Financial Controller Recruitment

Often the driver of the finance team, a good Financial Controller can make the difference in raising the profile of a finance department to so much more than just “back office”. In the ongoing pursuit of perfect information, they can provide analysis and insights to transform a business’ ability to make good decisions.

Like a ‘Robin’ to the ‘Batman’ Finance Director, we’re often tasked with finding that exceptional no. 2.

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When helping businesses to shape their finance department, we often refer to our Finance Team Pyramid – original thinking by our team to effectively build the team from top-down. Arguably the most crucial and impactful role within this format is that of the Financial Controller. The go-between from the FD to the team, often with a role of deputy and access to the board, the FC has to have the soft skills to manage multiple stakeholders, and the gravitas to manage a team effectively. The “wisdom” required to become CFO won’t yet be there, but will often be under development under the ultimate leaders tutelage.

“I used Headstar for a senior recruitment recently and was very impressed. The candidates which they selected were all well picked, relevant and a good fit with my requirements. This is testament to the efforts and dedication provided by Jenny Martin and team.”

“Faultless service in challenging circumstances, both the interim staff and candidates for the permanent positions are all first class. I would not hesitate to recommend Headstar.”

How Our Process Works

As with all of our assignments, it’s important that we first and foremost understand your business, its drivers, ambitions and people. How the right Financial Controller then fits into this organisation becomes clear, which allows us to scour the market for those individuals with the right credentials. Given our in-house experience of the FC role, we can advise on the likely salary, experience and background you can expect from a candidate shortlist. We’ll share progress on our search throughout the process, and steer this search accordingly, ensuring that the final shortlist only includes those candidates that match the brief.

You may just have an interim need for a good Financial Controller, in which case head over to our interim management page to find out more or get in touch and we’ll gladly explain more. We track the interim market on a daily basis, and have interim FCs in a variety of businesses at any one time.

Our Finance Recruitment Network

Having built our reputation in the finance market since 1986, it’s fair to say we’ve built up a network of trusted people to draw on. Many of our candidates are referred to us by finance professionals who we have worked with previously. Something we encourage in the belief that “good people recommend good people”.

Many of the financial controllers we’re placing into businesses have worked with us since much earlier in their career, so we’re able to rely on references from trusted clients, as well as personal experience of seeing these people develop over a number of years.

Industries We Work In

It would be challenging to find an industry where we haven’t placed a financial controller but we’re willing to be tested on this, so try us!

Many of the skills that a good Financial Controller brings can be applied across multiple industries, but we understand how certain businesses prefer those with some experience of their sector. We don’t specialise in particular sectors, preferring to focus on finance roles, so can apply our search process principles into sectors confident that we will have operated there at some point.

Case Studies

With rapid year-on-year growth, the finance team were struggling to keep up with the volume of work and frustratingly for them, also struggled to recruit. They’d been using two suppliers, both large corporate agencies for several weeks and had been unhappy with the quality of CVs and communication throughout the search. We took a detailed brief for a Group Accountant role and suggested why they might’ve been struggling to attract the right quality of candidate. We advised that they change the title and salary banding for the role and coincidentally managed to secure an excellent candidate who has relieved the pressure from the finance team. Since then, the client has engaged us on multiple vacancies and worked with us on an exclusive basis.

A small business with a dilemma of whether they needed to recruit a Finance Director or Financial Controller, but equally needed some advice on the difference between the two. We understood their frustrations with their current finance department and introduced them to a part-time Finance Director. This worked well for them as they’d be unable to afford somebody of this calibre on a full-time basis, nor would we recommend this level of spend given their size. The part-time Finance Director was able to ‘get under the bonnet’ of the finance department and advise the board on a structure that was fit-for-purpose. We worked with the part-time FD and MD to source a competent Financial Controller on a permanent full-time basis. Both Headstar recruits are doing well, and the board now have a fully functioning finance department to aid their decision making.

Jenny Martin

Associate Director
Executive Search & Senior Finance

Nichola Davies

Manager
Qualified & Senior Finance

Olivia Egan

Senior Consultant
Senior Finance

Alex Law

Senior Consultant
Qualified & Senior Finance

Need help with finance recruitment? Get in touch today

We’ll help you find the best solution for your business with the help of our experienced recruiters and qualified Finance Directors.

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