Finding future finance talent with the right technical skills is proving a challenge for many. In finance, candidates rely on soft and hard skills to thrive in their roles. While it’s important for these professionals to excel at communication, teamwork, and problem-solving, they also need a broad range of technical skills.
This is particularly true now, as the financial and accounting landscape evolves, with new innovations in technology for analysis, reporting, and data management. Unfortunately, in a skills-short market, finding financial professionals with the right range of hard and soft skills is challenging.
Companies need the right strategy to ensure they’re appealing to the candidates best equipped to help them navigate the evolving financial landscape.
Defining Essential Technical Skills
The first step in cultivating a plan to find financial candidates with the right technical skills is determining which capabilities are essential to your company. Each finance role comes with its own unique responsibilities and technical requirements.
Assessing your open positions, the goals of your business, and your existing talent pool will help you to determine which skills are most valuable to you. Critical technical skills may include:
- Accounting skills: For accounting professionals, navigating tax principles and reporting strategies is crucial. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles govern the practice of accounting in the US, while the UK has its own set of GAAP guidelines.
- Spreadsheet skills: Most finance professionals need to know how to manage, create, and use spreadsheets for reporting and data analytics. At the very least, most candidates need a good knowledge of Excel and similar tools.
- Software skills: Finance professionals need to be able to work with various software to complete their tasks in today’s world. These solutions can include accounting platforms like QuickBooks or Xero, payroll tools, and project management tools.
- Analytical skills: Financial professionals play an important role in guiding the financial direction of the organisation. To implement the right strategies, they need to be able to analyse data using business intelligence and analytical software.
- Reporting skills: Professionals in the financial world also need to be able to prepare reports for tax season and other financial tasks. They should know how to structure reports effectively, use visualisation when portraying data, and present information to teams.
Finding the Right Talent: Recruitment Channels
Once your company has determined the skills you need from your finance professionals, the next step is to work on a robust candidate sourcing strategy. Working with a professional finance recruitment team can be valuable here, as it will allow you to source both active and passive candidates from a range of environments.
Assessing Potential Candidates
When hiring finance professionals with essential technical skills, sourcing the right candidates is important. However, it’s also crucial to have a plan in place for how you want to assess the abilities of your potential team members.
A recruitment agency will be able to work with you to filter through candidates based on their technical knowledge and experience. However, you can also uncover insights into your candidate’s skills with:
- Technical skills assessments: Incorporating technical assessments into the interview process can be an excellent way to evaluate the proficiency of your employees in specific areas. You can assign tasks and challenges to candidates to help filter through your options.
- Behavioural interviews allow hiring managers to evaluate problem-solving abilities, communication skills, and other essential characteristics. These interviews can also provide insights into a candidate’s potential for growth in the organisation.
- Screening interviews: Screening interviews can be a fantastic way to narrow your candidate pool with specific questions. You can even use automated video screening interviews to ask candidates about their technical skills before an official conversation.
Upskilling your Finance Team
While knowing how to seek out finance candidates with the right technical skills is important, it’s also worth ensuring you have a plan to develop and upskill your existing employees. In a talent-short market, a strong approach to employee development is crucial.
Not only will offering your candidates training and development strategies increase their engagement and productivity levels, but it can also improve your chances of retaining and attracting crucial employees. Make sure you have a plan in place to optimise your team.
Offer access to training programs and certifications relevant to your industry. Encourage team members to seek additional training sources or consider setting up mentorship programs to cultivate collaborative learning.
Find the Right Talent for your Finance Team
As the complexity of the finance landscape continues to evolve, it’s more important than ever to ensure you’re appealing to candidates with the right combination of hard and soft skills.
Finding candidates with the right technical talents can be challenging, but with a targeted and proactive approach, you can improve your chances of sourcing the right team members.
Work with your financial recruitment expert to attract as many professionals to your talent pipeline as possible, and look for ways to assess their skills and abilities. Once you’ve found the right team members, invest in constantly updating their skills.
Thanks,
Rachel
About Rebus Financial Recruitment
Rebus Financial Recruitment provides a specialist and focused recruitment service to its customers, ranging from various organisations, including SMEs, to large PLCs.
We strive to offer both the client and candidate a seamless recruitment experience. Using our expertise, we get to the heart of employer and employee needs, and, in doing so, we match the two perfectly.
To learn more, contact one of our team today, or call us on 01282 930930.
