Looking for the best way to recruit finance talent?

Character

There are different types of people who fit well in finance roles. Many are extroverted, which is an ideal personality type when you’re looking to hire a financial advisor or a broker. Banking and finance also attracts more introverted characters. These candidates are sometimes more analytically minded and perfect when you’re hiring an accountant.

Both are imperative to the industry and your finance staffing and banking staffing.

Maturity

The candidate needs to have a strong drive to succeed in the finance industry. This tends to come with a high level of maturity. Generally, the finance and banking industry has quite a corporate environment. Banking staffing agencies like ours will ensure that your candidate shortlist is full of graduates who are ready for this setting.

Interest

A great candidate is actively attuned to the finance industry. They are proactive about getting experience in finance to prove that they want to stand out during the accounting staff hiring process. They are keen to complete relevant qualifications, keep up to date with the markets, and understand broader changes in the industry.

Many employers ask us for finance, banking, and accounting recruiting tips, so we’ve put together our top recommendations from our expert finance recruiters:

Salary and benefits

Excellent finance graduates are attracted by companies that offer more benefits or a higher salary. We would always suggest you combat this issue by offering financial training and development, particularly for entry-level graduates, to give a clear path of progression.

Improve retention

Ensuring proper onboarding processes are in place is a good way to improve staff retention in the finance industry. At Give A Grad A Go, we can help with employee retention strategies to ensure that once you’ve hired the perfect candidate, you retain them (and get a good return on your investment)!

Don’t just go for the experience

Believe it or not, experience isn’t everything. Hiring a graduate with no experience can sometimes be more beneficial. Graduates are cost-effective and have an eagerness to learn. They offer a new perspective for the finance industry and can be trained to adapt to your business.

So, if you’re looking to recruit financial advisors or hire accounting staff, come to us! We’ll help you hire a junior with less experience, who’s determined to thrive and grow at your company.

Looking to hire an accountant at your company and searching for accounting recruitment tips? We’ve compiled our expert tips on how to best hire an accountant that is a great match for your company and role.

Or, if you’re looking for an accounting and finance recruitment agency, check out our recruitment services, and discover how Give a Grad a Go can add exceptional banking and finance candidates to your business.

Ensure candidates have the required qualifications

Our first top tip for accountancy recruitment is to ensure potential candidates have the key accounting qualifications. Make sure you’re aware of what qualifications to look for before you hire an accountant.

The AAT qualification is typically the minimum level expected of an accountant. But, if you’re looking to hire a chartered accountant, candidates must hold ACCA, ACA, or CIMA qualifications.

At Give a Grad a Go, we screen all our candidates at least twice. We will we see if they hold the right qualifications for your role, but also if they have the personality to perfectly match your company.

Decide on the complexity and field of the role

When hiring an accountant for your business, consider the duties and tasks that the accountant will be responsible for.

Think about what role this accountant will be filling in the business, and the specific finance area they will work on e.g. tax returns, financial statements, or more technical financial aspects?

Knowing what area you want your accountant to cover will allow you to decide what previous experience you require for the role and in what accounting sector.

Be aware of the key skills and qualities of an accountant

Accountant duties go beyond number crunching. It’s important to look out for certain skills when hiring an accountant for your company. Here are some key skills and qualities to look for in candidates:

Accountants will often have multiple projects to balance at one time, and have to keep the figures, financial data, and paperwork in check often. It’s important to look for candidates that possess excellent time-management and multitasking abilities during your recruitment process.

Another important quality of an accountant is to have an eye for detail and be highly numerate. The smallest mistake in figures can skew the accuracy of data. So, it’s crucial your candidates give attention to even the smallest of detail to ensure accuracy and minimise mistakes.

Adaptability is another important quality to look out for in your potential accountants. Not only will accountants have to embrace the challenges of a changing economy and new technology advances, but day-to-day new challenges may arise which they’ll need to calmly adapt to.

You want to look out for these candidate characteristics throughout your recruitment process. Asking the right questions to a candidate during an interview is the most effective way to discover if a candidate is a great match for your role. Visit our blog for some top employer interview questions to ask candidates.

Use an expert banking and finance recruitment agency

To ensure you find the right accountant for your business, using an expert recruitment agency is a great way to find the right candidate for your role. At Give a Grad a Go, we specialise in placing exceptional banking and finance candidates into a wide range of roles and company types.

With a database of talented candidates ready to go, we can quickly and efficiently find the perfect candidate for your accountant role.

Looking to hire a finance assistant at your company? Wondering how to write a job description? Here are our top tips on how to write a standout and engaging finance assistant job description:

Be clear about the role in the opening sections

When graduates begin applying to roles, there’s often a lot of jargon and new terms that they have never come across before. As a finance assistant is a common entry-level and junior finance role, which many graduates may be considering, it’s important to clearly state the functions of the role and the requirements in the first few sections of your finance job description.

Have a job overview section at the top of your job description that clearly states the role title, describes a few of the tasks, and lists the previous experience required. This will allow candidates to see straight away if they are eligible to apply to the role.

List the responsibilities and duties of the role in detail

Give a candidate an insight into the role and allow them to picture what their day-to-day tasks could involve.

This is beneficial in allowing candidates to see if they are equipped to carry out these tasks. It allows you as an employer to set standards of the role from the beginning by using descriptive adjectives.

Whilst finance assistant duties vary from company to company, here are some common junior finance assistant duties:

1. • Efficiently prepare financial and business forms for the purpose of checking account balances and facilitating purchases
   • Accurately perform routine calculations to produce reports as requested by the finance director
   • Review and audit financial statements and reports, ensuring all calculations and data entries are correct
   • Collect information for and prepare payroll payments for employees
   • Answer questions and provide assistance to stakeholders, customers, and clients, performing an excellent level of customer service
   • Suggest changes or improvements to increase the accuracy and efficiency of finance systems

Describe your ideal candidate

To ensure you’re attracting the right calibre of candidates to your Finance Assistant vacancy, it’s important to list the skills, qualifications and characteristics that are essential to the role.

Your Junior Finance job description should include if you require a degree and if so, is this in a relevant finance or accounting subject? You should also include if you require any previous experience and the number of years.

It’s also essential to list the important skills you require from a candidate. Potential applications should be highly numerate, analytical, with excellent customer service and communication skills.

Don’t just focus on the number and date related skills, but include the soft skills which are vital for candidates to possess too, such as the ability to multi-task, manage projects and be adaptable to situations.

In order to get the most out of your new finance hires and for them to make a great impact on your business, it’s important to have an effective finance onboarding process in place. If you’re wondering how to onboard your new finance employees and looking for training for finance employees tips, we’ve put together our expert advice:

Reduce time training by finding the right candidate

Our top tip for onboarding finance staff is to hire a candidate with the right qualification(s) needed to successfully be able to do their role straight away.

Whether you’re hiring a finance assistant, finance manager, or accountant, all will need to hold relevant qualifications and degrees.

To save time and resources on your new hires gaining the relevant finance qualifications, ensure you hire a candidate who is qualified and ready to start making an impact on your business from day one.

Assign your new finance hire a mentor

Our top tip for excellent finance staff development is to offer support to your new hires from the beginning.

There is likely to be a lot of new systems and processes for your finance employee to adjust to, a great way for your new starter to quickly learn how these work, is to assign them a mentor.

More experienced members of staff in your finance team make great mentors and can show your new starters how processes work.

For tips on how to implement a mentoring scheme at your company, visit our blog on the benefits of workplace mentoring.

Set targets and standards from the beginning

In order to get a high return of investment from your new finance employees, it’s important that they know what is expected from them from the beginning.

Make sure your new hires are aware of their weekly and monthly targets and the standard of work that is expected of them.

Explaining this to your new starters straight away gives them targets to work towards, and a solid understanding of what they should be achieving.

It’s important to implement evaluation measures throughout your finance new starters’ onboarding process. This way, you can track their progress and highlight areas where they may need more training.