An award-winning healthcare policy and communications consultancy appointed Hanson Search, to support a period of team growth with three appointments at account manager, account director and associate director level. The consultancy had recently entered a new phase of expansion and needed to add capability across its policy and communications offer without altering the character of the team it had built. All three roles were client-facing and central to delivering the firm’s growth plans.
The challenge: cultural fit in a specialist healthcare policy market
Cultural fit sat above every other criterion. The consultancy had grown considerably while holding on to a boutique way of working, and the client was clear that a technically strong candidate who did not suit that environment would not be an appointment worth making. The market itself was narrow. Healthcare policy and communications is a specialist field, and the European policy community is small enough that the pool of genuinely relevant candidates at any given level is limited. Each seniority level carried its own difficulty. Account directors weighing a move at that stage of their career are often considering a shift in-house rather than another agency, while associate director appointments involve longer processes with more stakeholders and more opportunity for a candidate to be drawn elsewhere.
Our approach to agency-side communications recruitment
We began by getting to know the consultancy properly rather than working from a written brief and a call. That meant a series of formal and informal meetings with people across the agency, at different levels and in different roles, until we could describe the working culture with the same confidence as someone employed there. We then worked through our public affairs and policy network to meet candidates individually, covering not only their current role and what they wanted next but what mattered to them personally, and giving them a realistic view of the market in return. That groundwork meant every profile we submitted was already tested against the variables the client cared about. Given the constraints at account director and associate director level, both searches ran over a longer period than the account manager appointment, which we agreed with the client at the outset rather than compressing the timeline and lowering the standard.
The outcome: three healthcare communications appointments completed
All three roles were filled. Each search produced a shortlist the client could choose from rather than a single viable candidate, and the appointments were made despite counter offers and competing offers from processes we were not running. Knowing both the client and the candidates in detail was what carried those situations, because we could speak to what each individual was actually weighing up rather than simply relaying an offer. The consultancy went into its next year of growth with three additions who fitted the team as well as the roles, strengthening its communications capability at every level from delivery through to client leadership.
Career Enquiry
