Candidate Engagement in Fintech Recruitment

I read recently that in the next four years, The Global Fintech Market is expected to grow at a rate of 23.58%. With news emerging that the Scottish Government has appointed an adviser to assist tech, with £7m earmarked for the project, Scottish Fintech has a great opportunity on its hands to grow. 

But this growth will need great talent to sustain it. Talent that will sustain growth and drive innovation – not an easy feat considering the current shortages of candidates across all tech markets. 

This shortage isn’t due to slow in the next few years either. In a recent study, The World Economic Forum pointed out that the global talent shortage in technology, media, and telecommunications alone is due to reach 4.3million workers by 2030. 

What Does This Mean for Fintech Recruitment? 

It means that it’s becoming more difficult to hire top talent and will continue to become harder. We already know that top tech talent hold most of the cards, shortages meaning they have their choice of employers and can command top salaries. 

Businesses that want to continue to innovate and stay at the top of their game need the right people to do so. Which means being able to attract and engage the best candidates. But with many businesses in Scotland at the startup or ramping stage, recruitment often doesn’t come top of their list. 

Getting the right people in place is a combination of being able to access alternative talent pools, and engaging them and your traditional pools. 

How to Improve Candidate Engagement? 

The type of people you’re looking for aren’t usually out of a job. Right now, it’s not just candidates who need to impress employers, employers need to impress candidates too. And that means working on your candidate engagement: 

Working on Your Candidate Value Proposition 

Salary and standard benefits are no longer enough to engage with top talent in the tech space. You need to do more. That means improving your candidate value proposition. What do you offer over and above the competition? 

The easiest way to improve your candidate value proposition is to improve your employee value proposition. Use internal surveys to ask your current team what they like about working for you and what you could be doing better. The happier people are at work, the more likely they are to spread good word of mouth among friends and peers. 

Changes could be more flexible hours, the ability to permanently work from home, better choice of benefits, company shares (particularly for start-ups), or better work culture. Many people are also looking for more social responsibility from their employers, both with charitable efforts or sustainability. 

When you have identified what areas are important to your current team, ensure these are clear on your careers site, on your social media, and in any candidate collateral, you issue. 

Put More Effort into Diversity and Inclusion 

Currently, just 24% of people working in fintech in Scotland are women. Considering women makeup 51.5% of the population, that figure looks low. Just 1.4% of fintech workers are black and 6.2% Asian. (Solutions Driven 2021)

All of these are untapped, diverse markets that businesses should be engaging with to diversify their talent pools and find candidates their competitors can’t. But do you improve candidate engagement in these areas? 

• Talk to the diverse people in your current teams – what could you be doing better to make them feel included? Is there anything you’re doing wrong? 
• Set up diversity groups – is there scope for a women’s panel in the business? Could you set up a diversity workforce? 
• Embed diversity into your KPIs – set targets for diversity and make them part of your recruitment team’s KPIs. 
• Improve diversity branding – make diverse figures visible on your website, your social media, and your candidate content. 
• Improve your language – masculine language using words like “ninja” and “rockstar” turn women off applying for roles. Look at making your language more inclusive. 

Spend More Time Engaging Candidates 

Candidates like to feel sold to. They want to feel as though joining your business will benefit them and you, and that they’d be a valuable member of the team. 

If “candidate engagement” consists of sending a couple of messages or emails, that’s not going to cut it. Much like a sales process, great talent needs multiple touchpoints from your company to attract the candidate. After all, a 2019 survey by Indeed showed that 13% of job seekers have ghosted a business because there wasn’t enough engagement with the hiring manager or recruiter. 

If your own team doesn’t have the time to carry out a longer process like this, you need to ensure your recruitment partner does. They must be well-versed in the complexities of tech talent and spend the time and energy showing them why your business is the right one for them. 

At Solutions Driven, our candidate engagement works alongside our 6F Methodology, where we ensure someone is right for a role and a company by looking at their compatibility in Fit, Freedom, Family, Fulfilment, Fortune and Future. If someone matches with your business in these areas, they’re more likely to feel an affinity with the business, feel fulfilled, and become long-term employees. 

Great candidate engagement has a multitude of benefits for your business. Not only are you more likely to find and attract the talent you need right now, you also build a pipeline of connected talent for the future. If people have a great experience, even if they don’t get the role, they’re more likely to re-apply or be open to an approach further down the line. Word of mouth is vital in smaller sectors and by ensuring your employees, prospects, and potential prospects all have a positive view of your business, you’re setting yourself up for future hiring success, as well as current. 

To find out more about how to connect with alternative talent pools, engage candidates, and power your growth, get in touch with Nicki Paterson at Solutions Driven today on npaterson@solutionsdriven.com. 

Fighting inequality and increasing diversity in tech

CodeYourFuture (CYF) is a UK based non-profit organisation that trains refugees, asylum seekers and other disadvantaged people to become web developers and find work in the tech industry. At CYF Scotland, we are on the lookout for new partners and volunteers, as we approach the start of our fifth class in early 2021.

Our mission

Targeting motivated applicants who have limited access to education and are currently underrepresented in the tech sector, CodeYourFuture is not another coding school, it is a community with a mission to fight inequality. In fact, CYF strives to remove as many obstacles to learning as possible for its students: the course is free and students’ costs, such as travel, childcare and internet are covered. Moreover, our 8-month-long part-time course is designed to allow students to fit their studying around other commitments.

Our students

CYF students come from a variety of backgrounds, including:

• Refugees or Asylum seekers
• Single Parents with low income
• Those diagnosed with mental health, learning, or physical disabilities,
• Those who live in a household with a total income below the UK poverty line,
• Women, minorities, ex-offenders, or anyone else experiencing problems getting the education needed to find meaningful work- including being homeless or long-term unemployed.

Our course

At CYF, the tech curriculum starts from the basics and encompasses front-end and back-end technologies, in order to develop rounded full-stack junior web-developers. Alongside technical development, the CodeYourFuture program places an emphasis on the development of soft-skills and positive habit formation over the duration of the course. Moreover, students are matched with professional mentors who offer them career guidance and support during the course. Employment is one of CYF’s main success benchmarks. Upon graduation, we help our students with CV writing, interview skills, and match them to exciting job opportunities within our partner network and wider community.

Our impact

Despite our focus on remaining an inclusive and diverse volunteer-led community, we pride ourselves on the practical impact we have on people’s career development. So far, in Glasgow, we’ve graduated thirty-nine Full Stack Web Development Bootcamp students, 70% of whom have gone on to further related study or full-time tech employment. Our graduates have gone on to work with organisations such as BBC Scotland, STV and many other companies and startups in Scotland.

We are on course to graduate a further ten students in November, and are almost ready to interview applicants for our largest class yet of thirty students in our next Bootcamp starting in early 2021.

Join us!

To achieve our aims, we have worked with a number of corporate partners over the past few years. In Scotland, we have a special opportunity for partners to sponsor the development of students in our next Bootcamp. We ensure our partnerships are fruitful for everyone involved, with fantastic opportunities to energise your company’s working atmosphere and social impact through things like tailored volunteering opportunities, collaborative workshops and exclusive hiring avenues.

If you are interested in the chance to make an impact in your community and taking concrete action towards increasing diversity in the tech industry, we would love to speak with you.

For more information on how you or your organisation can get involved with CYF from a tech education, career mentoring, soft skills development or sponsorship perspective, contact scotland@codeyourfuture.io.

You can also find further information about CodeYourFuture on our website: https://codeyourfuture.io/.

HR for Fast Growing Fintechs: Investing in a People Strategy for Success

The rise of the FinTech sector in Scotland continues at an impressive rate despite the challenges of this year, with a number of innovative new start-ups contributing to this exciting growth.

Setting up any new business is challenging but especially so in technology where getting access to and retaining the best talent is crucial to success. HR strategies and framework must address this reality in order to build a strong team and culture for sustained growth and competitive advantage. Setting up the company’s values and mission early on lays the foundations for a strong and successful workplace culture ”“ ultimately the driving force of HR.

Supporting Scottish FinTech

As HR specialists with a niche focus in the technology sector, we have supported Scottish Fintech Exizent since early 2020.

An innovative, Glasgow-based technology firm, Exizent have a strong purpose – to improve the bereavement experience for everyone involved.

The Founders had launched the company, both having previous experience of building successful businesses. They had plans to scale rapidly and knew the value of early investment in strong HR practice. Having secured funding to support their ambitious growth plans, they needed to build a strong team and culture and implement HR framework and infrastructure.

Establishing HR & people strategy

Having engaged us to support their growth journey, we conducted a full review of Exizent’s existing HR setup and processes, held scoping 1:1’s with the Founders and conducted a needs analysis, planning and prioritisation session aligned to their business and growth plans. This allowed us to gain a real understanding of the company’s ambitions, culture, people plans and future HR support needs.

We then identified the key short and medium term strategic and operational HR requirements which would enable the business to achieve its aims linked to rapid expansions and rollout, as well as being able to support the company values and culture.

Key requirements included contracts and documentation, onboarding processes, compliance, a HR management system, an employee handbook and the ongoing development of strong organisational culture.

The outcome was a tailored and prioritised HR plan with indicative timeline to support the business to scale rapidly over a 24-month period.

Our approach was designed to provide an effective and fit for purpose HR strategy, putting in place solid foundations to allow Exizent to grow and scale sustainably from a people management perspective.

A regular bank’ of HR support time was agreed, allowing Exizent a full hands-on HR service and access to expert HR support when needed to help them develop, implement and maintain their people strategy. This would also ensure that ongoing guidance and manager support was available to their team from a very early stage in their organisational development.

Exizent now have in place robust, fit for purpose, effective and compliant HR and people management systems and documentation, optimising their organisational effectiveness by aligning strategy, people, resources and processes. Team development sessions led by Purpose HR support effective business relationships, collaborative working practices across the organisation, and a strong and positive culture.

Exizent continues to grow rapidly, confident in the knowledge that they have a trusted and flexible HR partner embedded in their business.

“We engaged Purpose HR for their recognised expertise with growing technology-led businesses. They are a trusted extension of our management team and we value their depth of knowledge and professionalism.  Purpose HR are very well aligned with our business, share our values and are a great cultural fit. Their flexible support is responsive, cost-effective and saves us valuable time. I would highly recommend Purpose HR for their cutting-edge, hands-on and people-centric approach – perfect for scaling businesses.” 

Aleks Tomczyk, Founder & COO

The importance of investing in HR

It can be easy to overlook HR in a startup business and it is an area of expertise which many technical startups lack.Many entrepreneurs get their businesses off to a flying start, charging forward at speed, but struggle with people management further down the line. As a business grows, leaders often find there just isn’t time to deal with day-to-day people management and recruitment, and the focus on people can easily get lost. This is a costly mistake and can affect employee engagement, culture and long-term success.

Investing early in strong HR practice at the beginning, as Exizent have done, is critical for sustained growth. For startups, outsourcing this to a HR partner who understands the market, the company’s values, culture and strategic aims, and who adds value to the business is an investment in the future success of the organisation.

Lisa Thomson is the Managing Director of Purpose HR and is experienced in establishing HR functions and people management and development frameworks within growing businesses and is a trusted advisor at board level.

Purpose HR are a trusted HR partner to some of the most exciting, investor backed, high growth businesses in the Technology, Engineering and Life Science sectors in Scotland and offer hands-on flexible support to enable scale and growth through attraction, retention and development of key talent.

If you’d like to find out more about cost-effective and tailored HR support for fast growing, technology-led startups and scaleups, contact Lisa Thomson at lisa@purposehr.co.uk

Ambition Can Attract the Right Talent

A few months ago, Mark Logan produced his long-awaited, government-commissioned report on the Scottish tech ecosystem, of which FinTech is now a key component.”¯ 

There were many positives. We have established a thriving, well-connected community. However, Mark was quite clear; things need to change.”¯ 

We need to think bigger; we need to push boundaries and reach further than many think is possible, capitalising on the global opportunities that will take us beyond the tipping point. 

One of the pillars at the heart of Mark’s vision for a larger, more robust Scottish Tech ecosystem was, of course, people.”¯ 

But how do we attract this critical talent?”¯ 

Growing our own talent, working with schools and universities to prepare future captains of industry is vital. Making sure the technical skills taught are combined with commercial acumen is critical. However, this is a generation away.”¯ 

To realise some more immediate returns and to capitalise on the global opportunities, tech companies in Scotland need to attract the sort of investment required to be an international player and employ the talent with the experience and knowledge to succeed. 

Embrace Your Ambition 

With COVID19 banishing most traces of presenteeism and reassuring business leaders that it is possible to operate remote teams without impacting on productivity, this has opened up access to a far more significant, global labour market.”¯ 

However, while the talent exists, encouraging them to join your team instead of sticking with the FinTech operating out of London isn’t easy.”¯ ”¯ ”¯ ”¯ ”¯”¯ 

What was clear from listening to Shane Kehoe, Co-Founder at SVK Crypto, who was a keynote speaker at EIE20, is the acknowledgement from London that there is an incredibly exciting scene here in Scotland. However, for whatever reason, the investment and to a certain degree the talent isn’t making its way north at quite the speed we would hope.”¯ 

Something both Shane said at EIE20, and Hector Mason, Investor at Episode 1, mentioned when we interviewed him for the TalentSpark podcast last year, was that the level of ambition shown by the companies in London and America is exceptionally high.”¯”¯ 

Our inbuilt Scottish apprehension prevents many from showing the global ambition we harbour, and from taking the risks that perhaps our counterparts in Silicon Valley, and to a certain degree those down in London, take for granted.”¯ 

These founders are shooting for the star’s fuelled by mind-blowing ambition, and many eventually fail. However, the lessons they learned along the way, will be invaluable to an emerging FinTech and the experience will help attract more significant levels of investment.”¯ 

This faster turnaround of experienced talent was, in fact, one of the potential solutions suggested by Mark Logan in his report. 

Define Your Market 

Another key aspect of attracting the right talent for your business is defining your ‘why’.”¯ 

Whether you are trying to attract the COO from a FinTech that has just exited to a global institution, or you have your sights set on securing the services of the most inspiring CTO, you need to sell a vision of a business that does more than it says on the tin.”¯”¯ 

This concept became abundantly clear when we worked with one of Scotland’s most exciting new FinTechs‘, Nude.”¯ 

 Lots of company leaders and advisors talk about creating the right culture, but Nude have worked hard to define their culture and make it a key component of their hiring process.”¯”¯ 

 Nude has now raised £5.7m, and their most recent raise was to help them deliver on the government-backed Lifetime ISA (LISA), created to help first-time buyers get onto the property ladder.”¯ ”¯ 

However, there was a time pressure on getting the LISA product to market, and it required the recruitment of up to ten staff. It was an exciting project for our team to get stuck into but daunting none the less.”¯ 

Nude’s Why 

Their one goal is to:”¯  

“Help you reach life’s most important life goals, starting with buying a home”.”¯ 

So, the ‘why’ was clear, and after meeting with Stephen Doherty, COO, it was apparent their culture was laser-focused on customer-focused delivery.”¯ 

Having this made the process that we went through very clear. It helped us define the type of person we were recruiting for making shortlisting far more effective. The vision and values also helped sell the opportunity to an already engaged audience which meant the candidates we put forward had a higher chance of success, reducing the time to hire considerably.”¯ ”¯ 

So, while defining the vision and culture of the company certainly helped us, it created a very attractive proposition in an incredibly competitive marketplace.”¯ 

Diversity and Inclusion 

Living and breathing an inclusive culture from the very top is not only the right thing to do, but it makes financial sense too.”¯ 

While no one should have to be convinced of the benefits of a more diverse mindset throughout your business, based on the potential financial upside, it does seem to be rolled out as part of the argument.”¯ 

Jacqueline De Rojas, Chair of Tech UK, has highlighted the imbalance of female representation in the tech sector, and the potential impact this can have on everyday lives.”¯ 

The retention rate of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic is far shorter than that of their white counterparts. This could be in part down to the, on average 13% lower salaries compared with their white workmates.”¯ 

 However, it is almost certainly also the result of a lack of buy-in from senior-level executives to embody change, making the role of Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) incredibly frustrating.”¯ 

It is incumbent on senior leaders, founders and CEO’s to take ownership of the diversity throughout their organisation. They need to embody the culture and take action to stamp out any perceived bias. Only when the policy is taken seriously at the top level will change genuinely take place, and companies will see the financial benefits of having a diverse workforce.”¯ 

So, if the many fantastic companies that make the FinTech sector here in Scotland are to achieve the growth they all grave, they need to be brave and embrace their real ambitions. They need to define their vision and culture and embody a diverse and inclusive hiring approach.”¯”¯ 

Author  

• Peter Dunn 
• Associate Director (Tech and Digital) 
• Eden Scott 
• 07795 553 835  

Fintech Recruitment: Top Tips From the Professionals

It’s no secret that great fintech candidates are rare. It’s a growing industry that’s becoming cooler all the time. Face to face and phone interactions are decreasing (let’s not lie, we’re all experts at talking to chatbots now!), so the highly skilled roles needed to facilitate these changes are becoming pretty in-demand. 

Add an increase in the need for cyber security and financial insurance and you’ve got a talent gap. But, if you’re reading this, you probably already know that… 

In Scotland, we boast some of the best fintech businesses in the world; as the BBC reported in January 2020, the number of Scottish fintech firms grew 60% in 2019. That’s obviously slowed in 2020, but the outlook remains strong. 

So, in this competitive market, how can your fintech recruitment strategy make your business survive and thrive? I’ve put together the top tips I’ve learnt working in tech and fintech recruitment that should help. 

Refine your EVP 

Highly skilled people in fintech can command high salaries. So, you need to differentiate your business to make it stand out. You need to give people a reason, more than money, to work for you. 

And no, we’re not talking pool tables and free coffee. 

The pandemic has increased the demand for flexibility and that means working from home, moveable hours, and part time working. 

People also want to know that they’ll be looked after as your employee. Do you provide private healthcare? Counselling? Gym memberships? Clearly communicate what you do to improve quality of life in your careers page, your marketing, and any external sites.

Then think about your company culture, particularly important when most of us are working from home. Show how you’re inclusive, how you welcome new employees, and show this to potential candidates. 

If you don’t provide the things above, why not? They’re what will make you stand out from the competition. 

Widen your talent pool 

Fintech in Scotland is still a relatively small industry. If you really want to discover great talent you might want to look outside either the fintech pool or your locality. 

Thankfully, with great advancements in tech (especially recently) it’s much easier to work remotely and most are finding it a positive experience.

By widening your search, you get a bigger talent pool and more diverse candidates. A May 2020 McKinsey report said that “companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25 percent more likely to have above-average profitability than companies in the fourth quartile.”

How candidates view their careers is changing too. We used to work in the same role for most of our lives, but now, people are continually changing roles, reskilling, and upskilling. Now, this ethos means it’s easier to hire people who can be trained to do specific roles, rather than only looking for those already in them. 

Someone who works in customer service might be a great fit for sales, and we’ve seen designers move to development roles easily. 

Get methodical about hiring

In a market with talent gaps, it’s easy to make the wrong hire. In the long-term, this can cost you a lot ”“ both financially and in your company culture. If you have a robust hiring method though, you won’t make these mistakes. 

At Solutions Driven, my team and I use RPI ”“ Recruitment Process Intelligence ”“ to make the right hire, first time, every time. We use RPI with everyone from big banks hiring CEOs and startups hiring sales execs. And it always works. 

Through RPI, we use various methods to find and secure the best talent. The two fundamental ones are the 6s and the 6F processes. 

The 6S process is how we find and secure candidates: 

We hold an initial Scoping meeting to identify the hiring needs

We create a Scorecard that matches the businesses’ criteria 

We source candidates via the latest technology and human intelligence, 

We Select them against the scorecard, interviews and psychometric testing 

We Secure them via our 6F Process (more on that in a sec)

We Satisfy both the candidate and our clients by measuring the results and regular check-ins. 

For the 6F process, we ensure that candidates and companies are matched on six key areas ”“ Fit, Freedom, Family, Fulfilment, Fortune, and Future ”“ so that your potential hire becomes a long-term, happy employee who helps propel your business forward. 

Exciting passive talent 

Your ideal hires are probably already in roles. Thanks, talent gap! So, when talking to fintech companies, we’ve found a big problem they have is activating passive talent who are already happy in their roles. 

Many don’t even want to entertain an initial conversation. 

The first thing you can do is one we’ve already discussed – improve your EVP and how you market it. In this industry, top talent wants to work with companies that are going somewhere or doing something exciting. It’s important that your brand is known for being forward-thinking and allowing people to work on great projects and progress. 

It can be hard to activate passive talent by yourself. It takes indepth technology, experience, and a lot of time. So sometimes, it’s best to get the professionals in. 

If you’re really serious about getting the best people to join your company, a good recruitment company, who knows your industry and knows how to attract great people will be far more cost effective in the long-run than doing it yourself. 

Blog written by Nicki Paterson. Nicki is Global Head of Business Growth at Solutions Driven, a Glasgow company that has specialised in business-critical recruitment for over 20 years. Working on a flat-fee basis and 12 month guarantees, Solutions Driven’s focus is getting the right people for the right roles, first time, every time.

If you’d like to find out more about how you can recruit effectively in the fintech market, get in touch with Nicki at npaterson@solutionsdriven.com.