This case study describes a European bank hiring a new M&A team through Circle Square Talent over 14 weeks. The bank wanted to hire around 15 professionals, from Managing Directors to Analysts. Circle Square Talent met with the Head of Investment Banking to understand needs and culture. They developed a recruitment plan using both retained and contingency searches to efficiently fill the roles. Through volume hiring negotiations and process improvements, Circle Square Talent helped the bank reduce hiring time and costs, saving around £100,000.

1. Case Study
Customer Name: Tier 1 European Bank
Dates of Contract: 2011
Value of Contract: circa £250,000 in permanent placements
Skill set: M&A FIG professionals – from MD down to Analyst
Number of placements: 14
Location: London
The Challenge:
My Client is a well know European Bank who wanted to invest into building a new M&A sector team
within FIG. This meant finding a partner who could recruit a full team from Originator MDs down to
Analysts. The total remit was to hire circa fifteen people within a six month period.
The Solution:
We met with the Head of Investment Banking to gain a clear picture of cultural fit and expected
deliverables from us and from the new team.
We concluded that the best route was a mixture of retained for the harder to find candidates and
also contingency search for the more junior candidates.
We agreed a set process for screening candidates which would minimise the client’s time spent on
the project by reducing interview to offer ratios.
We agreed a recruitment plan and which part of the market we would map (hands-off and hands-
on).
We negotiated creative terms which accounted for volume hires.
The outcome:
The client was able to reduce their time to hire from the initial six-months down to fourteen weeks.
The Client significantly reduced management time spent on the recruitment process.
Across the process and fourteen hires later our volume hire plan has meant savings of circa £100,000
for the Client.
Circle Square Talent is committed to supplying three fully qualified candidates within 48 hours of
being briefed on any role. We are able to achieve this by investing time and resource to building
‘talent pools’ – bespoke databases of candidates suitable for the client.