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Overhead view of inside an office building with two men walking up stairs | Astoncarter.com

Case Study

Finance and Accounting Support Through a Merger

Results at a Glance

  • 58 qualified candidates submitted in under 5 days
  • 14 senior candidates hired out of 15 submissions
  • 90% placement success rate
  • 23 consultants converted to full-time employees

Focus Areas

  • Staff accountants
  • Senior accountants
  • Accounting managers
  • Credit analysts
  • Senior SAP analysts
  • Financial analysts

Business Challenge

Our customer is an American office supply retailing company, headquartered in Florida. They had recently finalized a merger with another company with headquarters in Chicago. In an effort to fully consolidate the two companies, the customer decided to combine headquarters in Florida. The challenge was integrating people, processes and accounting functions into one cohesive unit.

The relocation was challenging on a number of levels. The project would require two different accounting systems to run in parallel until a system integration was complete. The relocation also caused a major staff disruption as several people left the company before the consolidation was complete.

To make the project successful, the retailer needed to hire temporary accounting and finance professionals quickly. To get contract employees productive quickly, the company sought talent who had supported a merger before, and ideally had expertise in SAP or Oracle. They also wanted to hire financial analysts with FICO reporting experience in SAP.

Our Solution

As a partner to both companies pre-merger, Aston Carter saw an opportunity to help. We proactively tracked the evolution of the consolidation program for more than three months prior to launch.

First, we scheduled a meeting with the customer's project director to get a high-level overview of their objectives and identify key stakeholders. We initiated a series of follow-up meetings that provided a more in-depth overview of project timelines, expected outcomes, skill sets and qualification criteria. The customer needed to hire talent quickly to ensure a successful project launch, so we took steps to ensure we could deliver on time.

The Aston Carter recruiting team in Florida began proactively sourcing and screening candidates to build a pipeline of qualified individuals ready to go at a moment's notice. Additionally, we enlisted the help of our most experienced Aston Carter recruiters from across the nation to assist with the initial push for submittals.

Results

The customer released a total of 58 requirements, mainly for senior and staff accountants, to six large staffing firms. The Aston Carter recruiting team worked around the clock and throughout the weekend to lock down candidates and get their resumes submitted quickly.

In fewer than five days, we submitted a total of 58 resumes, compared to a combined 20 from our competition, and by the end of the second week, we had submitted a total of 112 candidates. We didn’t just submit a high volume of candidates – our emphasis was on quality. During the first round of candidate interviews, the retailer hired 14 out of 15 Aston Carter candidates to fill the senior positions.

Our partnership led to a successful transition of people, processes and accounting functions from Chicago to Florida, which resulted in a successful merger for the customer. Throughout the project, Aston Carter maintained a 90% successful placement rate and had up to 39 consultants working on the project. The hires proved to be of high-quality, and the company converted 23 of our workers to full-time employees.

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