Fund finance recruitment and relationships: Finding the balance

In last week’s article, we looked at the effects of seasonal business cycles on recruitment in the fund finance sector. Just as crucial as the timing of the recruitment process itself, is the need for all stakeholders – the hiring manager, HR, the candidate and us, the recruitment specialist – to communicate effectively throughout, and understand each other’s role.

Unlike most talent acquisition companies in the banking and legal fields, Brickfield is an exclusive, specialist recruiter who deals with one specific team within the client organisation. We exist only to service the needs of fund finance teams, not to involve ourselves in other areas, and we are not aiming to be added to any rosters of generic recruiters. 

This approach has allowed us to become highly familiar (albeit not experts) with the activities, processes and aims of fund finance teams in key banks and law firms, which in turn allows us to quickly envisage the ideal candidate that our client is looking for, and then match them with candidates that we believe best meet those very specific requirements. Often the needs of a fund finance team may not be familiar to HR departments that are more attuned to providing a service of facilitating, co-ordinating and driving the process across a very wide range of job types within their organisation. 

We find that optimal outcomes are achieved when everyone in the process plays to their strengths – the hiring manager knows the skillset they want, the candidate knows what job they want, the recruiter understands their respective needs, and the HR department drives the process forward.

In addition to everyone knowing what they want, it is often equally important to understand what you don’t want. When we hear a client tell us that a candidate “wasn’t a good fit” or “not what we’re looking for”, we want to ask the hiring manager a lot of detailed questions that HR may not be able to answer in the depth required. Fund finance teams often make hiring decisions that include factors unique to them – for example, the culture and client base of the candidate’s previous organisation, and their personal experiences there, can often be a significant set of factors.

As we mentioned in our previous article, we do not rush our onboarding process with new clients. We want to understand the individual needs of the fund finance teams we work with, whether comprised of bankers or lawyers. From this, we can act not as a generic recruiter feeding CVs and cookie-cutter candidates, but as a key service provider specifically for the fund finance team.

Brickfield is the only international talent acquisition specialist dedicated to fund finance. If you are seeking to grow your fund finance team, or if you are looking to move to a new position in the space, contact Rory Smith at Brickfield Recruitment by email at [email protected] or by telephone on +44 7800 963 594.