by
2019-08-23
With unemployment sitting at historic lows (2.8% in Metro Orlando), hiring managers face a harsh hiring climate when trying to hire corporate finance talent. With the limited labor market, employers must act quickly and efficiently if they want to hire great finance talent
As Dr. John Sullivan, professor, author, and known HR thought-leader puts it, “There may be nothing that damages corporate recruiting results more than slow hiring.”
Here are a few survival techniques to improving your odds at attracting the best corporate finance talent.
Expedite the Hiring Process
These days, companies are strategically leveraging employee benefits as a tool for both recruitment and retention. Corporate finance candidates are seeing increased wages, benefits, and retirement savings being offered to them. Robust offers are taking candidates off the market more quickly. If your hiring process gets stuck in the mud, there’s potential you could miss the boat.
Here are five quick tips to speed up your hiring process:
- Develop candidate personas
- Write a thorough job description to avoid confusion
- Ensure your application online is UX (user-experience) friendly
- Have a candidate interview with 2-3 people per visit to avoid having to schedule secondary interviews
- Keep communication clear and concise throughout the candidate experience
Expediting your hiring process should not come at the expense of thoroughly evaluating a candidate. To properly expedite the process without sacrificing quality, the key is to prep beforehand so that you can make decisions quickly and efficiently. Proper preparation will help you mitigate the risk of missing the mark on market value, diversity inclusion, culture fit, and more. Proper preparation will set you up for success to capitalize on short hiring windows.
Diving into Candidate Personas
To take one of the previously mentioned tips a little further, let’s dive into specifics of what a potential candidate persona may look like for a corporate finance individual. First off, what is a candidate persona? A candidate persona is a fictitious representation of your ideal candidate. Preparing an ideal candidate profile will save your company time when writing the job description, sourcing candidates, and throughout the interview experience.
An example of a candidate persona would be as follows.
Position: Senior Financial Analyst
- Cultural/Personality Characteristics: Thrives in a traditional workplace settings / Enjoys new challenges / Able to take work home if needed.
- Background: MBA-Finance / 5 or more years of FP&A experience / Fortune 500 experience
- Skills: Advanced Excel / Data mining tools experience / Client facing / Ability to develop strong cross-functional partnerships / Proven analytical; Confidence
- Interests: Keeping up to date on the latest financial developments
- Goals: Wants to grow with the company
Building candidate personas requires a fair amount of research. One way to conduct this research is to send a questionnaire to employees that are currently in this role or are involved within the department. They will provide valuable insight into what characteristics they believe will make a good employee and help you hone the characteristics you’re targeting in the position you’re trying to fill.
Hire a Recruiting Firm
Don’t have the time or internal resources to overall your hiring process to ensure you’re appealing to the best corporate finance talent? Partner with a specialized recruiting firm like Veritas Recruiting Group.
At Veritas, we understand the candidate-driven market you’re currently facing. We specialize in providing finance and accounting talent to companies in Central Florida. From entry-level hires to a dynamic CFO, we can find you the perfect candidate.
Connect with us today to learn more about what we can do for you.
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