Delivered 12 Mortgage Project Consultants in 2 Months

Provided 12 Mortgage Project Consultants to a Large Financial Division in Under 2 Months

Oakleaf provided talent support assistance (12 mortgage project consultants) for the development and implementation of a human capital strategy to support an emerging multi-year initiative in the Finance Division responsible for the business analytics infrastructure for the GSE’s forecast models. They had a target state and funding for an initiative to select and adopt new tools and data environments, but were resource-constrained for launching the work.

Our Client faced several challenges, including the fact that four department teams operated in distinct data environments with older generation data aggregation and reporting tools and manual ETL processes. Implementing change would be complex and time-consuming, and stakeholder engagement was inconsistent and needed to gain momentum. In addition, existing mortgage project consultants could not take on the initiative without supplemental resources; exact needs had not been determined. Lastly, skillset gaps were a moving jigsaw puzzle throughout, shifting with the Client’s understanding of available talent pool and as hiring decisions filled gaps.

Our Approach

In order to address these challenges, Oakleaf first refined its understanding of current and target states overall within each team and determined pain points. We facilitated cross-team conversations to accomplish skillset gap analysis and identified backfill opportunities to free up FTE time and provide the necessary new skills. In addition, Oakleaf advised on availability and cost of desired skillsets in the market, and developed position descriptions and hiring strategies with the client teams.

Oakleaf team members attended client interviews to better understand our Client’s need and adjusted our hiring strategies as the team began to take shape and gaps changed. To this end, continuous conversations were engaged in with the hiring managers. This collaborative approach allowed us to quickly and efficiently place highly qualified hires to support our Client’s initiative and ensure their success.

Results

The Client selected approximately a dozen Oakleaf mortgage project consultants, which were recruited and onboarded in less than two months. Oakleaf continuously adjusted its recruiting to reflect a shifting demand from the Client due to its dynamic needs.
For each of the hiring decisions, Oakleaf processed dozens of applicants – over three hundred in total.
Oakleaf conducted pre-screening interviews of approximately ten prime candidates for each hire, for a total of 100+ screenings.
Because of Oakleaf’s pre-screening, the Client only screened two to three candidates for each hire and conducted interviews of one to two candidates per hire. In some cases, the Client did not conduct their own interview of the mortgage project consultants before hiring.