Good finance people have options right now. If your business is competing for the same shortlist as three other companies, the job advert alone won't win it. Candidates are reading between the lines on salary, flexibility and whether the role sounds like it actually goes anywhere. Here's what genuinely moves the needle.
Bring in a Specialist Early, Not as a Last Resort
Plenty of businesses only call a recruiter once they've already lost three months trying to hire alone. A specialist recruitment agency isn't just a way to fill a gap, they know what candidates in your sector are actually asking for right now, and can flag if your role, salary or process is out of step before you've burned time finding that out the hard way. JMF Associates, a finance and accountancy recruitment agency covering London and the South East, works this way with clients, using direct market knowledge to shape the brief rather than just filling it as written.
Be Upfront About Salary from the Start
Nothing kills a candidate's interest faster than getting three interviews deep and finding out the number doesn't match their expectations. Job adverts that hide the salary or use vague bands like "competitive" tend to filter out exactly the calibre of candidate you're trying to attract, since experienced finance professionals rarely apply blind. Check what the market is actually paying before you write the advert. The CIPD salary benchmarking tool gives a decent steer on current rates by role and region, so you're not guessing.
Offer Flexibility That's Real, Not Just Written Down
Hybrid working is table stakes now for most finance roles outside of client-facing practice work. What candidates are actually screening for is whether the flexibility on offer is genuine or just a line in the job spec that gets quietly walked back once someone starts. If your business genuinely supports flexible hours or remote days, say so specifically. Vague promises read as red flags to anyone who's been burned before.
Show a Clear Route Upwards
A talented management accountant isn't looking for a job, they're looking for the next three years of their career. If your business can't articulate what progression looks like, that gap gets noticed. This doesn't need to be a rigid career ladder, but candidates should leave an interview with some sense of where the role could lead.
Fix Your Interview Process Before You Fix Your Job Advert
A drawn-out process with five stages and long silences between them loses good candidates to businesses that move faster. Finance professionals, especially at management or director level, are often interviewing at more than one place at a time. Get clear on how many stages you actually need, who needs to be in the room, and how quickly you can turn around feedback. Tools don't fix a badly designed process, but they help you stick to a better one. Hireful, a Northamptonshire-based recruitment software provider, builds applicant tracking systems specifically aimed at cutting the admin burden that causes processes to drag.
Build an Employer Brand People Can Actually See
Candidates research a business before they apply, and what they find (or don't find) shapes whether they bother. A careers page that hasn't been touched in three years, or no visible presence beyond a Companies House listing, does the opposite of reassuring anyone. This doesn't need to be an expensive rebrand. Agencies like BrandPointZero, who specialise in employer branding and careers content, work with businesses to build exactly this kind of visible, credible presence without it turning into a vanity project.
None of this guarantees the perfect hire. But businesses that get these six things right consistently see shorter time-to-hire and fewer candidates dropping out mid-process, which in finance recruitment specifically tends to matter more than almost anything else.