Credit Manager - Recruitment Business

Confidential; Greater London; On-site; GBP 75,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

Confidential, a recruitment-focused international group, seeks aSenior Credit Control Manager to strengthen client exposure management, risk and working capital across multiple markets. The role blends strategic oversight with hands-on credit control work, aiming to optimise term structures, funding and cash collection across the business.

The successful candidate will review processes, engage with senior stakeholders, and drive improvements in controls, reporting and automation to support

Qualifications

• Recruitment-sector experience is essential.
• Experience across multiple international markets and funding arrangements.
• Ability to combine strategic oversight with hands-on detail work.
• Understanding of client contracts, timesheets, payroll, and discounting.
• Ability to challenge terms and optimize working capital.

Responsibilities

• Review current credit-control function, processes, and team structure.
• Get into the detail of accounts, invoices, and issues when needed.
• Assess client exposure across international markets and concentrations of risk.
• Work with senior stakeholders to evaluate contracts and client relationships for cash and risk.
• Challenge extended payment terms where commercially unattractive.
• Consider broader implications of client terms, payment behavior and funding needs.
• Review relationships with invoice-discounting providers across territories.
• Understand interactions between contracts, billing, funding and cash collection.
• Identify operational weaknesses that could impact cash flow.
• Reduce delays and rework by addressing recurring issues.
• Help establish clearer controls around billing entities and onboarding.
• Strengthen and reshape the credit-control team.
• Improve reporting on debtor exposure, concentration, terms, and working capital risk.
• Identify opportunities for automation and process improvement.
• Develop a scalable framework for international expansion.

Skills

Credit control

International experience

Stakeholder management

Cash flow

Billing processes

Automation

Job description

Senior Credit Control Manager - Recruitment Business

Do you have strong credit control experience within the recruitment sector - ideally supporting a temp/contract-led business operating across multiple international markets?

If so, this is a particularly interesting opportunity to take on a broader and more strategic remit than a traditional Credit Control Manager role.

Our client is a growing international recruitment business looking to appoint an experienced Credit Control/Credit Risk & Working Capital Manager to review and strengthen the way it manages client exposure, commercial risk, funding relationships and credit-control processes across its international operations.

Importantly, this is NOT a business with a significant aged-debt problem.

The focus is much more forward-looking: understanding where risk sits, whether existing processes and structures are fit for future growth, and ensuring the business is making well-informed commercial decisions around the clients it chooses to work with and the terms it accepts.

The role will include:

• Reviewing the existing credit-control function, processes, systems and team structure.
• Taking a pragmatic, hands-on approach when required - getting into the detail of individual accounts, invoices, processes and issues rather than operating purely at a strategic level.
• Assessing client exposure across different international markets and identifying where concentrations of risk may exist.
• Working with senior stakeholders to understand whether individual contracts and client relationships represent genuinely good business from a cash, risk and working-capital perspective.
• Challenging extended payment terms where appropriate, particularly where larger clients seek to impose terms that may be commercially unattractive.
• Looking beyond headline revenue to consider the wider implications of client terms, payment behaviour and funding requirements.
• Reviewing relationships with invoice-discounting providers across different territories and ensuring facilities remain appropriate for the business.
• Understanding the interaction between client contracts, billing processes, funding arrangements and cash collection.
• Identifying operational weaknesses that could create future collection or cash-flow issues even where no current debt problem exists.
• Reviewing recurring administrative or contractual issues that can delay payment, create unnecessary rework or expose the business to avoidable risk.
• Helping the business establish clearer controls around billing entities, contractual information, invoicing requirements and client onboarding.
• Reviewing the current Credit Control team and identifying opportunities to strengthen, reshape or develop the existing team.
• Improving reporting and visibility around debtor exposure, client concentration, payment terms, DSO and working-capital risk.
• Identifying opportunities for automation and process improvement.
• Developing a more scalable framework that can support continued international expansion.

What we're looking for

• Recruitment-sector experience is particularly important for this appointment.
• You’ll ideally have worked within a temp or contract-led recruitment business and understand the relationship between client contracts, timesheets, payroll, billing, invoice discounting, working capital and cash collection.
• International experience would be highly advantageous, particularly where you've dealt with different funding providers, client structures, currencies and payment practices across several territories.
• We're looking for someone who can operate above the day-to-day ledger, but who is equally comfortable getting into the weeds when required. This is a strategic role, but it is not a purely advisory one: you'll need to be pragmatic, hands-on and prepared to work through the detail yourself in order to understand issues, challenge effectively and drive practical improvements.
• You’ll combine strong technical credit-control knowledge with commercial judgement, curiosity and the confidence to challenge established ways of working.

You’ll be comfortable asking questions such as:

• Are we taking on the right type of business?
• Are the payment terms commercially sensible?
• Is our exposure to a particular client becoming too high?
• Are our funding arrangements appropriate in each market?
• Are our contracts and billing processes protecting us from avoidable delays?
• Is the current team structure right for where the business is heading?
• What could become a problem six or twelve months from now if we don't address it today?

Permanent or Fixed-Term?

The current intention is for this to be a permanent appointment.

That said, our client recognises that the nature of the role may also appeal to someone who specialises in transformation, review and improvement projects.

For the right individual, they would therefore be open to considering a 12-month fixed-term contract if that structure is better suited to the candidate and the assignment.