Richard Gordon

Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research is a Crown Research Institute responsible for supporting New Zealand to develop a sustainable relationship with our land and the diversity of life on land, through the delivery of exceptional science and partnerships across a wide range of disciplines and organisations. We have utilised the services of Decipher Group for a number of executive appointments within our organisation and developed a trusted relationship with them over several years.

We tend to partner with an external recruitment consultancy for more senior appointments, where there is a strong need for the specialist skills that a consultancy provides, through their established networks and access to broad talent pools. The recruitment process for this tier of roles is also typically more complex and it is beneficial to utilise the expertise of a professional recruitment provider.

While we do have choices when it comes to recruitment providers, the consistency of service from Decipher Group and the added value that they bring means we tend to use them more often than not. With Decipher it is not simply the fact that they find the right people, but it is their approach to the relationship with their client which is exemplary. They go that extra mile, and, in our experience, they truly take the time to understand our needs and make sure this is accurately expressed to the talent market. There is total support provided throughout the process, while also being very flexible in response to those inevitable changes that often arise.

Decipher’s level of support and guidance during the assessment stage is thorough and invaluable. For us, relationships are so important in our senior roles and personalities influence relationships. So, it is important that we gain a true understanding of a candidate’s behaviour type through rigorous psychometric testing and reference checks – Decipher puts a lot of effort into this on our behalf. They take the time to understand where we are coming from on these matters and understand why this is important to us.

A recent example where we partnered with Decipher Group was on the appointment of a Director for The New Zealand Biological Heritage National Science Challenge, which is hosted by Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research. Finding someone who could fit into a well-established role was going to be a challenge, also being a fixed term role may have been a barrier for some candidates. While the recruitment process itself was not unusual, Decipher Group really got their head around the complexity of the role which was critical to our eventual success in making an appointment.

Decipher Group’s contribution has been characterised by hard work, diligence, thoroughness, understanding of our needs, willingness to adapt to our changes and overall, being a pleasure to work with.