Pre-Award Hiring in an Unfamiliar Market

The Situation

A technology company was pursuing a large public-sector contract in Finland—one that required 20 named hires (technical consultants and business analysts) to be on payroll before award. They had no prior hiring experience in the region.

And no room for error.

In parallel, three additional HR workstreams were in motion—Total Rewards, HR Operations, and Legal.

Talent Acquisition was under the most scrutiny.

Challenges

  • Hiring in a new market with limited internal knowledge

  • Pre-award constraints requiring fully committed hires

  • Compressed timelines tied directly to bid submission

  • Multiple internal workstreams requiring coordination and alignment

Scope & Approach

Ownership of the Talent Acquisition workstream end-to-end.

  • Conducted an RFP across local RPO providers with relevant expertise

  • Extracted market intelligence to inform hiring strategy—candidate availability, compensation expectations, and working norms

  • Helped shape salary bands and hiring assumptions based on real data

  • Selected and operationalized an external partner, including process design, system integration, and communication workflows

  • Established real-time visibility into funnel performance and progress for executive stakeholders

  • Coordinated closely with parallel HR workstreams to ensure alignment

  • Built dashboard with key TA metrics to ensure real-time visibility into progress

The Outcome

  • 20 hires completed two weeks ahead of deadline

  • Fully compliant bid submitted with named resources

  • TA infrastructure built to support execution under pressure