Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some of the questions that might pop up when you think about financial recruitment. If the answer you need isn’t here, just get in touch.

Q: Why should I hire a recruitment consultant when I could just do it all myself?

Many business owners underestimate how much time and effort it takes to find the right candidate. Our 5-Stage Assessment Process, including CV screening, skills testing and interviewing, can easily take up to three hours or more per candidate. Add to this the time spent on our Executive Search process and scouring our Talent Database to find a pool of strong candidates to begin with, and you can see how the time soon adds up. Read more about our approach here.
Many of our clients come to us after trying to recruit themselves, and finding that it didn’t go well. Few businesses can afford to get it wrong twice, so our Guarantee provides peace of mind that we’ll get it right for you.
At the same time, we do understand that you may be keen to undertake your own recruitment. In which case, our Assessment Process will help ensure your candidates have the skills and experience you require.

Q: Why is your fee higher in comparison to other recruiters?

We charge a flat percentage, no matter who we are helping you to recruit. This means that for more junior members of staff, our fee is slightly higher than our competitors. It also means we are able to spend more time on each case, finding you the right person, so you are far less likely to need to replace them in six months. For more senior members of staff, our fee usually works out lower than that of our competitors who may charge anything north of 30%.

Q: How can a small consultancy like Artemis Clarke provide the same level of service and access to strong candidates as the larger consultants?

We have a huge Talent Database, filled with high calibre candidates, and we update it daily. Our Executive Search Process means that we are in contact with potential candidates for a variety of roles on a daily basis, so we have access to candidates who are not even jobseeking yet, and as a result are less likely to be available to any other recruiters.
Being smaller is a benefit – we can offer the kind of personalised service that is hard to find in the larger, national recruitment firms. We will never treat you like a number – we don’t even have sales targets for our team.

Q: Why can’t you recruit for other departments in my business too, not just the finance team?

We are numbers people ourselves, with backgrounds in accountancy, so we have chosen to specialise in the sector we know best. Financial management is our area of expertise. We believe it’s important that recruiters understand the sector and function they are recruiting for, so we only recruit for accountancy and tax roles in practice and in industry. If you need a recommendation for a recruiter in another sector, drop us a line and we should be able to recommend someone to help.

Q: Can you fill a role for me anywhere in the UK?

Yes! We’re happy to take on roles anywhere in the UK and beyond. Because our business is totally online we can service businesses wherever they are located.

Q: What about roles outside the UK?

We are happy to work with clients recruiting outside of the UK on a case-by-case basis.

Q: What happens if I hire your candidate and it doesn’t work out, or they leave?

All of our placements are protected by the Artemis Clarke Guarantee. If a candidate we have placed leaves within 12 weeks, we’ll refund 90% of our fee or find a replacement free of charge. (Incidentally, we’ve never had to do either of these things.)
Also, we will never poach candidates that we have placed with you, to move them on somewhere else. For us success is watching them grow and develop a team below them (that we of course are happy to help recruit).

Q: As your background is in accountancy, rather than recruitment or HR, how good are you at interviewing and assessing candidates?

We have extensive experience of assessing and hiring candidates, having run finance teams of varying sizes and structures before becoming recruiters ourselves. Before starting the business, our founder Kate Clarke established and ran The Mitie Foundation, which is a charitable foundation improving the employment prospects of people from all backgrounds. We also have an HR expert on the team to support with HR, employment law and recruitment best practice.

Q: How long does it take to find someone?

Typically we will get a shortlist to you within 2 weeks of agreeing the job description. Often, we can do this in a matter of days if the need is urgent.

Q: How do I know what kind of employee to hire for my finance team?

If you’re not experienced in recruiting and running a finance team, it can be difficult to know where to start and how to assess a candidate’s skills and suitability. We developed our Finance Team Diagnostics Session to solve this problem. We will meet with you and your senior team (via Zoom) to gain a deep understanding of the requirements of your business – both right now, and in the future – and will assess the skills and experience of your current finance personnel to build a recommendation for the optimum structure for your finance team. This will include recommendations for the roles you should hire, and the skills and experience required for those roles in order to support your business growth goals.

Q: What happens in a Diagnostics Session?

We developed this service to help CEOs and MDs of growing businesses who don’t have a finance background themselves, and so often find it challenging to identify the exact skills and experience their business finance team requires. We will meet with you and your senior team (via Zoom) to gain a deep understanding of the requirements of your business – both right now, and in the future – and will assess the skills and experience of your current finance personnel to build a recommendation for the optimum structure for your finance team. This will include recommendations for the roles you should hire, and the skills and experience required for those roles in order to support your business growth goals. Read more about this service here.

Q: Why are you called Artemis Clarke?

We’re glad you asked! In Greek mythology, Artemis was the goddess of the hunt, as well as being highly respected for her integrity. As recruiters, we ‘hunt’ for the very best candidates for our clients, and reputation and ethics are two of our five key values (along with professionalism, team-work and empathy), so Artemis seemed a fitting name to add to Clarke, our founder Kate’s surname.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some of the questions that might pop up when you think about financial recruitment. If the answer you need isn’t here, just get in touch.

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Here are some of the questions that might pop up when you think about financial recruitment. If the answer you need isn’t here, just get in touch.

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