Project reference · HR consultancy and recruitment
Their HR desk, even for the other agencies’ candidates.
A European environmental consultancy was growing its main office in Ukraine and had no HR manager. We first filled its business-development, technical and bookkeeping roles. When it came back to build a larger team, we became its HR desk as well: our consultant worked with the office by the hour, wrote its contracts, policy and job descriptions, judged every agency’s shortlist, not only ours, and ran the searches for its senior team.
7 hires for the office, from bookkeeper to managing director
Recruitment
≈90 hours of HR consultancy, each on a dated timesheet
HR desk
2 other agencies whose candidates and contract terms we handled for the client
Control
−1 percentage point off the success fee with every hire we placed
Fee
The shape of it
Searches on success, HR by the hour
Hours were bought for a few months, when the office needed a desk; searches were paid only when someone started.
The brief
What the client actually needed
The first request was two searches: a business developer with a network in heavy industry, and a technical specialist who could write the project documents the client sells. The client asked for a lower fee for placing two searches at once, and we agreed one. A bookkeeper joined the same assignment, and all three were hired within four months.
A year later the client had new investors and a plan to grow the office quickly: business developers, engineers, a chief accountant, a lawyer, a finance director and, later, a managing director. Nobody in the office could run hiring or HR. Its director asked us to cover both.
We signed one agreement with two parts. Searches were paid on success, with a fee that fell by one percentage point for every hire. HR work was paid by the hour, on a timesheet that listed the date and the task, so the client’s finance team could check every line before paying.
Why it matters
A small office still needs an HR function
A foreign company’s office in Ukraine needs employment contracts in two languages, rules on working time and leave, personnel files, job descriptions, and someone who can compare candidates from several agencies on the same terms. An HR manager for an office of a dozen people is rarely worth the salary. Buying the hours from the recruiter that already knows the office often is.
The hard parts
Where it gets difficult
Candidates from three directions
The client also used two other agencies and its own network. Our consultant screened every shortlist, not only ours, against the same profile and the same interview questions.
A profile nobody had written
The client sells a service most Ukrainian companies had never bought. We wrote the job descriptions and screening questions with the director, and rewrote the business-developer profile when the first shortlist came from the wrong industries.
Someone to run the office meanwhile
While the permanent managing director was being found, we placed an interim head for the office on a short contract. He stayed on afterwards in the finance role.
Assessed before the offer
Finalists for sales and management roles completed a personality and sales-style assessment, and the director received an interview guide for each of them.
Net expectations, gross offers
Candidates talked in net pay, the client budgeted in gross. We researched pay, insurance and ways of paying salaries, and took candidates through each offer before it was made.
Rules written down
A conduct policy on working time, leave, sickness and dress, an induction routine for new staff, an HR action plan, and a redundancy for two roles prepared and carried out by the same rules.
What we did
Search, agree, run the desk, build the team
- Year 1 · Search. A business developer, a technical specialist and a bookkeeper, placed within four months of the first meeting.
- Year 2 · Agree. One agreement: searches on success, HR work by the hour, signed after the client’s own edits.
- Years 2–3 · Run the HR desk. Contracts, policy, job descriptions, induction, pay research, assessments, a redundancy, and the other agencies’ shortlists.
- Year 3 · Build the senior team. A chief accountant, an engineer, an interim head who stayed on in finance, and a managing director from abroad.
- Years 3–4 · Keep searching. Lawyers, consultants and further sales roles, paid only on success, until the client’s plans changed.
The client bought hours when it needed a desk, and paid per hire when it needed people.
In the client’s words
“It is a lot of money but for sure worth it.”
The client’s director, approving our fee for the managing-director search.
How we work
We do not show you another company’s name
The client and its people are not named here, and they will not be named in a meeting either. We are glad to talk this project through in detail. What we will not do is discuss the last client that way with you, or you with the next one.
Next step
Growing an office in Ukraine before you have an HR manager?
Tell us the roles, the start dates and who decides. We will price the searches and the HR hours separately, and show you the timesheet format before anything starts.