Westminster Recruitment - Client Information
Summary of Services + Company Structure
Summary of Services + Company Structure
Westminster Recruitment (WR) have successfully worked within the Regulated Sales market for 12 years, mainly in the area of Financial Adviser sales recruitment. We pride ourselves on taking a quality over quantity approach to recruitment and appreciate that it is important to meet the client’s expectations and maintain consistent standards.
WR offers nationwide coverage including Scotland and Northern Ireland, although we would acknowledge that our profile and penetration in Northern Ireland is not as high as the other areas of the UK.
WR’s company structure is typically flat given the size of the business. WR is a partnership operating from one central office in Chesham, Buckinghamshire. Both Partners are actively involved in the day to day running of the business. Sally Gable is responsible for Advertising and Accounts and Peter Sutherland works as a Regional Consultant. Phil Hollingworth & Kelly Carter are Senior Recruitment Consultants who have been with the company for 5 and 8 years respectively. Vikki Jones works as an Administrator in support of all 3 consultants.
WR’s Consultants all hold FPC 1 which has given them a basic grounding in financial services products and the regulations governing the industry. They have also attended various external Recruitment training courses, as well as receiving quality training in- house.
WR holds a database of over 7,000 Financial Services sales staff with approximately 2,000 candidates actively looking at any one time. Hand in hand with our database resource is our ongoing advertising in various trade papers including Financial Adviser, Money Facts, Prospects, Financial Mail on Sunday, and more specialist magazines like Money Management and Mortgage Introducer. We are assisted in our marketing strategy by our advertising agency, Ward Diamond, who specialise in recruitment advertising. We also advertise via the internet on our own website and various jobsites which enables us to generate new candidate response quite quickly.
In addition to our database resource and advertising, gaining referrals is another major source of new candidates. We find that these candidates are usually of high quality and we have a strong track record of success in placing them. WR are more actively cultivating new candidates in this way, as advertising can no longer be relied on to produce the volumes of quality candidates that our clients require.
WR undertake an in depth screening interview with every candidate who registers with us which can take between 40-50 minutes to complete. WR record a full 10 year work history, to correspond with the period required by the FSA for referencing and the reasons behind job moves are fully investigated. WR also requests up to date information on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as; levels of production in annual premium or commission terms, persistency rate, level of income over the past 2 years and business mix.
WR also screen carefully for possible/current complaints or other disciplinary issues, outstanding industry debt and CCJs/Bankruptcies to ensure that staff we introduce have a ‘clean bill of health’ to satisfy any compliance department, or that any problem areas are highlighted from the outset.
At times, problems are uncovered during screening which WR feel a prospective employer would wish to take a view on. If the candidate met the criteria for all other areas, we would encourage them to be honest and discuss the problem at the beginning of the recruitment process to ensure time wasting is kept to a minimum. Usually we ask for documentation regarding the issue or a factual statement explaining the on-going complaint, to supply to prospective employers. In this way WR have assisted some financial advisers to gain new employment and supplied companies with sound candidates. However, should the facts of a disciplinary hearing seem doubtful, WR also retains the right not to accept candidates onto the database.
Ultimately WR is client driven and screen our candidates accordingly. All individuals registering with us will undergo the same in-depth screening process and our Regional consultants then further screen against client specific requirements to ensure that they match the profile for the role they wish to be considered for. If they do not meet the criteria, their details will not be submitted and our Consultants will explain this decision and manage candidate expectations.
WR usually submit a copy of the candidate’s CV to the client with our CV Data Analysis which highlights pertinent points – a copy is enclosed in Appendix 1. WR consultants are however happy to complete a profile or template as prescribed by our clients. We already do this for a number of companies and are flexible enough to adapt our processes to the specific needs of our clients.
Confirmation of CAS status is a crucial point when sourcing candidates for regulated sales roles and currently this is a minimum requirement of most of our clients. WR always confirm this and ask the date of current CAS when registering a candidate and ask them to take written evidence of this with them to interview. Sometimes we find with candidates working in smaller organisations that this documentary evidence is quite difficult for candidates to obtain. Generally CAS is confirmed when references are taken up.
WR feels that candidates are thoroughly vetted by our consultants. However we are unable to undertake the final referencing process on behalf of our clients as the FSA dictates that this must be done by the prospective employer.
Fortunately we do not often find ourselves in a situation where we have to pay a refund, we have built in a safety net into our standard Terms. WR’s Terms and Conditions offer a refund structure over the first 3 months of employment – please see our Terms and Conditions.