Recruiting finance professionals isn’t getting any easier. Skill shortages in the industry are increasing, with 92% of CFOs in the UK alone saying they’re struggling with talent gaps. Plus, as the sector continues to evolve, with new regulatory guidelines, and AI tech, choosing the right candidates is becoming more complex.
The skills you needed from a candidate two years ago might not be the same as those you’re going to rely on next year. It’s no wonder hiring cycles are getting longer – with some companies taking up to eight weeks just to make a decision.
Finance interview panels could be the solution. As finance roles shift, demanding a complex blend of technical expertise, soft skills, and cultural fit, it’s hard for a single interview to identify the perfect opportunity. Here’s why panel-style interviews make a difference to your recruitment process, and how you can make the most of your strategy.
The Current Finance Recruitment Landscape
Let’s look at the current state of the finance recruitment landscape. It’s not just talent shortages that are causing major issues for teams. While the skills gap is certainly part of the challenge, the evolving nature of what finance professionals need to bring to the table is creating serious confusion. These days, the best employees need more than just traditional credentials.
They also need to be able to adapt to new digital transformation trends, like the rise of AI, automation, and data analytical tools. They need versatile and durable human soft skills, like adaptability, resilience, and the ability to communicate with diverse groups.
Effective employees also need to be able to blend well with your culture, while still offering unique perspectives and diverse insights. Traditional one-on-one interviews make it much harder to find the perfect fit. A standardised set of questions can reveal a lot, but it won’t always highlight a candidate’s ability to collaborate across departments, or deal with nuanced challenges.
Finance interview panels give you an opportunity to conduct a more rounded assessment, where multiple stakeholders with different priorities can share their opinions and thoughts. Panels can ask comprehensive questions to explore a candidate’s technical and soft skills, and even reduce the risk of bias in hiring decisions.
The Benefits of Well-Structured Interview Panels
As recruitment becomes more complex, relying on a single person to make hiring decisions can lead to costly mistakes. A well-structured finance interview panel does more than spread the responsibility of hiring across multiple people. It can elevate your entire process.
Interviewing teams can work together to:
Assess Skills More Effectively
A finance role today is rarely one-dimensional. While technical proficiency, in areas like forecasting, compliance, or financial analysis is still crucial, soft skills are more important than ever.
Panels can ensure that candidates can communicate effectively with diverse stakeholders from different backgrounds, navigate nuanced challenges, and stay resilient in the face of change. Each panel member brings their own experience to the table to help holistically assess the skills a candidate needs to thrive in a role.
Reduce Bias and Improve Diversity
Panels are excellent for reducing bias in finance hiring – particularly unconscious bias. With multiple people sharing their thoughts and opinions, it’s less likely that one person’s inherent biases or personal preferences will shape the whole hiring strategy.
Multiple perspectives offer a natural counterbalance, helping organisations make more objective and inclusive choices. That’s crucial when you’re trying to stronger, more diverse finance teams.
Determine Cultural Fit (or Culture Add)
Panels can also help with a more effective assessment of cultural fit and team dynamics. Instead of one person trying to decide whether a person will blend seamlessly into a team based on the characteristics of previous employees, you have various people looking at the whole picture.
Panels can see how candidates interact with potential teammates, cross-functional partners, and even managers across roles. Different panelists bring unique insights into how candidates might collaborate, lead, or adapt to the company’s culture.
Improve Consistency in Hiring
Consistency is another big advantage. With a clear, and well-defined panel interview structure, everyone in your team can assess a candidate on the same criteria. This reduces the risk of subjective, unfair comparisons, particularly as candidates move from one interview to the next.
You could even reduce multiple rounds of hiring into one single panel interview, where everyone assesses a potential hire based on the same criteria, at the same time.
Enhance the Company’s Reputation
Panel interviews can also have a positive impact on your company’s reputation. Candidates get to meet a diverse mix of people, giving them a more authentic sense of the company culture, team dynamics, and how the whole environment works.
Panels also give your candidate an insight into the fact that your company values collaboration, and takes steps to reduce bias, streamline hiring processes, and make fair decisions.
Key Stakeholders to Include in Finance Interview Panels
Structuring a great panel interview doesn’t just mean adding as many different opinions to the process as possible. You need a carefully chosen team of people who can determine how each candidate will contribute to your business. Key stakeholders might include:
- Direct Manager or Supervisor: These stakeholders often focus on technical fit, day-to-day responsibilities, and how well the candidate would integrate into the immediate team.
- Cross-functional Partners: They evaluate the candidate’s ability to collaborate with other departments, like customer success teams, or product development experts.
- Senior Leadership: Leaders like CFOs and finance detectors can assess a candidate’s leadership potential, and alignment with future company goals.
- Technical Experts: Experts like system analysts and senior accountants can dig deeper into a candidate’s technical competencies, and areas where skill development is needed.
- HR or Talent Acquisition Expert: These professionals ensure the interview process is aligned with company values, DEI initiatives, and hiring goals.
- Team members: Peer-level colleagues can offer real-world insights into potential cultural fit, and whether the candidate’s working style will complement the current dynamic.
In some situations, you may even choose to have a customer representative present, to determine whether the candidate can thrive in a client-facing role.
Structuring Effective Panels for Different Finance Roles
One thing to keep in mind is that the core elements of your finance interview panels might vary depending on the roles you’re trying to fill. For entry-level positions, for instance, like a junior accountant role, you might choose a smaller panel with fewer senior executives. For leadership positions, you might need to get more of the C-Suite involved, and conduct deeper skill tests.
Specialised roles, such as a “tax specialist” position, or “ESG auditor” might need the input of technical experts that can assess niche competencies. Think carefully about the nature of each role before you start aligning panel members.
Most of the time, panel size should usually scale with role seniority and complexity, but it might take some trial and error to find what works best for you.
Another thing to consider is how you’ll manage panel interviews in the era of remote and hybrid work. You may need to arrange a full virtual interview with panel members (and candidates) who can join the conversation remotely, if not everyone is available in-person at the same time.
Quick Best Practices for Panel Interviews
Even if you’ve ensured you’re bringing the right people into the room, a panel interview will only be as effective as the process you use. Quick tips to keep in mind include:
- Prepare Carefully: Every panelist needs to be briefed on the role’s responsibilities, must-have skills, and the key competencies you want to assess. Clear guidance upfront ensures everyone is aligned and helps avoid mixed messages during the interview.
- Structure the Process: Assign specific focus areas to each interviewer. For example, one might assess technical knowledge, another cultural fit, and another leadership potential. This prevents repetitive questioning and keeps the conversation flowing naturally.
- Coordinate your Teams: Designate a panel leader to guide the process. They’ll be responsible for introducing the panel, keeping the interview on track, and ensuring candidates have time to ask their own questions.
- Manage Timing: Interviews that run too long or pack too many panelists into a short session can overwhelm even seasoned professionals. A 60–90-minute window is usually ideal, depending on the role’s complexity.
- Remember the Debrief: After the interview, hold a structured debrief where panelists can share observations, and feedback. Make sure everyone has a chance to talk about the candidate while the experience is still fresh.
Remember, creating balance is critical, too. It’s important to gather as much valuable information as possible, but candidates often candidates perform best when they feel respected and supported, not interrogated. Encourage open, conversational dialogue rather than rapid-fire grilling.
Building Your Finance Team Collaboratively
If you’re constantly struggling to make effective hiring decisions, now could be the time to take a more collaborative approach. A diverse group of stakeholders that work together on assessing a candidate’s soft and technical skills, and the impact they can have on company culture can often make better choices for the future of your company.
Sometimes, even getting specialist recruiters involved in the process can make a world of difference, to both your choices, and the candidate experience.
Investing the time and care into building smarter interview panels now means you’ll be better prepared to attract, assess, and retain the finance leaders of tomorrow
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 members today or call us at 01282 930930.
