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6 pitfalls to avoid in your search for a finance professional

Talent inside the finance market can choose from a multitude of interesting job offers these days. The amount of vacancies still increases each day and people are drawn to the industry. The time a manager could choose from a vast amount of candidates lies firmly behind us. If you want to haul the biggest talent, you need to alter your recruitment process. 

But how do you do this exactly? Here are 6 major pitfalls to avoid when recruiting a finance professional.

Pitfall 1 - Arrogance

In those times when there were plenty of candidates for each vacancy, it was nearly impossible for most employers to answer every application personally. But with the current scarcity of appropriate profiles, recruiters have to practice some more courtesy again.

As an employer, you have to show you are as excited about the application as your candidate. If you’re not as engaged, a candidate can consider you and your company as being presumptuous. Such an image can spread rapidly amongst other candidates.

Pitfall 2 – Inadequate preparation for the interview

If you want to make a good impression as an employer, you’d better be properly prepared for the interview. Don’t let your candidate wait unnecessarily long and go thoroughly through the CV in advance. By doing so, you avoid posing irrelevant questions during your interview.

When you are not properly prepared, this will have an effect on the quality of your interview and your decisions.  Just like when your candidate is not well prepared, your own preparation has to be good to truly optimise the interview experience.

Check out the social profile of your candidate on LinkedIn and prepare some relevant questions based on the information in the CV. Think about why this candidate should choose your company and be prepared to explain why you work the company yourself.  

By investing in your candidate, this will have an influence on your company’s image. When you’re searching for top talents, just remember quality chooses quality in the end.  

Pitfall 3 -  A lengthy recruitment process

Through the shortage of talent in the job market, top candidates are often only briefly available. As an organisation, you should accelerate to prevent candidates to be taken by your competitors.  If you wait too long before taking a decision, chances are your candidate will accept a job offer elsewhere. That would mean you’ll have to start your recruitment process all over. Speed up your recruitment process by providing timely feedback and free some extra time in your agenda to be able to take a well informed decision within a short period of time.   

Limit the amount of interview rounds and let your HR staff prepare the contract in advance, so you only have to fill out the salary in the end. Like that, you will never have to make concessions on the quality of your candidate.

Pitfall 4 – An average offer 

Pay levels are rising together with the growing range of available vacancies, and as an employer, you won’t convince your candidate with a raise of a poor 5% increase. Nowadays, a lot of companies offer a salary that is at least 10% higher than the competition’s offer in order to attract top candidates

Take care of a healthy expectations management as well inside your company. Prepare your bidding process in a strategical manner by staying in touch with your market segment. The Robert Walters salary survey can definitely be a useful tool to determine the salary level of your new hire.

Pitfall 5 - Overselling

Always write a compelling job advert, but try not to exaggerate. For your candidate it would be a real deal breaker when he or she realises you sugar coated the job offer. By doing this, you subvert the future relationship of your candidate with the company and he or she will surely feel disappointed.  

Don’t make promises you cannot keep. For example, if you mostly recruit managers from outside the company, don’t mention growth opportunities in your job advert. Remain honest, as today’s candidates are able to get a clear picture of their future employer. Be as transparent as possible and avoid overselling.   

Pitfall 6 - Settle for less

This last one is the most common pitfall of them all during the recruitment process: you settle for less. The skills of your candidate are sufficient to get the job done, but  he or she will never excel. When you settle for less, you can’t expect initiative, perseverance or exceptional knowledge. In the long term, these kind of employees can curb the progress of your company, so you’d better not hire them. 

A top candidate can put your company on the fast track, so if you would like to attract the right talent, you can always ask the advise of a specialised recruiter. As opposed to an all-round in-house recruiter, he or she has the right skills to find you the best finance professional.

 

Are you in search of a  finance professional?

Get in touch with one of our specialised recruiters or submit your vacancy.

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