We’ve examined how various industries have had to alter staffing strategies to draw from a labor market that has fewer available candidates than at any point in recent memory.
For insight into how the banking sector has changed its approach to finance and accounting hiring, we spoke with Aston Carter Account Manager Chike Ubu. With nearly five years experience placing talent in the industry, Ubu has seen firsthand how the labor market has forced an evolution in staffing strategy.
How have banks been keeping up?
True to form, they’ve leveraged their market position.
A Desirable Field with a Steady Need
The banking sector is still regarded as one of the — if not the — hottest job opportunity destinations among candidates with finance and accounting skills.
“A lot of the largest institutions in the global economy are banks like JP Morgan, or Wells Fargo,” says Ubu. “Candidates know that getting a foot in the door with a company like that will be a good springboard for the rest of their career, so the finance and accounting labor pool for certain roles in this industry remains less tight than elsewhere.”
Good thing too, because banks also have a never-ending demand for finance and accounting candidates, especially with skills and experience related to a remnant of the financial crisis that’s still a very real part of daily operations: compliance.
With hard deadlines for regulatory compliance set and managed by the Federal Reserve, banks have no choice but to hire in bulk and implement projects on a tight turnaround. “In order to become compliant as quickly as possible,” says Ubu, “banks will hire 20 to 30 compliance analysts, and give them a six to twelve-month timeframe to meet all the required benchmarks.”
Specialized and Managerial Skills Are Much More Scarce
Even as banking benefits from a general eagerness among the supply side of the labor market, it’s still subject to a competitive hiring environment where qualified candidates receive multiple job offers almost as soon as they become available.
That’s even more prevalent for roles that require specialized skills and experience, which are often sought when banks consider cost savings by adding systems implementation to compliance projects.
“It’s often the case that banks will bring in a new software or accounting platform during the compliance project and need to hire project managers along with the compliance analysts to oversee the change function,” says Ubu. “Whenever they do that they typically want someone that has done that exact job in the past, which draws on a much smaller pool of candidates.”
Aside from project manager roles, banks also screen candidates at all levels for specialized skills and experience, such as Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS) Certification attainment, or any legal background that could indicate a candidate’s ability to scour documentation for potential compliance issues.
Selling to The Candidate
As in so many other industries in the current market, the more developed and rare a candidate’s skills profile, the more concessions banks are willing to make in order to make the hire. Banks are typically most willing to negotiate on remote work flexibility, or even salary, for the right candidate.
And a focus on the candidate experience doesn’t hurt either. “Banks, like anybody else these days, need to convince each candidate that they’ve found the right opportunity,” says Ubu. “It’s no longer feasible to bring in a candidate and grill them the whole time, then expect them to accept a job offer.”
Exploring Price Point Breakdowns
One way banks have been avoiding the conundrum of selling to candidates is to outsource their compliance implementation to Big Four firms, which can have the added benefit of liability transfer.
Many banks are facing a scenario where they need to guarantee results to the Fed to avoid fines. They can use a Big Four firm, which charges a premium and is willing to accept launch liability and project oversight but doesn’t have the recruiting bandwidth for the mandated 30-person analyst hire. So it often makes a lot of sense to supplement this contract with a sub-contractor, a staffing firm such as Aston Carter, that can backfill the talent required to implement the project at a reduced cost, without needing to accept liability.
“Depending on how the costs and risks are valued, such an arrangement has great potential to serve all three parties with exactly what they want,” says Ubu.
Building Partnerships that Reduce Lag
The “human” side of “human resources” isn’t going away anytime soon.
Starting with the relationship established between hiring manager and staffing firm account manager and extending outward into the job market through the network of connections recruiters maintain with candidates, trust is everything. When these relationships are well aligned, efficiencies blossom.
“Whenever I perform as well as I can, say by filling a big project with ideal candidates in a small amount of time,” Ubu says, “it’s always because I’ve had the benefit of foresight. When I’m actively involved in qualifying a candidate profile well in advance of planned hiring initiatives and can spend the time and effort tracking the labor market and maintaining contact with candidates, that’s when I’m best at my job, and when my clients get the most bang for their buck.”
If you’re ready to build a relationship with a staffing partner who thoroughly understands your own specific labor market, contact Aston Carter now for a free conversation.
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