Established in 2009, Advance Wealth provide personalised financial advice and planning to clients in and around Chelmsford. They pride themselves on offering honest, unbiased and reliable help on everything from investments to pensions. The company has 24 staff and their ethos is one of mutual respect, and allowing every voice to be heard as an equal.

Stacy, Advance Wealth’s Accounts Manager, had to stop work for six months due to illness. The company needed someone to take over fast – within two weeks, in fact.

‘As a small company, Stacey’s role is a vital one,’ Charles Medwin, Managing Director at Advance Wealth, tells us. ‘Even though we only needed someone temporarily, they had to be able to step straight into the job with minimal supervision.’

We’ve been working with Advance Recruitment since 2017 – Charles originally found us online when searching for a local recruitment consultant. Since then, we’ve built a very close relationship with both him and the company. It was actually Victoria Lumley, one of our Senior Recruitment Consultants, who’d found Stacey for the role in the first place. It fell to her to find Stacey’s temporary replacement while she had treatment.

‘I knew immediately how urgent and how crucial this role was,’ Victoria says. After speaking to Charles, she understood that Advance Wealth needed a good all-round bookkeeper who was able to do payroll and general admin as well. Ideally, they’d have experience of Sage accounting software, and be happy to be based in the office. Advance Wealth is also a very collaborative firm, so the perfect candidate would also need to share that type of mindset. And of course, there was the all-important time pressure.

‘Finding someone who’s available immediately is always a challenge, and even more so in today’s market,’ Victoria tells us. ‘Lots of people want more flexibility to work from home these days as well. That made finding someone with the right level of experience who could start straightaway – and was happy with a six-month contract – a real challenge!’

The solution

After consulting closely with Charles, Victoria moved fast – and quickly found Melanie. She had all the right experience and the collaborative mindset that Advance Wealth were looking for. Best of all she could start immediately, and was very happy with a six-month contract as she was planning to relocate afterwards.

‘Melanie really was the perfect fit,’ says Victoria. ‘This was a particularly important one for me as well – having previously recruited Stacey, I really wanted her to be able to take leave without any problems. So I did whatever I could to find the right person.’

How did Pure make a difference?

Charles was very impressed with Victoria’s dedication to finding someone with the perfect credentials, and the speed at which she did that. ‘Victoria listened to me, and really understood the pressure and challenges of our business,’ he says. ‘She responded with the urgency the situation demanded (unlike some other agencies!), and found me the right person very quickly.’

Charles wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Pure either. ‘The service was excellent. Pure was probably the only agency that genuinely understood the pressure I was under. They were very easy to work with and made me feel very comfortable.’

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