Multiple search campaigns
The Roles:
The Met Office
The Client:
As the most trusted provider of weather and climate intelligence, the Met Office contributes to decision-making across the globe. Recognising the need to continuously strengthen their leadership, they partnered with us to diversify and improve the overall quality of their candidate pool on a specific Board appointment. Our initial success in this endeavour led to multiple subsequent campaigns, each with its own unique requirements.
The Met Office is renowned for its weather accuracy and climate prediction. Their data underpins informed daily choices for individuals and governments worldwide. This vital work is life-changing, frequently life-saving, and consistently life-enhancing. Beyond their essential forecasting, the Met Office's commitment to its employees is evident in numerous workplace awards, including ‘Great Place to Work UK 2025’ and recognition as leaders in technology and women's workplace culture.
The Met Office promotes equal opportunity and eliminates discrimination in the hiring process. The organisation is also part of the Disability Confident Scheme, offering an interview to a fair and proportionate number of disabled applicants that meet a job’s minimum selection criteria. We partnered closely with the Met Office's internal resourcing team, led by Dan Evans, ensuring the search campaign followed the best Equality, Diversity & Inclusion practices, providing equal opportunities to all and complying with public sector regulations.
Our team developed and implemented a targeted search campaign, identifying and engaging top-tier candidates in the commercial market. We supported the selection panel through an equitable and fair shortlisting process. Impressed with the outcome, the Met Office subsequently contracted us for additional campaigns, including an international search.
Dan Evans commented on our collaboration:
“Simon's communication and transparency were exceptional, ensuring seamless integration between our internal recruitment efforts and Moon's external search.”
Across several subsequent campaigns, our focused headhunting expanded and enhanced the Met Office's candidate pool, with diverse groups of skilled individuals. By proactively engaging talent from different backgrounds, we delivered a novel solution for the client, demonstrating our value as a trusted search partner. Their leadership team’s satisfaction with the enhanced candidate pool led to a 3-month extension of our initial contract, allowing us to support additional search initiatives.
One of the campaigns we worked on involved searching for the Associate Director of Communications and Engagement. This role is responsible for the Met Office’s brand, trusted reputation, external and internal communications, guiding its team of weather presenters, campaign strategists, social and media teams who are the main point of contact with the media and stakeholders during weather crises such as storms or flooding. They needed to see the vision for a rapidly evolving future and be adept at managing high-profile situations, crisis communications and reputation management.
Our detailed, bespoke approach improved the engagement of this campaign, uncovering talented candidates with the skills and experience to excel in the role. The candidate pool quality was elevated by the inclusion of our candidates. One of which, Tabitha Aldrich-Smith, was placed as the Associate Director of Communications and Engagement. Our team were impressed by Tabitha’s start up mentality, coming from a private sector space role and her approach to uniting internal and external stakeholders through an organisational mission, purpose and brand.
Tabitha provided some complimentary feedback about the hiring journey:
“Simon made the recruitment process very smooth. He was always transparent, communicating throughout, and keeping me fully up to date.”
Another campaign we were heavily involved in was the search for an Associate Director of Foundation Science. For this role, Simon received detailed briefs from the Met Office’s Chief Scientist, Stephen Belcher, and their Chief Technology Officer, Simon Vosper. We placed Dr Katy Hill, a specialist in marine, weather and climate science, with over 20 years of experience in scientific management roles. Foundation Science at the Met Office is responsible for advancing its world-leading science and modelling capability, supporting the delivery of all its products and services. This role required an experienced science leader, skilled in strategic planning, who could deliver impact within a large organisation. In addition to fulfilling these areas, Dr Hill presented an ambitious and innovative approach to programme development.
We were delighted to hear Dr Hill’s comments about our approach:
“I was impressed by Moon's high level of professionalism throughout the hiring journey. Their guidance was valuable in helping me secure this opportunity.”
Simon Quinn summed up the experience:
“It was such a pleasure to collaborate with the Met Office’s internal HR team. Together, we were able to discover a selection of outstanding candidates. The placed candidates, who strengthen the Met Office’s leadership, will enable them to continue as one of only a handful of global leaders in climate and weather intelligence.”
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Having previously worked with Tammy Lillie, the Met Office's Chief People Officer, we were approached to support their search for a Board position. This was such a crucial appointment, they sought our assistance as they hoped to enhance the diversity and overall quality of their candidate pool. Director of Search, Simon Quinn, outlined how a proactive search strategy could drill into the market, attracting competitive commercial talent beyond the typical sector applicant pool. It was imperative that we were able to demonstrate our ability to meet certain criteria for fairness, transparency, and value for money. Our services were assessed, and after scoring highly on all three matrices, we were appointed to coordinate the search.
Tammy Lillie provided some insight on the Met Office’s decision to partner with us:
“After being impressed during my previous experience with Moon, we approached them to expand and enhance our candidate pool with talent that would often be out of our reach. The Board were impressed by Simon’s approach and professionalism, leading to us collaborating with an external recruitment firm for the first time.”
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