Fintech Recruitment: Top Tips From the Professionals

It’s no secret that great fintech candidates are rare. It’s a growing industry that’s becoming cooler all the time. Face to face and phone interactions are decreasing (let’s not lie, we’re all experts at talking to chatbots now!), so the highly skilled roles needed to facilitate these changes are becoming pretty in-demand. 

Add an increase in the need for cyber security and financial insurance and you’ve got a talent gap. But, if you’re reading this, you probably already know that... 

In Scotland, we boast some of the best fintech businesses in the world; as the BBC reported in January 2020, the number of Scottish fintech firms grew 60% in 2019. That’s obviously slowed in 2020, but the outlook remains strong. 

So, in this competitive market, how can your fintech recruitment strategy make your business survive and thrive? I’ve put together the top tips I’ve learnt working in tech and fintech recruitment that should help. 

Refine your EVP 

Highly skilled people in fintech can command high salaries. So, you need to differentiate your business to make it stand out. You need to give people a reason, more than money, to work for you. 

And no, we’re not talking pool tables and free coffee. 

The pandemic has increased the demand for flexibility and that means working from home, moveable hours, and part time working. 

People also want to know that they’ll be looked after as your employee. Do you provide private healthcare? Counselling? Gym memberships? Clearly communicate what you do to improve quality of life in your careers page, your marketing, and any external sites.

Then think about your company culture, particularly important when most of us are working from home. Show how you’re inclusive, how you welcome new employees, and show this to potential candidates. 

If you don’t provide the things above, why not? They’re what will make you stand out from the competition. 

Widen your talent pool 

Fintech in Scotland is still a relatively small industry. If you really want to discover great talent you might want to look outside either the fintech pool or your locality. 

Thankfully, with great advancements in tech (especially recently) it’s much easier to work remotely and most are finding it a positive experience.

By widening your search, you get a bigger talent pool and more diverse candidates. A May 2020 McKinsey report said that “companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25 percent more likely to have above-average profitability than companies in the fourth quartile.”

How candidates view their careers is changing too. We used to work in the same role for most of our lives, but now, people are continually changing roles, reskilling, and upskilling. Now, this ethos means it’s easier to hire people who can be trained to do specific roles, rather than only looking for those already in them. 

Someone who works in customer service might be a great fit for sales, and we’ve seen designers move to development roles easily. 

Get methodical about hiring

In a market with talent gaps, it’s easy to make the wrong hire. In the long-term, this can cost you a lot – both financially and in your company culture. If you have a robust hiring method though, you won’t make these mistakes. 

At Solutions Driven, my team and I use RPI – Recruitment Process Intelligence – to make the right hire, first time, every time. We use RPI with everyone from big banks hiring CEOs and startups hiring sales execs. And it always works. 

Through RPI, we use various methods to find and secure the best talent. The two fundamental ones are the 6s and the 6F processes. 

The 6S process is how we find and secure candidates: 

We hold an initial Scoping meeting to identify the hiring needs

We create a Scorecard that matches the businesses’ criteria 

We source candidates via the latest technology and human intelligence, 

We Select them against the scorecard, interviews and psychometric testing 

We Secure them via our 6F Process (more on that in a sec)

We Satisfy both the candidate and our clients by measuring the results and regular check-ins. 

For the 6F process, we ensure that candidates and companies are matched on six key areas – Fit, Freedom, Family, Fulfilment, Fortune, and Future – so that your potential hire becomes a long-term, happy employee who helps propel your business forward. 

Exciting passive talent 

Your ideal hires are probably already in roles. Thanks, talent gap! So, when talking to fintech companies, we’ve found a big problem they have is activating passive talent who are already happy in their roles. 

Many don’t even want to entertain an initial conversation. 

The first thing you can do is one we’ve already discussed - improve your EVP and how you market it. In this industry, top talent wants to work with companies that are going somewhere or doing something exciting. It’s important that your brand is known for being forward-thinking and allowing people to work on great projects and progress. 

It can be hard to activate passive talent by yourself. It takes indepth technology, experience, and a lot of time. So sometimes, it’s best to get the professionals in. 

If you’re really serious about getting the best people to join your company, a good recruitment company, who knows your industry and knows how to attract great people will be far more cost effective in the long-run than doing it yourself. 

Blog written by Nicki Paterson. Nicki is Global Head of Business Growth at Solutions Driven, a Glasgow company that has specialised in business-critical recruitment for over 20 years. Working on a flat-fee basis and 12 month guarantees, Solutions Driven’s focus is getting the right people for the right roles, first time, every time.

If you’d like to find out more about how you can recruit effectively in the fintech market, get in touch with Nicki at npaterson@solutionsdriven.com.