Creating a finance recruitment strategy: the ultimate guide

A finance recruitment strategy is an empowering tool for those hiring in a competitive market. It’s the game play. The outlined process of who you need to hire, but also how you will hire them and why. It is also a critical step today before you launch any job posting.

Companies are up against quite a bit in today’s hiring market. There is quite a bit of competition in marketing across nearly all sectors of the financial industry. Standing out is essential, and that can be hard to do in a noisy market. Today, candidates have options, sometimes two or three positions to choose from by the end of any interview round.

That may encourage some to focus on speed – getting a candidate in that looks good on paper and making it work. Yet, there is also little benefit in rushing through the hiring process. That can prove detrimental to the entire investment.

The solution? Create a finance recruitment strategy that ensures you have the tools and information you need about the candidate (and that means the right information), and you have the ability to move through the hiring process efficiently. How do you do that? Let’s explore some of the most important components of this process.

Complete a Finance Recruitment Strategy Audit

Long before you can build a finance recruitment strategy, you need to complete a finance recruitment strategy audit. This allows your business to adjust its interview model to ensure it creates a better outcome. That is, it needs to help the candidate have a good experience while also creating more opportunities to engage with that candidate.

This type of audit helps you to see if your practices currently in place are truly authentic, engaging, and beneficial to all involved in the process. Audits seem simple, often seeming to be just a series of questions. Yet, this can provide you with incredible insight into what the candidate is experiencing and if that is supporting their opinion of your hiring brand or not.

Asking applicants questions about how you are doing within the interviewing process can shed light on topics you did not think much about prior. For example, would they recommend your company to their friends or family based solely on the information and experience they had during the interview? Would they reapply and go through that process again if they did not receive an offer?

Don’t stop just on the interview process either. Your recruitment strategy audit needs to go further and should include the same type of focus on areas such as:

• The manager experience: Did the hiring manager have what they needed to complete the interview process? Is there a clear culture of open communication within the company in areas such as expectations, assessments, and goals?
• The quality of the hire: Filling the role is the goal, but having the right hire is essential. Track how new employees move through the hiring process, probationary periods, promotions, and so on. This may come back to the recruitment efforts you had.
• Sources: Which sources of candidates seem to provide the best end result? What lacks? Based on the above questions, should you look to a recruitment agency for support?
• The cost: Also think about the cost of the recruitment process. Was the money invested able to produce the ideal candidate? It is all about looking at the return on the investment here.

Your recruitment strategy audit needs to look at everything from how well you communicated your brand to your marketing efforts and the team’s successes (as well as struggles). In short, it gives you a starting point. Now you know what works well and what does not.  Read here for 3 more tips on creating a recruitment strategy audit.

Create a Recruiter Brand

It is often a big part of marketing today – creating a brand for your customers, so they remember who you are in a positive light. That same technique of creating a brand for your business should also be applied to your recruitment activities, and should play a pivotal role in your finance recruitment strategy. Your recruiter brand needs to shine through, so candidates understand it and appreciate it (and, most importantly, want to be a part of the company as a result of their experiences here).

A recruitment manager is a storyteller. They have to paint the picture of what the company has to offer to the candidate. We are in a very different market right now. It is not possible to sit back and confidently believe that the company’s reputation is enough to enable the candidate to want to work with you. You have to sell your company to them. Give them the reasons why they want to work there.

This should come through in your recruiter brand. You need to be able to convey the story of your business, including where it is right now. Then, talk about the company’s ambitions for where they will be in the next 12 months to 3 years’ time. How will that journey align with the candidate’s goals and their own journey?

There is much that goes into the recruitment process, but at the end of the day, people work for people. During an interview, they need to have a good idea of what working for the business will be like. There needs to be a connection – a type of chemistry test – and a valuable alignment not just from the hiring manager’s point of view but also from the candidate. If you are not communicating your brand and building a strong, positive, transparent brand, that candidate is likely to be less engaged.

Finance Interview Questions

It’s quite important to ask the right questions. To do that, the first step is investing the time into learning who the candidate is. Read their CV. Learn what they are saying they are bringing to the table. From a candidate’s point of view, if you are asking questions already answered on the CV, that may mean you have not really invested the time in reading it.

Second, the goal is to take what is on the CV and ask them questions about it. Dig deep to test their technical skills by asking questions about the specifics of the work they have done rather than surface level questions.

There is more to the process than just this. For example, it becomes critical to structure each question around the core competencies you want to ensure this person has. It is not a degree or the ability to use a specific program. Rather, it is, at the heart, the competencies you expect this person to bring to the table that is going to play a huge role in the work they do each day and how they contribute to the company as a whole.

Be very clear on what those things are as you develop your finance recruitment strategy. Once you know what they are, you can then create questions that are structured around those areas. This is a good way of testing for competencies. Ask about real-life scenarios. This is a proven strategy for the best hires.

For example, think about something that is crucial to the role you are looking to fill. What is a real-life challenge that occurs in that role? Ask the candidate questions about such situations. See how they react on their feet. What is their first reaction? Does that reaction really align with your goals as a company? Is it what you would expect?

Questions like this provide you with information that goes beyond simple “tell me about yourself” types of questions. You are able to tell very quickly if they are a good fit for your company, not just based on their knowledge but also their culture fit with your company.

Align Your Business Goals with Recruitment Objectives

Define your recruitment objectives. You cannot do that without fully understanding your business goals and plans. It is hard to hire properly if you do not know where your company will be in the next 5 years or what type of skillset your team may need in the next 12 months.

Outline what your business goals are as well as a basic timeline for them. If you plan to launch a new service, it is obvious that you need to have the right skillset in your new hires to meet those goals. You may want to seek out a compliance officer in a specific field that has the experience that can support that change or effort.

Likewise, if your company is on a path to scale, you need to have candidates in your interviews that may have some background in the fast-moving and complex area of expansion.

No matter what your company’s business goals are, communicate those to your hiring managers or recruitment agency. To do that, there needs to be clear collaboration from the start with the company’s leadership and also department heads, which is why your finance recruitment strategy is so important. Be very clear in what you need in a hire based on their skills and how well that meshes with your business goals.

Finance Salaries

One of the most common questions that companies have for recruiting agencies is – how much. The first step is not to focus on salaries, but instead to focus on what you need. That goes back to defining the core objectives of your hire. Outline everything you need in this individual.

Then, approach the process with the question of how much you need to pay in today’s market to get the qualified applicant you need. It can be hard to put a specific salary on paper until you know what the depth of the candidate’s talents are and what they may be able to contribute to the company. Yet, you still have to have some idea of what the market is paying.

Let’s be frank. It’s a highly competitive market. You do not want to do a disservice to the candidates you are considering by taking them through multiple rounds of interviews only to offer less than they are making now.

Remember, too, that while people work for money, they also expect a good working relationship and want to be sure that they feel valued at the company they choose. Some of that comes in not just their salary but also what the culture is like and if they connect with their would-be boss.

Finance salaries are competitive. In an employee’s market, you have to be competitive to bring people in. That may mean you need to adapt to the market and ensure that you treat people well. Remember, too, that you may be hiring for one position, but you do not want to sour your recruitment brand by not providing the candidate with a fair offer. That could hurt later when their talented friends do not want to interview as a result.

Advertising Finance Jobs

One of the most difficult steps today in hiring for the financial sector is knowing where and how to advertise openings. There are a lot of websites you could use, including services like LinkedIn. Yet, this is a difficult market by all accounts.

In many ways, you will find that today’s candidates are not actively pursuing jobs. They are already working, and they may be interested in a new opportunity if the right one comes to them. That is, job listings are a good stepping point, but networking and building a strong employer recruitment strategy is going to be where you find most of your candidates today.

There is the belief that if your company has a good culture and image, people will just come to you. Most people who were unhappy in their previous positions, though, have moved on. Right now, there are a limited number of financial pros, especially at the more experienced level, who are going to apply for job ads.

That is why it helps to work with a recruitment agency that can help you to create a customised, tailored finance recruitment strategy that ensures that helps you attract interested people. You also need recruiters that can network. That may mean talking to your current employees about their friends or letting an agency reach out to potential opportunities through their connections.

Executive Finance Recruitment

A common misstep when advertising for or interviewing for executive finance positions is focusing too heavily on aptitude testing. It’s insulting to some candidates to have recruitment agencies require aptitude testing. They have already proven their skills in the work they’ve done and positions they’ve held.

Rather, when working to attract executives to your business, the focus needs to be more heavily on attitude and alignment of cultural fit.

It is also critical to focus on selling the company at this point. That is, why should a person with this amount of experience who is likely already working in the industry make a substantial change? What is it going to do for their career and CV? While money is important, that’s not all that executives want in this area. They want opportunities to make a name for themselves or a way to truly better their lives through this new offer.

As a component of your finance recruitment strategy, outline what you can provide to those who have more experience and who may bring incredible leadership to the table. What soft skills are they bringing that could make them a leader within your company? Then, outline the reasons why they may want to make that change.

Create a Clearly Defined Roadmap

Once you begin to network, you should already have a well-defined roadmap for hiring that individual. This roadmap is an opportunity for everyone within the process to know exactly what to expect during the interview process. That includes the candidate.

Communicate what the steps are, what the engagement process will be likely, and what they can expect at each step. You also want them to have some idea of the timeline for this process. You do not want to head into an interview without knowing what the next step is. That means that the opportunity with that candidate is already breaking down. That is frustrating for you, but it is also frustrating for the client – who, again, likely has several opportunities to select from.

It is also important to remove speed from the mindset of the interviewing process. While you want to move through the process at a pace that keeps the momentum up to keep the client interested, it is also important for you to stick with the plan.

For many companies, that includes an initial interview online and then a second, more technical-focused interview. The third is where they meet face to face and have those open conversations. There is little reason to drag it on endlessly (remember, people have options), but you want to have a structured interview process that’s outlined clearly for all involved.

Communicate a timeline for expectations for this process, too. Hiring is not something that typically takes a few days or weeks. Expect it to take several weeks and even up to 3 months. During this time, there is ample time built in for candidates to move through the process while also facilitating their needs and your own. Flexibility is important, especially since many candidates are going to need to be able to make arrangements to meet with you at each stage and may have other obligations.

Adapting to the Recruitment Hypermarket and Focusing on Candidate-Driven Recruitment

Today’s candidate pool may seem limited. It may seem difficult to truly find anyone that can fill positions and mesh with your company. That does not have to be the case.

Rather, it is critical to adapt to the recruitment hypermarket, making changes in your finance recruitment strategy to address what is occurring in the current climate. A big part of that is focusing on candidate-driven recruitment.

Instead of having a very specific focus on creating a job description and using LinkedIn, really create a finance recruitment strategy that outlines what you want in a client and what you are going to offer to those candidates who apply.

Job descriptions are quite valuable, but when a candidate is reading them and determining where they should spend their time, they want more than just the salary. They want to know that this company feels like a great place to work.

How do you do that? A good starting point is to create a recruiter brand, as mentioned. Tell the story of your company. When you do, this helps to humanise it. Let people know more about who your company is rather than just about what you do.

This helps to attract talent. People want to work for companies where they feel valued but also where they can see themselves having good experiences, day in and day out. When you focus on that human aspect, you also create more opportunities for engagement. It is through those opportunities and small talk that you can really get a feel for who the candidate is and how well they fit.

It is also important to avoid some common mistakes:

• Yes, the finance candidate market is limited. No, you should not rush through the hiring process.
• No, you do not have to settle for what is available or choose a candidate that is not quite who you need.
• Yes, you do need to adjust your recruitment strategy to better suit the candidate’s needs so that you attract people who may not be actively applying on job boards but are willing to consider a move for the right opportunity.

Instead, focus on slowing down your hiring process and using a more comprehensive strategy to achieve your goals. This way, you draw out the top-talent that is so important to the success of your business and that position, even if they are not actively applying for positions.

Having a great recruitment process benefits everyone, and as we've seen here, this starts with a great finance recruitment strategy. It makes it easier for your hiring managers to know what to do and how to do their job. It helps bring in the right type of talent that can do the job but also has the skills to grow your company. More so, it provides your business with a strong recruiter brand. That may mean fewer turnovers and more interest in prospective hires down the road.

In our latest podcast, Jennifer Cahill and Therese Cadell, co-founders of Savvi Recruitment, along with John Ennis, Associate Director of Savvi Recruitment discuss the different recruitment strategy trends they’re seeing in the market currently.

Savvi Recruitment works with a range of clients, all of whom are finding it tough at the moment in terms of having lots of competition to try and hire, particularly in areas of risk, compliance, finance, data analytics and consulting.

In this podcast we share tips and tricks around client recruitment strategies that are working well and are getting good engagement from a candidate perspective, with the aim of being able to help you attract talent and get ahead of the competition and to be able to secure those candidates!