Mike Richards shares how a rival unexpectedly recommended him as a treasury recruiter to a CFO at a FTSE 250 company. The story reveals what happened when that CFO reached out and how Richards handled the opportunity in executive recruitment.
I was recently, as I said in the other article, and I couldn't get it all in because Russ, my evil videographer, wouldn't let me do the full story. But I was recently accidentally recommended as a Treasury recruiter by one of my rivals. First ever. Time is great. Basically what happened. Sit in the office and one of the guys in the office says, mike, I've got a phone call here, it's Derek, he's a cfo of a FTSE 250 and he's been accidentally recommended to you by one of your rivals. I thought, this is the weirdest thing. So I've been drinking. I hadn't for a change. Basically he'd been on the phone to his usual executive search recruiter who did his senior positions and at the end of the conversation, as the guy's taking the briefing, taking the call, he said, derek, can I ask who else will you be speaking to? Because he said, because you've probably already spoken to Mike at the treasury recruitment company, the specialist recruiter of treasurers. Obviously. Derek said, yes, he had, which was lovely. He hadn't. He was straight onto Google. Who's this Mike fellow who's treasury recruitment company, after the call, went straight onto Google, did the search, called us straight away and he said, you've been accidentally recommended by one of your rivals. I'm the finance director of FTSE 250 looking for a new treasurer. Can we meet? The answer was yes, we met and met. I still thrilled. It was quite a strange call, but after I met Derek, very fruitful meeting with him, really enjoyed it. Within only about five minutes of the meeting to go, he Talked for about 35, 40 minutes. Said, Mike, I've only got five minutes. Could you tell me why I would choose you over my current search recruiter? And he said, why? Are you any better? I said to him, derek, we're not. Because basically we're on a par with your executive search recruiter. We will do a very similar search, similar to them. We've got proven track record of recruiting executives at this level, but in four to six weeks time, which your executive recruiter will then come with his, because this is his first treasurer position, he never recruited one before. He'll give you a list of four to eight candidates who could wanted their next job. I said, derek, I've already got that list for you, I've got it for you today. He says, great. I said, the difference is in four to six weeks, maybe even shorter than that, I'll have a list of candidates who want a job with you and your company. As he said, he said, mike, that's a great line. I said, I know. I've been practicing it 20 years. And exactly that happened. In actual fact, it was also quite strange at the end of the process, Derek said later on, he said, mike, you presented eight people to me. I want to meet all eight. I said, derek, no one meets all eight. Why do you want. He said, mike, I've never recruited a treasurer before. I want to see what eight of them look like. We did that successfully placed it, really enjoyed it. Sorry, I went on a bit long today and this is an additional story, but I thought it was worth telling just about why. Again, the specialist focus, the knowledge, the time it saves, the track record. But many thanks for your time.
