the market within the shortest possible time.
Like any industry, the CFO recruitment industry is also rife with challenges. FINANCE People Solutions GmbH too faced an intensely competitive marketplace initially. However, the company soon made it’s mark in the industry by offering fast and fitting recruitment solutions. This prompt recruitment process gives the company an edge over its peers and has helped it grow at a remarkable rate.
The recent pandemic caused unprecedented losses in almost every industry. However, companies are crying out for experienced and skilled CFOs to recover from the crisis. During such times, FINANCE People Solutions GmbH became the “go-to solution”.
The company has embraced technology right from the get-go. This approach helped the company conduct required interviews online and ensure a smooth and streamlined recruitment process. “Personally, I don’t think we’ve been affected too much by the pandemic as our hiring has increased.” Paul added.
Agility and innovation in solutions are two of the biggest factors contributing to FINANCE People Solutions’ incredible feat in the industry. This achievement is especially noteworthy because they are much smaller compared to their peers. And Paul does not plan to expand his team, he does plan to become more and more agile and be the most productive firm in the industry. Additionally, the firm’s DNA is about building strong long term personal relationships with candidates through regular interaction and proactive career planning. Besides this, the firm is focused on identifying and promoting new-gen CFOs for employment in the industry.
Paul also attributes a majority of the recruitment firm’s success to his incredibly versatile recruitment team and agile processes. The team consists of hand-picked professionals with extensive experience in direct search, interim management who also act as career consultants for budding CFOs across the industrial spectrum. The team members are self-motivated and share a passion for excellence, which makes the team’s work extremely cohesive and efficient.
Talking about the changing dynamics and demand of the recruitment industry, Paul describes how clients are looking for increasingly swift hiring solutions. For instance, long notice periods are common in German employment culture. However the lack of leadership at a prime position in the company does result in monetary loss and also chaos in business operations. To avoid this, it is crucial for companies to fill their CFOs positions fast and effectively. The FINANCE People Solutions GmbH does just that, earning itself high regards in the industry and very loyal customers.
Social media has become highly prevalent in all aspects of our everyday lives. It has become the go-to tool for advertisers and promoters to connect clients with consumers. FINANCE People Solutions has integrated business media into their recruitment operations in a big way.
Paul reiterates the important role of social media for recruitment. The firm has a high involvement on business media platforms such as LinkedIn, Xing and their own generic FPS platform. These business platforms offer an incredibly impressive and efficient mode of communication with companies and candidates alike. Smooth, regular communication channels are essential to ensure that the recruiting company is matched with the perfect candidate to fulfil their CFO team requirements.
When asked about future plans, Paul added that the company is highly focused on complete digitalization. Adoption of advanced digital processes has helped to boost productivity remarkably well. The increasing use of digital media has also allowed the firm to connect better with customers and interact extensively with candidates for optimal communication, thus radically reducing the time to deliver the best fit candidates.
Setting Standards
According to Paul, “The customer expects us to deliver the best candidates quickly and help to avoid the ever increasing and highly expensive failure rate of hiring “. Being a successful CFO myself is a clear USP”. Being a winner in the recruitment is only possible when you have an in-depth and thorough knowledge of the job, the network, the market and the recruitment process for the best CFOs. The firm’s focus on prompt delivery of perfect candidates helps their customers avoid losing ground in crisis management and value creation.
The thoroughness of FINANCE People Solutions makes the firm unique in approach and delivery. Paul says that the firm invests significant resources to match the job profile from the company with the profile of potential candidates. “We know more about candidates before the interview than customers do after interviews as we have very thorough and demanding debriefings. Paul also acts as a partner to companies for their hiring process and helps to amend and improve job profiles in companies for optimal effectiveness. This method has proven tremendously successful in ensuring the perfect candidate match.
Paul adds that the company has a unique individual approach towards candidates and avoids using advertisements like others in the market. The candidate is evaluated extensively to gauge their skill set and profile. A series of interviews and other “touch points” allows the team to know the candidates better. Only the short-listed potential candidates are connected with potential employers to ensure faster and efficient recruitment for companies and candidates alike.
Paul also pointed out that the most important KPIs include candidates that have been successfully hired and retained. The other KPI is delivering a choice of top candidates in record time. Last, but definitely not the least, the firm focuses on complete customer and candidate satisfaction through the entire recruitment process.
“We intend to continue to streamline our recruitment process and continually expand our network to include young, eager and tech-savvy CFOs or high potentials not yet in C- level positions. We continue to improve our recruitment process for faster and even better delivery” Paul replied when asked about their future plans. We will remain lean and agile but we will maintain the highest productivity in the recruitment industry.
“I was frustrated and disappointed with my own recruitment experiences as CFO and the quality and choice of candidates presented so I decided to start my own CFO recruitment company to do it better”
“Since 2014, we have provided customers with CFOs and CFO team members for permanent, interim and interim-to-perm hiring”
“Compared to the large recruitment firms, we are far more agile and spend much more time getting to know candidates to build a strong relationship with them. As a CFO I understand my CFO candidates and always find perfect fit candidates for our candidates and customers”
“We are different because the company is run by a former CFO. So, that experience is best to understand the customer’s specific requirements, the job itself and the candidate fit”
“Finance People Solutions is first and foremost a solutions company”
