Over the past couple of years, as well as delivering advice to expats in the Middle East, I have been organically growing the Killik Chartered Financial Planners team in London and recruiting individuals to join the team. In the past 12 months alone, we have recruited eight team members at various levels. The recruitment of additional staff members presents a number of challenges and can be incredibly time consuming and expensive if you do not have a robust recruitment process in place.
Job advertisement
Before even beginning to look at CVs it is essential to spend time creating the job advertisement and being clear in that advertisement what the role entails. We have found that a good way to do this is to clearly define the job description and post this on our website. Doing this enables potential candidates to really understand what the key accountabilities and competencies are for the role before consid¬ering whether they wish to apply. So many job advertisements can be ex-tremely misleading and this leads to time being wasted on both sides.
Calibre of candidates
One of the biggest challenges I have found over the past 12 months or so is that while there are a significant number of advisers looking to move jobs, there appears to be a dearth of high calibre candidates in the market. I suspect that this is in part due to the introduction of the Retail Distribution Review in the UK and many individuals have been sitting tight with their existing companies for the time being to see how the market pans out. There are also a number of advisers who are vastly overpaid for the level of qualification or experience that they have.
Having been inundated with CVs I have developed a method of shortlisting candidates, which I find works well for me.
For instance, if there are any gaps in a CV, I want to understand why and what the reasons are before considering whether to interview. I have three important factors that I look for in a CV, which assist me in getting a rounded view of the individual:
- The number of jobs an individual has had and the time spent with each company.
- The level of qualification they have achieved and degree of experience gained.
- What their interests are outside of work.
Robust process
In my opinion it is absolutely neces¬sary to have a defined and structured recruitment process which is followed for each candidate. It is also important to be clear with the candidate at the first interview what they can ex¬pect the process to be. Our process has been defined to incorporate three distinct stages, which must be com¬pleted to our satisfaction before we are in a position to make the job offer.
Ability to write
Much of our communication with clients these days is via the written word, either through email or financial planning reports; therefore, I personally believe it is imperative that, as part of the recruitment process, you are able to determine the candidate’s ability to communicate appropriately in the written word.
Therefore, we use a case study which we ask candidates to complete as part of the process, this case study involves a hypothetical typical client and we ask the candidate to outline the financial plan that they would propose in no more than 2,500 words.
Using a case study in this manner, aids the process in a number of ways, enabling us to determine the candidate’s abilities on the following.
- Writing style, grammar, spelling and attention to detail – you would be surprised by the number of candidates that have submitted their case study spelling ‘Killik’ incorrectly.
- Ability to apply technical knowledge to the preparation of a finan¬cial plan.
- Understanding of the Killik chartered financial planner’s advice process.
Opportunity to meet
An integral part of our process is giving the candidate the opportunity to ask questions of their own. An interview should be a two-way dialogue rather than the recruiter purely firing questions at the candidate; allowing the candidate to ask questions can provide the interviewer with valuable insight as to what their drivers and motivators are for joining your company.
I also believe it is important for the candidate to meet at least one member of the existing team to be able to ask them questions about their experience – we typically do this as part of the first interview.
In summary, I think it is absolutely necessary to have a clear and constructive recruitment process before even embarking on bringing new individuals into a team.
