With the emerging desert of qualified employees in the financial services industry — and the growing candidate recession — there are ways to find the oasis.
Amid policy shifts, new accounting and finance regulations and changes in systems, we are seeing obvious market indicators of a shortage of qualified professionals who can keep up with the recent demands of the job market.
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Our economy is rebounding as we emerge from the pandemic in 2021, yet the U.S. has the highest number of job openings through May, according to the
Cultivating the new landscape
In addition to the shortage of qualified candidates, it has created a need for employers to manage expectations and be open to looking outside the box. What hiring companies really need to focus on is flexibility for specific qualifications narrowing it down to “nice to haves” and “must haves,” remembering you can always
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Companies might lose out on great candidates if they aren’t flexible with required qualifications including software efficiencies, years of experience, professional background, and more. So, it is important to hire professionals who are self-motivated, solutions-focused, problem solvers, have a strong work-ethic, strong emotional intelligence and efficient communication skills.
For example, hire individuals who have implemented process improvements and automation at their past organizations illustrating that they are proactive. I also advocate for my clients to critically think through every job opening they have and see how they can be flexible — can they modify the scope of the role to consider internal candidates, and even up level or down level the role to fit a current employee’s strengths? This could be as simple as having two current employees manage a team of eight people rather than bringing on someone new to manage the whole team. In this current candidate recession, there isn’t a better time to look for talent within your organization who are looking to take on additional responsibilities.
I encourage my clients to focus more on the type of person who will be successful within the organization and take additional time to train where some experience might be lacking. One of the major benefits of working with a talent solutions firm is that they take the time to get to know the person behind the application and help identify qualities that illustrate top talent, which might not initially jump off the resume or cover letter. There are key qualifications with education and work experience that can be a must-have in showing career progression and tenure, but the bottom line is that companies need to be more open to having conversations to get to know people beyond their resume.
Surfing the virtual onboarding wave
With virtual work very much here to stay, it is important to understand the challenges of remote onboarding and help new hires feel like part of the organization. Find ways to connect them with every member of their direct team to build relationships and trust, ensuring they have enough support. One of the differentiators that we have heard internally after virtually onboarding is that everyone on the team makes a point to continuously foster the relationship, and that we take the time to allow people to get to know each other personally. When you’re working from home, you have meetings for a very specific purpose and sometimes people forget to stop to ask about the weekend or their family, like you would in an office setting. For hiring managers and teams, it’s crucial to carve out time to get to know the person better and connect on a personal level, with no work agenda.
Diversify the culture for success
It’s easy to invite individuals to the team who are just like us, to find a culture fit, and while they certainly need to share core values it is also very important to have diversity in personality, experience, ways of thinking, problem-solving skills, and more on your teams. If you are aligned on the core values and the mission of the organization, then diversity only helps stretch the organization to think differently, work differently, and solve problems in a new way. You want a balance of people with different strengths and backgrounds, which makes it a culture add to the team as a whole.
Dive into the pool
There are many ways to attract top talent during a quality labor shortage. Here are the top trends, tips and insights for success in today’s environment:
- Be flexible and move fast. Top talent has the pick of the litter in today’s market.
- Talent solutions firms can provide support in vetting candidates before the company meets them, speeding up the hiring process immensely.
- Have a clear interview and hiring process internally whether it’s cutting down the number of people who need to meet with the candidate, understanding which teammate is going to ask the candidate which questions, or even using our hosted interview process to efficiently meet and narrow down candidates.
If your organization is unsure about hiring a permanent role during these unprecedented times, consider hiring a professional consultant or interim employee to obtain critical resources quickly to relieve the heavy workload on your existing team.
