A competitive market drives demand for specialist skills
More and more industries are becoming exceptionally diverse and the financial sector is no different. From jobs requiring candidates to speak multiple languages to specific experience in that industry, to a specific qualification - clients are demanding more and more fine tuned specialist skills.
While the volume of candidates is increasing, balancing quality of candidates experience while trying to meet these emerging (what would have previously been) niche requirements is a balance many financial recruiters are facing. Few industries boast the volume of diversity, while offering the range of viable skills and experience that the financial sector can.
Financial employees must be vetted according to stringent guidelines
In the financial industry it is not always as straightforward as submitting your CV, having a telephone interview, a face to face interview and job done.
Banks or financial advisory offices for example may require a credit history check as part of the application process.
Credit Control teams may require exceptional soft skills when interacting with external customers.
New regulations dictate some roles where you will execute third party financial transactions requiring a clear credit history.
Unless the candidate meets these requirements the application will automatically be rejected regardless of qualifications or experience.
Regulations and recruiting top talent
Thanks to the up and down Brexit brought to the economy and many markets there remains a large amount of uncertainty across the Financial services sector (heard of Article 50?)
Many central hubs are now looking to potentially lose thousands of jobs as organisations look to move abroad.
As a result, much of our booming talent pool may look to move back to EU nations/emerging economies and as a result make finding high quality candidates more and more challenging.
Food for thought, as our market becomes more competitive, quality candidates become harder to find and finely tuned recruitment processes become more key!