What is Executive Quality?

Executive quality refers to the attributes that enable a leader to effectively drive an organization toward its goals while skilfully navigating the complexities of modern business environments. These essential qualities encompass a strategic vision that allows leaders to foresee trends and opportunities, decision-making prowess that enables them to make informed choices under pressure, emotional intelligence that fosters strong relationships and effective communication within teams, and a steadfast commitment to ethical practices that builds trust and integrity in the organization. Furthermore, executive quality also involves adaptability, resilience in the face of challenges, and the ability to inspire and motivate others, ensuring that the organization not only meets its objectives but also thrives in a competitive landscape.

Why is Executive Quality Important?

Understanding the significance of executive quality is crucial for driving organizational success and fostering effective leadership:

• Strategic Impact: Leaders with executive quality possess the ability to formulate and implement comprehensive strategies that not only align with organizational objectives but also adapt to changing market dynamics. Their foresight and strategic thinking ensure sustainable growth by anticipating challenges and seizing opportunities before competitors do.

• Organizational Culture: These leaders play a crucial role in shaping and transforming company culture. By instilling core values such as innovation, collaboration, and resilience, they create an environment where employees feel empowered and motivated to contribute their best ideas, ultimately driving the organization towards success.

• Stakeholder Confidence: Demonstrating executive quality is vital for earning and maintaining the trust of various stakeholders, including employees, investors, and customers. When leaders communicate transparently, make informed decisions, and show accountability, they foster a sense of security and loyalty, which strengthens the overall reputation and stability of the organization.

How is Executive Quality Displayed?

Grasping the manifestation of executive quality is essential for identifying effective fintech leadership, here are some of the key indicators of executive quality:

• Visionary Leadership: Articulating a clear and inspiring vision that not only motivates teams but also establishes a sense of purpose and direction for the entire organization. This kind of leadership fosters a culture of innovation and encourages employees to align their individual goals with the broader objectives of the company.

• Effective Communication: Engaging with diverse audiences, ranging from investors and board members to clients and employees, involves not just clarity but also empathy and active listening. This ensures that all stakeholders feel valued and understood, creating an environment where open dialogue is encouraged, and ideas can flow freely.

• Decisive Action: Making informed decisions swiftly, especially under pressure, is crucial for maintaining momentum in a fast-paced business environment. Executives must take calculated risks and be accountable for the outcomes, demonstrating integrity and resilience in the face of challenges. This decisiveness helps to build trust within the organization.

• Adaptability: Remaining flexible and open to change is essential in today’s rapidly evolving market. Executives must continuously learn from new experiences and emerging trends, adjusting strategies as necessary to stay competitive. This commitment to personal and professional growth enables leaders to inspire their teams to embrace change and seek out new opportunities.

Evaluating Executive Quality in Potential Hires

High-performing fintech companies require exceptional executive teams, making the selection of leaders with strong executive quality essential. Here are several strategies for evaluating executive quality in candidates:

• Track Record of Success: When evaluating candidates, it's essential to look for those with a proven history of achieving measurable results in their previous roles. This includes not just hitting targets but also demonstrating the ability to adapt and overcome significant challenges, showcasing resilience and strategic thinking under pressure.

• Behavioural Interviewing: Implementing behavioural interviewing techniques can provide valuable insights into a candidate's past behaviours and experiences. Crafting questions that prompt candidates to share specific examples of how they handled challenges, led teams, or drove initiatives can reveal whether they possess the key executive qualities necessary for success in your organization.

• References and Testimonials: Collecting references and testimonials from previous colleagues and stakeholders is crucial. Engaging with individuals who have firsthand experience working with the candidate can offer insights into their leadership style, decision-making abilities, and overall impact within a team or organization.

• Cultural Fit: Assessing cultural fit is vital to ensure that the candidate's values, work ethic, and approach align with your organization's ethos and long-term vision. A candidate who resonates with your company's culture will not only adapt more quickly but also contribute positively to team dynamics and overall employee morale. Evaluating this aspect can involve discussions about the organization’s mission and values during the interview process.

Conclusion

Executive quality is the cornerstone of effective leadership in the fast-paced fintech sector. It encompasses a blend of strategic vision, sharp decision-making, emotional intelligence, adaptability, and ethical practices—all essential for driving organizational success. Leaders who embody these traits can anticipate market trends, inspire their teams, shape company culture, and build trust with stakeholders.

By embracing executive quality, fintech leaders position themselves to innovate, overcome challenges, and sustain a competitive edge. Key attributes of executive quality include visionary leadership, clear communication, decisive action, and the ability to adapt to rapidly evolving markets. These qualities empower leaders to inspire their teams, make sound decisions under pressure, and stay agile in the face of change.

When hiring executives, fintech companies should prioritize a candidate's proven track record, utilize behavioural interviews to uncover insights into past experiences, seek references to evaluate leadership style, and ensure cultural alignment with the organization’s values and vision. Building strong fintech executive teams is not just an investment in leadership - it’s a critical step toward driving growth and securing long-term success!

About the author: Shawn Rutter is the founder of Excelsior Search, a market leader in international executive search and recruitment solutions for financial technology (fintech), data and research providers to the capital markets and investment industry across the Americas, EMEA and APAC.

If you are either a fintech executive looking to hire top talent, or a fintech professional looking for a fresh new career opportunity, then please do reach out to Shawn here on LinkedIn or email shawn@excelsiorsearch.com.

On the other hand, hiring managers also face a critical moment; it’s their final opportunity to showcase their company and the role to attract top talent. They must ensure that candidates perceive the best possible advantages of joining their organization, increasing the likelihood of a favourable decision. 

Final interviews transcend mere questioning; they represent mutual selling opportunities. In the competitive fintech industry, where attracting top performers is essential, understanding this dynamic can be the key to landing one's dream job or securing exceptional talent. 

Let’s delve into why final interviews should be regarded as a two-way street and how both candidates and hiring managers can optimize this vital stage.

A Two-Way Street

For Candidates

Candidates often feel pressured to demonstrate their skills and experience, proving they are as capable as they claim. After all, every company seeks to hire the best candidates—top performers who will genuinely contribute to their business's success. The final interview is not only an opportunity to answer questions but also a chance to showcase your unique value proposition, highlighting what makes you an asset beyond your resume. Here are a few tips to help you prepare: 

• Highlight Your Track Record: Provide specific examples that illustrate your expertise and its application in real-world scenarios, particularly in relation to performance metrics from your previous roles. There’s nothing more compelling than demonstrating proven success in the areas the hiring manager seeks. Prepare three concise statements detailing how your prior success aligns with their requirements.

• Showcase Your Cultural Fit: Companies want to ensure you possess not only the right skills but also a good fit for their culture. Share experiences that resonate with the company’s values and mission, which you’ve gathered during the interview process.

• Ask Insightful Questions: Show genuine curiosity about the company's future, challenges, and your potential contributions. It’s crucial to understand the role's expectations and key performance indicators (KPIs). A powerful strategy is to visualize future success together by asking what success in the role looks like.

• Demonstrate Personal Interest: People naturally prefer to work with those they like, and sometimes companies struggle to choose between two equally qualified candidates. Personal chemistry and the perception of who genuinely wants the job can make a difference. Regardless of your decision about the role, express your interest in both the company and the position. Prepare three reasons for wanting to join the company—not just to sell your experience, but to convey your personal motivations for seeking the job.

For Hiring Managers

As a fintech hiring manager, your role goes beyond merely assessing candidates; you must also address their final questions and effectively promote your company and the position. With top fintech talent having multiple options, the way you present your organization can significantly influence whether your preferred candidate accepts an offer. Here are some strategies to enhance your approach: 

• Articulate a Clear Vision: Clearly communicate the company's goals, growth trajectory, and how the candidate's role contributes to the overall vision. This ensures that they recognize the vital impact they will have on the company's future success. High-performing candidates are drawn to organizations with compelling visions and are eager to collaborate with similarly driven individuals. A vague vision can deter top talent.

• Share Success Stories: Illustrate the company's support for its employees and innovation through compelling success stories. Highlight high-profile clients, recent deal achievements, client retention rates, industry awards, and testimonials. Top candidates are attracted to high-performing companies, so it's crucial to showcase your organization’s accomplishments rather than downplay them.

• Highlight Company Culture: Emphasize what makes your workplace an exceptional environment. Discuss team dynamics, work-life balance, and professional development opportunities that foster growth and engagement.

• Encourage Questions: Aim for candidates to leave the interview with no lingering questions, except those related to the offer details if you choose to extend one. Allocate time for candidates to ask any questions, no matter how minor they may seem. This openness fosters a welcoming atmosphere and ensures candidates do not depart with uncertainties or misunderstandings that could impact their decision.

Summary 

Final interviews are crucial for both candidates and hiring managers. Candidates have the chance to make a lasting impression and secure an offer, while hiring managers must effectively showcase their company to attract top talent. 

Candidates must highlight their track record, showcase cultural fit, ask insightful questions, and express personal interest in the role. Hiring managers, on the other hand, should articulate a clear vision for the company, share success stories to attract talent, highlight company culture, and encourage open questions to ensure candidates leave with clarity. 

Final interviews go beyond simple questioning; they are mutual selling opportunities that can lead to the right job fit or exceptional hires, and understanding this dynamic is essential for success on both sides.

About the author: Shawn Rutter is the founder of Excelsior Search, a market leader in international executive search and recruitment solutions for financial technology (fintech), data and research providers to the capital markets and investment industry across the Americas, EMEA and APAC.

If you are a capital markets fintech professional either looking to hire or considering your next career opportunity, then please do reach out on LinkedIn or email shawn@excelsiorsearch.com. 

The wave of artificial intelligence (AI) has washed over various sectors, radically transforming processes and expectations, and in fintech recruitment it is no different. The allure of harnessing AI’s capabilities to streamline the hiring process is undeniable. It beckons with promises of efficiency and data-driven insights. Yet, a word of caution is warranted—AI, regardless of its advancement, is not a panacea for all recruitment challenges. As a staunch advocate for recruitment excellence, I stand firmly in the belief that while AI can aid the process, it cannot replace the nuanced judgment and interpersonal skills of human fintech recruiters.

Benefits of AI in Fintech Recruitment

• Efficiency and Time-Saving: AI algorithms rapidly sift through a myriad of applications, reducing the time spent on initial screenings, and freeing up invaluable human resources for deeper engagement tasks.

• Enhanced Candidate Experience: Automated processes ensure prompt communication and feedback, enhancing the applicant's journey. AI has the potential to create a more engaging candidate experience, keeping prospects informed and interested.

• Data-Driven Decision-Making: AI algorithms, when correctly programmed, can make unbiased decisions based on data alone. Leveraging big data, AI tools offer insightful analytics that can identify patterns and predict candidate success more objectively.

Despite these benefits, integrating AI into recruitment is not without its pitfalls.

Concerns and Limitations of AI in Fintech Recruitment

• Bias and Fairness: AI systems are only as unbiased as the data on which they are trained. Without careful oversight, they may perpetuate existing prejudices.

• Lack of Contextual Understanding: Algorithms struggle with the intricacies of human experiences and cultural nuances—factors often critical in recruitment decisions.

• Limited Ability to Assess Soft Skills: Attributes such as leadership, teamwork, and adaptability are nuanced traits that AI tools cannot gauge with high fidelity.

• Loss of Human Touch: Recruitment is fundamentally human-centric. The absence of empathy and personal judgment in understanding the nuances behind a candidate's application and profile may result in losing out on exceptional talent.

The Importance of Human Expertise

For effective fintech recruitment, one must not disregard the irreplaceable facets of human insight:

• Complex Decision-Making: Human recruiters excel at weighing multiple, often conflicting, variables to arrive at a recruitment decision that aligns with organizational culture and vision.

• Emotional Intelligence and Intuition: The subtleties of human interaction and candidate potential evaluation extend far beyond what current AI can discern.

• Building Relationships and Trust: Long-term relationships founded on trust and understanding are the cornerstone of successful recruitment—qualities that AI cannot emulate.

Conclusion

As fintech advances into new frontiers, the incorporation of AI in recruitment will continue to enhance capabilities. However, at the core of recruitment—a fundamentally human endeavour—lies the importance of personal connection and insight. We must not neglect the profound human elements that converge to not only fill a position, but to forge a partnership that propels both individuals and fintech companies to greater heights.

About the author: Shawn Rutter is the founder of Excelsior Search, a market leader in international executive search and recruitment solutions for financial technology (fintech), data and research providers to the capital markets and investment industry across the Americas, EMEA and APAC. If you are a capital markets fintech professional either looking to hire or considering your next career opportunity, then please do reach out on LinkedIn or email shawn@excelsiorsearch.com.

Recently, a long-term contact of mine, Michael Walford-Grant, informed me that he has become a published author, sharing his sales knowledge. His book encompasses decades of experience in capital markets fintech sales and is a must-read for any sales professional. He was kind enough to send me an advance copy which I have read, and I can confidently say that there is something valuable for every sales professional in it. From tips on sales processes that Michael has acquired throughout his career to personal anecdotes from his own experiences, this book is a treasure trove of insights.

Michael has been kind enough to write an article drawn from his book titled 'So What Are The Needs of Modern Day B2B Salespeople?' You can read the full article here, and the following bullet points summarise some the key messages in the article:

• Modern day B2B salespeople must employ sales best practices to remain successful amidst AI and the buyer completing 70-80% of their buying process before being contacted.

• Research confirms that the single most important factor influencing an outcome is the salesperson, not the product or company.

• Sales best practices include helping buyers make decisions, constructing a compelling business case for change, engaging with senior executives to map out a vision, becoming a trusted advisor, piquing interest and developing an opportunity through referrals.

• Effective presentations should make use of meaningful designs and consistent messaging along with neuroscience techniques to trigger emotions that will increase buyer retention.

• Buyers need the supplier to have market knowledge of the industry trends and how their solution can address specific needs without disruption.

So if you're a sales professional and like what you have read so far, then be sure to read the full article here.

If you are interested in purchasing Michael's book, it's titled 'Sales Unplugged: The Invaluable Go To Guide For Busy B2B Salespeople', and is available for pre order from popular book retailers such as with Waterstones here.

But whether you are interested in Michael's book or not, my message here is that no matter how good you think you are in your chosen profession, it's important to continually upskill and ensure you leverage the knowledge and experience from those around you as part of your own professional development journey.

Best, Shawn

About the author: Shawn Rutter is the founder of Excelsior Search, a market leader in international executive search and recruitment solutions for financial technology (fintech), data and research providers to the capital markets and investment industry across the Americas, EMEA and APAC.

If you are either a fintech executive looking to hire a great sales leader, a sales leader looking to strengthen your sales team with top performing salespeople, or a sales professional open to considering your next sales career opportunity, then please do reach out to Shawn here on LinkedIn or email shawn@excelsiorsearch.com.

If you like what you've read here are a couple more fintech sales related articles you might find an interesting read, with tips for both hiring managers and job seekers.

How to create a killer fintech sales resume that will max your market value.

The personal characteristics fintech salespeople look for in a great sales leader.

Mastering fintech sales hiring: Must ask interview questions.

Let's remember that salespeople are masters in selling propositions, including themselves, so it is important to generate a comprehensive list of 'deep dive' questions to help;

(1) Understand the nature of sales experience to assess fit for the company.

(2) Differentiate and identify the real top performers, after all every salesperson can't be in the top 10%!

Firstly, I advise gaining an understanding of the nature of each recent sales role using the following structure:

Doing What?

The nature of the sales role, was it pure new business sales acquiring new name logo clients, and/or was there a book of clients to retain and cross / upsell to. So, understand was it a 'hunter' (pure new name business) or a 'farmer' (account management) sales role, or a hybrid of the two.

Also understand the average deal sizes and how long the sales cycles were. Deal velocity is particularly important to understand, because the nature of a low deal volume, 12-24 month long sales cycle solution sales person, can be very different from that of a higher deal volume, 1-3 month sales cycle sales person.

With What?

The proposition(s) sold, was it technology, data or research; and what was the functional area i.e., trading, portfolio analysis, regulatory reporting, risk management or fund accounting etc.

To Who?

The prospect client types i.e., asset managers, hedge funds, wealth managers, or investment banks; and countries sold into.

How Successful?

Ask what their annual sales targets were, and what was attained; how their performance compared to others within the company i.e., where they ranked in the team and out of how many salespeople; If a new business sales role ask how many new logos they closed for the company, and if they achieved any 'first' product or country sales for the company.

Once you have understood the nature of sales roles held it is essential to ask deeper behavioural and situational questions, to arrive at a wholistic view of a salespersons experience and capabilities. The way and depth with which questions are answered will normally help differentiate the true sales professionals with 'real substance' about them, from those that are lesser capable. The following is an extensive list of example questions, too many for one interview, so perhaps pick one or two from each subheading:

Sales strategies

• Explain how data, market research and trend analysis have helped you optimise sales strategies.

• How do you leverage competitor research to inform your own sales strategies?

• Describe a successful sales strategy that you’ve implemented.

Lead generation

• What resources do you use to identify new leads, prospects, and potential customers?

• Describe how you leverage LinkedIn to find and reach new potential customers.

• How do you prioritise sales leads?

• Describe how you collaborate with other company staff to identify sales opportunities.

• How do you work effectively with sales development representatives (i.e., inside sales or lead generators)?

• Talk me through a marketing campaign you have devised and implemented with marketing.

Managing the sales process

• What strategies do you use to build relationships, develop, and maintain trust with prospects? 

• Describe how you manage prospect economic buyers, influencers, and other decision makers through the entire sales cycle.

• What makes a compelling sales presentation?

• What strategies do you use to nurture customer relationships after a sale is made?

• How do you customise your sales approach to different types of customers?

• What processes and tools do you use to track customer interactions?

• What is one of the greatest challenges you have faced as part of a sales process, and how did you address it?

• How do you handle objections from prospects?

• What role does curiosity play in your sales process?

• How do you handle rejection?

Closing

• What strategies do you employ when negotiating?

• Describe a situation when you had to adjust your selling approach in order to successfully close a deal.

• Describe how you handle difficult conversations related to pricing.

• How do you handle objections to close deals effectively?

Motivation

• What motivates you to achieve your sales target?

• How do you stay organised and motivated while prospecting and closing deals?

• In your opinion, what sets apart a successful fintech salesperson from an average one?

Improving sales performance

• How do you stay ahead of the competition when selling fintech products?

• Explain how you use data and analytics to improve sales performance.

• How do you leverage customer feedback to adjust sales strategies and improve performance?

• Describe an example of when you exceeded the expectations of a prospect.

Industry intelligence

• How do you stay up to date on the latest industry developments, trends and technology.

• Explain how you use competitor research to inform your own sales approaches.

• Describe how you help drive product development decisions.

• Explain how you use feedback from customers to improve your sales performance and strategy.

One final bit of interview advice, interview question answers aside, with a salesperson more than other fintech vendor roles it is particularly important to observe the candidate’s behaviour and body language. Do they appear confident? Are they listening attentively? Are they articulate? Is there substance to their answers? Are they asking good questions? Pay attention to these cues as they are indicative of a strong salesperson.

As a hiring manager for the fintech industry, it is essential to identify salespeople who possess the right skills, experience and track record of success. To ensure you hire the best for your company, make sure you understand their previous roles by finding out the nature of sales roles they've held, what they were selling, to whom they were selling, and how successful they were. But then ensure you delve deeper with meaningful behavioural and situational interview questions about their sales strategies, use of industry intelligence, lead generation, managing sales processes, closing deals, personal motivation and performance in sales. By asking the right interview questions you will be able distinguish the finest from the rest, and ensure your fintech sales team is comprised of top salespeople capable of driving business growth!

Good luck with your sales hiring, securing the best salespeople out there really can be a fintech company game changer!

Best, Shawn

P.S. If you like what you've read here are a couple more fintech sales related articles you might find an interesting read, with tips for both hiring managers and job seekers.

 About the author: Shawn Rutter is the founder of Excelsior Search, a market leader in international executive search and recruitment solutions for financial technology (fintech), data and research providers to the capital markets and investment industry across the Americas, EMEA and APAC.

If you are either a fintech executive looking to hire a great sales leader, a sales leader looking to strengthen your sales team with top performing salespeople, or a sales professional open to considering your next sales career opportunity, then please do reach out to Shawn here on LinkedIn or by email.

Hiring is a meaningful investment in terms of both time and money, and we all know that hiring top talent is crucial for fintech companies to maintain their competitive edge. But with fierce competition for top talent, companies need to have robust recruitment processes in place to attract and hire the best candidates, whilst ensuring roles don’t go unfilled and they have no costly hiring failures.

So based on recruitment process mistakes we’ve seen fintech companies make time and time again, in this short ebook ten key strategies are explored that can help streamline your recruitment process and attract top talent. Whether you are a startup or an established fintech company, these tips will help you stay ahead of the competition and build a winning team capable of driving innovation, growth and profitability.

Although some of the points discussed may seem common sense, too many companies overlook the basics, yet these principles are invaluable for hiring success.

The ebook is less than a 10 minute read, and also included is a one page recruitment process aide memoire, a handy checklist of the main points.

The download link is below, and feel free to reach out if we can possibly assist with your recruitment process to hire top fintech talent!

About the author: Shawn Rutter is the founder of Excelsior Search, a market leader in international executive search and recruitment solutions for financial technology (fintech), data and research providers to the capital markets and investment industry across the Americas, EMEA and APAC.

If you are a capital markets fintech professional either looking to hire or considering your next career opportunity, then please do reach out on LinkedIn or email shawn@excelsiorsearch.com. 

But I've found that some hiring managers underestimate the importance of having a strong LinkedIn profile to help attract and engage potential employees, in my opinion it is however an essential part of any fintech executives' personal branding to attract employees. Hiring is a two-way street and candidates need to 'buy into' the Executives they meet, so will look them up on LinkedIn, and again first impressions are formed. LinkedIn is a great way to showcase executive career success, knowledge and experience, whilst also providing an unprecedented level of transparency and creating a powerful impression as a professional leader in their industry, all of which adds to the personal brand of an executive.

So whether you are a hiring manager or job seeker here are 10 tips for how to optimise your fintech LinkedIn profile.

1. Have a visually appealing cover image.

Visual impressions are powerful and the first thing that catches the eye on a LinkedIn profile is the profile wide cover image at the top of a personal profile. So first and fore-most ensure you add an image, rather than leaving LinkedIn to show the standard grey default image in place. Keep your image simple, ensuring it's not too crowded or overly distracting, because you also need to ensure your profile (face) photo stands out clearly. Also consider that the cover image is resized and presented in different ways across different viewing platforms, so keeping it simple and without words will mean it looks good on all platforms. The current recommended cover image size is 1584 x 396 pixels, and for this image and others, if you need a free and easy to use image creator then check out Canva.

2. Use a good profile photo.

When selecting a profile photo of yourself, choose one that looks professional, friendly, and confident - the right photo can make a huge difference. An ideal photo will be a high resolution image, well-lit, in-focus and professional looking, with a candid smile that captures the attention of viewers. The current recommended profile photo image size is 400 x 400 pixels.

3. Have a headline that truly reflects your fintech personal brand.

Every word counts in your headline, since you only have a limited number of characters and many viewers will only get a brief glimpse of your profile here. Your headline is presented just under your name, keep it short but interesting and use keywords related to your role and industry. It’s a short but powerful personal brand statement.

4. Craft a compelling summary section.

At its core, the summary should concisely explain your professional fintech expertise, notable roles & projects, career achievements, awards and special skillsets that help set you apart from others. It's also a great opportunity to introduce a bit about the personal side to yourself, the non working human part, giving some insight into you as an individual and the things that are important to you in life, be that family, sports, interests or hobbies etc. 

5. Keep your employment experience section up to date and include accomplishments.

Make sure that your experience section is up to date, it includes a description of each role outlining your responsibilities and importantly includes accomplishments in each role you've held. Many people fail to highlight their accomplishments, but whether you are a job seeker or hiring executive, this is what will help set you apart from others in your field. Fintech employers want to hire and are attracted to achievers, and top performing employees are attracted to high performing executives, it works both ways.

6. Ask for recommendations.

Endorsements are an easy way to boost your credibility on LinkedIn, recommendations from past employers, employees, peers and clients will help to strengthen your profile further, providing a 'stamp of approval' from people who know you. Recommending each other can be a particularly powerful tactic for both manager and employee; as a hiring manager, by giving a recommendation you're seen as someone who cares about their employees and will give credit where it's due, whilst receiving a recommendation as a manager only further enhances your brand as a great leader who people want to work for. Recommendations not only serve to provide valuable information about yourself but add another visual element of professionalism.

7. Connect and follow.

Connect and follow companies and professionals in your industry, as well as fintech influencers who offer valuable insights and advice whilst extending your network reach given the large number of followers that influencers tend to have. This will help you remain up to date on industry news, trends and events, and the better your network reach the more of your activity will show up in the newsfeeds of others.

8. Use keywords strategically.

Include keywords (buzzwords and terminology) related to your fintech industry area, position and skills throughout the profile so that as a candidate, employers and recruiters can easily find your profile when searching. But equally, as a hiring manager you may find job seekers taking the initiative to find companies and executives in their area of fintech. Picking the right words can have a major impact on who sees your profile and increases the chances of being found.

9. Ensure skills accurately reflect you.

As a fintech leader ensure you have leadership and management skills listed, and as a job seeker ensure your experience skills required of jobs you're applying for are listed, but don't just think industry and technical keyword skills, ensure there is a good balance of soft skill mentions.

10. Be active.

To maximize the reach of your profile and ensure it is viewed as someone active in the fintech industry, it's important to actively engage in conversations and content related to your fintech industry area. This can include creating posts and commenting on other people's posts with thoughtful, relevant insights, or at a minimum liking posts. Just liking posts, if only a couple a week, will keep your profile looking fresh and active whilst facilitating meaningful industry connections.

Creating a high-quality LinkedIn profile is essential for any job seeker, hiring manager or executive looking to make an impact in the fintech industry and stand out from the crowd. For both employer and employee first impressions count, and a well-honed fintech LinkedIn profile clearly articulating a highly relevant and successful personal brand, can make a huge difference to both parties even before an interview has even taken place. It's a two-way hiring dynamic many don't appreciate the importance of!

P.S. I’m an advocate for the strong personal branding of fintech executives and how it impacts on their career success, and here are a couple more of my articles on the subject:

Executives; don’t under estimate the importance of personal branding for successful hiring.

Help, I’m an obsessive brand assessor and ambassador!

About the author: Shawn Rutter is the founder of Excelsior Search, a market leader in international executive search and recruitment solutions for financial technology (fintech), data and research providers to the capital markets and investment industry across the Americas, EMEA and APAC.

If you are a capital markets fintech professional either looking to hire great people, or find a role working for a successful and respected fintech executive, then please do reach out to Shawn on LinkedIn or email shawn@excelsiorsearch.com.

But being an effective fintech sales leader requires a certain combination of character traits that set great sales leaders apart from simply good ones. Knowing what makes for a great sales leader can make all the difference for any fintech company looking to reach its revenue goals. So, if you're a fintech executive looking to hire a top sales leader, an aspiring fintech sales leader looking to develop your sales leadership skills, or a fintech salesperson wanting to know what to look for in the next sales leader you work for, here are some of the key characteristics to look for:

Strategic Thinking: Strategic thinking is essential for a sales leader as they need to understand and implement the company’s sales strategies while being able to identify potential opportunities to increase their reach. A truly successful sales leader will have an eagle-eyed view of the market and a sound set of tactics that can take full advantage of these opportunities in order to meet or exceed the desired revenue goals. Knowing how and when to pivot strategies within those tactics to in order to maximize those successes, displays true genius in sales leadership.

People Skills: Effective fintech sales leadership requires an intimate understanding of both customer needs, as well as a deep appreciation of the capabilities of one's sales team. Superior people skills plays a key role accurately assessing customer needs whilst nurturing their salespeople through the entire sales processes. To do this effectively, a strong sense of communication is essential; sales leaders they must be able to speak persuasively to their team and customers alike, while inspiring motivation and enthusiasm among all individuals that are involved. A great leader is able to catalyze success by providing clear direction and maintaining an optimistic attitude.

Technical & Business Knowledge: Both technical and financial domain knowledge is an essential part of any great fintech sales leader; not only must they understand the technology and nuances of the financial domain their team is selling into, but they must also be aware and keep up to date with industry trends and developments to ensure they can stay ahead of the competition. With a comprehensive understanding of the product, industry trends and competition, a great fintech sales leader has a strong advantage of delivering better results for their business.

Adaptability: As fintech and the financial sector are incredibly complex, demanding and fast-paced, adaptability is essential for sales leaders to reach their goals. Being able to rapidly adjust their sales plans and strategies to handle ever-changing market conditions is what separates great fintech sales leaders from average ones. Furthermore, being proactive in anticipating possible changes can give fintech’s that competitive advantage they need to succeed.

Passion for Selling: A fintech sales leader with a passion for selling sets the bar for the rest of the sales team. They demonstrate the energy and commitment necessary to promote fintech products and services, inspiring their salespeople to go above and beyond what is expected from them. Not only will a fintech sales leader with a noticeable passion for selling be better prepared to hit their own personal targets, but their contagious enthusiasm can drive the entire team to reach bigger successes together. A fintech leader with a contagious passion for sales has the potential to set a new standard for what it means to be a high performing salesperson.

Fintech sales leaders are the backbone of any fintech success story, and their contributions cannot be overstated. Top performing fintech salespeople recognize the importance of having a successful leader with the right personal qualities at the helm guiding them forward, enabling them to realize goals that are achievable yet challenging in the highly competitive finance industry. Look for the traits of strategic thinking, people skills, technical and business knowledge, adaptability, and passion for selling and one can start distinguishing between just good and great fintech sales leaders!

About the author: Shawn Rutter is the founder of Excelsior Search, a market leader in international executive search and recruitment solutions for financial technology (fintech), data and research providers to the capital markets and investment industry across the Americas, EMEA and APAC.

If you are either a fintech executive looking to hire a great sales leader, a sales leader looking to strengthen your sales team with top performing salespeople, or a sales professional open to considering your next sales career opportunity working for a great sales leader, then please do reach out to Shawn on LinkedIn or email shawn@excelsiorsearch.com.

 Here’s a webinar you may find useful providing some inside tips on how to successfully engage with executive recruiters.

This is a recording of a webinar given by Shawn Rutter on 19th January 2021, hosted by Gated Talent.

You might well expect to see some of the best resumes from sales people – after all, they are at the forefront of representing their companies’ products and services daily, conducting presentations and producing proposals, and ultimately a resume is just another brochure – one that focuses on oneself (call it ‘Me Inc.’ if you like).  It's a proposal outlining experiences and successes, something that aims to become an ‘irresistible offer’ to potential employers who can’t wait to meet and sell you on their company.  Consequently, it should be the best piece of content-come-proposal ever written by a sales person.  It should be of an appropriate length, be pleasant to look at, not contain grammatical or spelling mistakes, and clearly articulate the nature of sales roles held.  But most importantly, it needs to provide concrete evidence of how successful that sales person has been – after all, that’s what a potential employer will be buying into. 

 Why does a killer resume matter?

Some people might be tempted to say ‘so what? Why does it matter when I can just explain my experience in person?’  Well, that opportunity all hinges on you getting that meeting with your company of choice in the first place.  If it’s a company you’re particularly interested in, you just don’t want to take that chance simply because a piece of paper encouraged that company to meet someone else over you.  Your resume is a first impression and a representation of how you might sell for them.  So if a sales person is finding it hard to sell themselves, by producing a ‘sub-standard’ proposal in the form of a resume, it doesn’t bode well for the way you might represent that potential employer.  (The same principle applies for how you might conduct interviews – whether you’re an active or passive candidate – but that’s a topic for discussion another time).

Of course, as a sales person you need to have the proven sales track record to secure the best sales roles out there.  But having a killer resume will at least:

• Demonstrate your sales professionalism and ability to clearly present a value proposition (in this case yourself).

• Make you stand out as a ‘must-see’ sales professional, thus increasing the level of interest from companies wanting to meet you, and putting you in the driving seat about where to invest your time in order to qualify opportunities.

• Ultimately increase your market value, allowing you to win your job of choice at the best possible rate. 

Tips for resume structure and content

So besides taking care of how your resume looks and is structured, and making sure it’s free of spelling and grammatical errors, what are the top inside tips I can give to ensure you have a killer sales resume – one that means no company will think twice about wanting to meet you?

Well, to start with, don’t just write a company name, job title, and one of those ‘standard lists of sales responsibilities’.  There’s really no point in listing things that every sales person does on a continual basis, and here are a few such example lines used to pad out a sales resumes (and these are lines taken straight from a real-life resume):

• Planning and executing sales campaigns

• Establishing, qualifying and enhancing prospective relationships through targeted campaigns, partner relationship building and lead generation.

• Scheduled daily meetings with senior executives at prospective firms to represent XYZ.

• Presenting the applicability of XYZ’s solutions to personnel at prospective companies.

• Travel to and from prospective client sites and attending industry conferences.

• Developing tailored proposals and commercial negotiation.

• Daily interaction with Salesforce for pipeline management and deal closure.

So what?  Every sales person does these things – they go with the job, so they’re hardly going to make you stand out.  The most effective way to present yourself (after summarising the company name, job title and dates), is to structure as follows (with specific examples bullet pointed):

Doing WHAT (the nature of the role)

➢     New business sales role tasked with new client acquisition. 

Selling WHAT (nature of solutions you have been selling)

➢    Selling portfolio analytics software solutions for equity and fixed income portfolios.

Selling to WHO (nature of clients you have been selling to, and where)

➢     To portfolio managers within institutional asset managers and hedge funds in Germany and Switzerland.

ACHIEVEMENTS (quantifiable sales performance / achievements).

➢    Met or exceeded target in four of the past five years.

➢    Achieved 144% of target in 2018, delivering $720k against a $500k target, top sales person in the company out of a global team of eight.

➢    Opened the Swiss market by securing the company’s first two clients in Switzerland.

The above six example sentences (in doing what, selling what, selling to who, achievements) are clearly much more informative and powerful than the standard sales responsibilities listed beforehand; in a succinct way they clarify exactly the nature of the sales role, all underlined with a select list of quantifiable achievements (mixed in with an honest bit of humbleness in admitting that target wasn’t hit one year).

It is perhaps in the achievements area that many sales people fail to include sufficient detail; sometimes they even fail to include it at all on their resume.  But it's worth noting that, whether you have a sparkling track record or not, this is very often the resume differentiator.  Even a mediocre sales person who presents some quantifiable successes in the right way can find they have a resume that outshines top sales performers who fail to highlight their successes appropriately.  How would you feel if you learnt that someone else on your sales team – someone that you’ve beaten every year against target – has secured a role with a company you had wanted to meet, simply because they had a better resume than you?  OK, sales performance details can indeed be discussed in interviews, but the key point is that you need to secure that meeting first.  In addition, I’ve often found that sales people that don’t make the effort to detail their sales achievements in their resume either don’t have successes to talk about, or are poorly prepared to discuss them in interview.  Once again, this reflects badly on their ability to sell a proposition (in this case themselves).

The sales dataset you should be continually building throughout your career

The first step to being able to being able to craft a resume with good quantifiable detail is having this detail to hand in the first place.  That's why I advise anyone I meet who's starting out their fintech sales career that it’s so important to record everything year by year, so the information is ready for when you need it in the future.  I remember once speaking to a sales person from S&P – she was looking to move on, having been there for seven years and then taken a year out, but she had none of her sales performance data.   That makes life more difficult – ultimately this data shows a sales person’s value, and without specifics potential employers can become nervous.  Having clear quantifiable detail of sales achievements is as important as a marketing person taking along their content portfolio as examples of their work.

So what detail would I recommend you maintain your own personal record of?

Record the following sales target details:

• Period

• $ target

• $ achieved

• % achieved against target

• Team size

• Position in the team against target (i.e. stating third out of a team of 40 is certainly a more powerful statement than saying than third out of three)

• Notes (i.e. any mitigating factors for performance or notable successes)

 Record the following for each deal closed:

• Name of client

• Financial institution type and business area / division

• City

• What product / service was sold to them

• $ deal size

• Length of sales cycle

• Notes (i.e. anything noteworthy about a deal – perhaps it was the first deal in a country or first sale of a new product, or perhaps you received company congratulatory messages from senior executives that you have retained copies of). 

 Record the following about your remuneration:

• On Target Earnings (OTE) for hitting target

• Actual amount earned in commissions / bonuses.  If you’re over-achieving and earning beyond OTE, there’s nothing more powerful than being able to demonstrate this in showing real figures as evidence (you might even consider having W2s or P60s on hand). 

Build up the above detail throughout your sales career and you’ll be amazed at the return it will give you.  Of course most sales people have both good and bad years, but periodically amassing this dataset allows you dive into it with ease.  You can decide what information to present in your resume, and you’ll have the rest of the data points ready for interviews.  If you are a top sales performer and have the quantifiable detail to demonstrate this, be proud to present this information in your resume.  And if you’re an average (or even below average) sales performer, you’ll still be amazed at how quantifiable detail can make your resume stand out against those of your rivals, many of which tend to be too qualitative.

As a fintech sales professional, your track record is evidence and social proof that you can in fact do what you say.  Ultimately, that’s what an employer needs to know in order for them to feel satisfied they are engaging with a top sales performer.  Build your sales career profile with a demonstrable track record and clearly articulate this in your resume, and it will:

• Open doors to the companies you are most interested in meeting, with the best market position and sellable products.

• Have sales leaders at these companies ready to sell their opportunities to you, which means more choice for you.

• Strengthen your hand when it comes to offer negotiations.

If you are a fintech sales professional with a great sales track record (in either an individual contributor or sales leader role within the securities fintech industry) who’s looking to accelerate your sales career by being connected to some of the best fintech companies around the world, then feel free to contact us for a confidential career discussion.  And if you’re a sales leader at securities technology, data or research provider looking to hire top sales performers, then we should also be talking – click here to book a short hiring strategy call with me.

About the author: Shawn Rutter is the founder of Excelsior Search, a market-leading, niche search company specialising in international executive search and recruitment solutions for financial technology (fintech), data and research providers to the global capital markets and investment industry.  With experience delivering search assignments across the Americas, EMEA and APAC, he founded Excelsior Search in 1999, having previously worked as an Army Officer and for the international search firm MRI. Shawn invites you to connect on LinkedIn.

As with any important task or project, from building a new product to executing sales, it’s essential to have a well thought out plan – a blueprint detailing what one wants the end result to look like, and how to get there.  Defining a role for a new hire is no different, and the result we all know is the job description.  But what’s the best way to develop the job description into a compelling document that both encapsulates what you’re looking for, and appeals to the top-performing candidates you want to attract?  Here are seven strategies to consider: 

The hiring manager takes the lead in drafting

As a hiring manager, don’t take the easiest option and have human resources (if you have such a department) send you a standard job description for the role you’re looking to fill, with a typical list of duties and responsibilities to ‘sign off’.  Of course, human resources can help you develop it, but given that your own personal success depends on getting the hire right, you should really take the lead yourself in developing the job description.  Ultimately, you’re the one that knows what you’re looking for and how to ‘sell’ the role better than anyone else, so it stands to reason that you’re best placed to develop the job description.  Don’t just sit back and allow others to make general assumptions about what you need.

Start by creating a vision for the role 

Defining any solution starts with a thorough needs analysis, so invest time in this initially.  Don’t start by listing role responsibilities, start by outlining what you want this person to deliver (or accomplish), how the role benefits the overall company objectives, and visualising what success in the role would look like in a year from now.  Besides helping you to draft an accurate job description, articulating your vision for the role is incredibly powerful in the eyes of candidates.  Ultimately, besides seeking the right experience for the role, you’re also looking to hire someone who buys into your vision of the role and what they need to deliver in it, so it’s best to make it clear from the very beginning.

Don’t rush

Take your time to craft a detailed and compelling job description.  This is important because:

·       It clarifies your thoughts on what exactly the deliverables and role responsibilities are, alongside the nature of skills, experience and prior successes you would like to see from your candidates.  It’s a business analysis task from which you’ll arrive at a solution. 

·       It provides an opportunity for collective buy-in on the role, allowing all stakeholders that will work with the future role incumbent to have input in reviewing and developing the role (to a certain extent, of course).  This will also prove invaluable as you move onto the interview process, as it should mean that everyone will be ‘singing from the same song sheet’.   

·       For candidates who are sourcing opportunities and interviewing, a well thought out and comprehensive job description elevates your professionalism and employer brand.  Candidates will respect the time and thought that has gone into it, and a compelling job description provides so much more insight into a company.  This document is your first opportunity to start selling your company and the role, so make the most of it.

·       The candidate accepts the role knowing exactly what is expected of him or her on joining – there are no false pretences from either party, which lowers your risk of a mis-hire.

Craft a compelling story

Take your vision for the role and clearly articulate it, in particular focusing on how the role fits into the company objectives and what you want this person to accomplish.  Paint the picture of how you see the role being executed and what success will look like, so the reader can visualise and buy into your vision for the role.  This is so much more powerful than starting with a list of the role responsibilities (although it is also important to articulate the tasks the person will perform in the role, given that some tasks may not have quantifiable success measures).  In addition, despite the same or similar titles, the nature of a role can certainly vary from company to company, or even within a company.  Look at this section as a list of the end results you want to see and associated functional requirements.  It should be a full definition of the end solution you’re seeking, in the same way you might need to uncover the solution needed from one of your clients through business analysis.   

Don’t list candidate requirements

A ‘standard’ job description normally has a list of candidate skills and experience requirements, but I challenge you to consider whether this is necessary if you have already spent time defining the solution you’re seeking.  You should be assessing candidates against the detail of role deliverables and functional tasks you’ve identified; this is true competency-based assessment.  Focus on what you need this person to do and achieve in the role, seek a solution and assess against that.  In taking on a project from one of your clients – for example, a custom software development project – you wouldn’t expect your client to provide full details of how you would build the solution.  You would take details of what they were looking for, noting any particular functionality it needed, and as the solution provider you would use your design and engineering expertise to meet those needs in the best way possible.  You should look at hiring in much the same way, letting your recruiter (either your company talent acquisition team or an external recruitment firm) provide the solution that meets your needs without any experience profile preconceptions.

Help potential candidates self-actualise

Hiring is as much about selling as it is selecting, and the selling starts with the job description – particularly if you want to compete for the best candidates, the A Players who will make a difference to your business .  Crafting a compelling story is one part of this, but you also need to think about how you can appeal to the A Players in other ways.  One common trait top performers have is a strong sense of self-actualisation – this is the tip at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the need for people to feel that they will fulfil their highest potential.  So in addition to developing your compelling story about your company and the role, ensure that you also develop ideas of where this role could lead in future, or how as an employer and manager you will become invested in this person’s self-development to help them achieve their maximum potential in this role and beyond.  

Treat it as importantly as a piece of company content for marketing

Finally, ensure you treat the job description as you would when publishing any piece of company content for marketing purposes, to show off your employer brand and sell your opportunity to candidates.  So, with this in mind, consider the following two final touches:

·       Have your marketing communications department review it, to ensure the document is in line with your company messaging and branding, and allow creative touches to it. 

·       Consider adding ‘social proof’ of the company’s market position and employer pedigree – perhaps include headline details of industry awards received, employee testimonials or key facts and statements from your Employer Value Proposition (EVP).

If you’re a financial technology, data or research provider looking to develop compelling job descriptions that will give you a distinct competitive advantage in attracting top talent, then book a consultation call with me.  Developing killer job descriptions that sell is just another example of the free value added services my firm provides to our clients.

About the author: Shawn Rutter is the founder of Excelsior Search, a market-leading, niche search company specialising in international executive search and recruitment solutions for financial technology (fintech), data and research providers to the global capital markets and investment industry.  With experience delivering search assignments across the Americas, EMEA and APAC, he founded Excelsior Search in 1999, having previously worked as an Army Officer and for the international search firm MRI. Shawn invites you to connect on LinkedIn.

As a company advances through these stages different hiring requirements will naturally arise, defined not just by role type but also by the individual skill-sets required in each role. Hiring the right person at the right time can lead to great success – and conversely the opposite is true, particularly during the early stages of company growth, when every individual has a dramatic impact on a company’s bottom line. In addition, each stage of growth has its own business challenges, so you may find that different skills and experience are required in the same role as time progresses.

So, for each new hire being considered, ask yourself these questions:

• Is the role really needed?

• What would be the deliverables and performance measures for the role? Visualise what you would see as success in this particular role.

• What positive impact on the business will the role bring, and what value will it add? If possible, aim to quantify this.

• What would be the consequences of not hiring for the role, or the pain the business would experience by not filling the role? Again, aim to quantify this if you can.

• Where does this role fit in terms of business priorities for all anticipated hires over the next year, taking into account the company a whole?

• What are the timing considerations for getting someone started in the role?

• Is there consensus across the board and/or senior management team for the hire?

These questions might seem elementary, but they help to develop an objective assessment of your needs – this can then form the foundation for the hiring process. On the other hand, it might bring about the realisation that the hire isn’t needed after all, or it’s a lower priority than other roles. Many companies either enter a hiring process before they’re fully committed, or change their mind about hiring once processes have started. This just wastes value management time and resources, and can send a negative message to the market.

If not filling a role has no consequence for a business – either by way of adding value or taking away pain – then why even bother to hire at all? You may well be better off saving the capital to invest elsewhere in your business, or keeping it in reserve to meet new business priorities and requirements as they arise.

Having gone through this thought process, a company that decides to go ahead and hire will have:

• Consensus and commitment to a hire from all role stakeholders in the business, laying the foundation for a coherent selection process.

• A clear idea of the core value (deliverables) of a role, which is an essential component of defining the role and the person required to fill it.

• An appreciation for the importance and urgency (timing) of the hire, which may have an impact on candidate sourcing methods.

Another idea to consider involves shaping your hiring plans to improve efficiency and cost-effectiveness. To approach this, share your plans with your fintech recruiter, discuss how you anticipate your organisation developing over the next 12+ months, talk through the nature of the roles you anticipate hiring, and ask your recruiter for their input. Experienced fintech recruiters will have seen all manner of organisation charts, how they’re structured with roles as they grow, the nature of the skill-sets required, the talent available to you in the market, and nitty-gritty details such as salaries. All this is extremely valuable intelligence that can help you develop your business plan to ensure that you’re well positioned to get the right talent, in the right place, at the right time.

If you’re at a financial technology, data or research provider that that’s reviewing its hiring plans, you’re welcome to book a free 30-minute talent strategy phone consultation with me. There’s no sales pitch to use our services, just an industry networking opportunity and some free input from an expert recruiter with 20 years’ experience helping firms like yours grow. We’ll explore your talent acquisition and management plans, and I can share ideas and market feedback with you based on my hiring expertise in your niche market.

About the author: Shawn Rutter is the founder of Excelsior Search, a market-leading, niche search company specialising in international executive search and recruitment solutions for financial technology (fintech), data and research providers to the global capital markets and investment industry.  With experience delivering search assignments across the Americas, EMEA and APAC, he founded Excelsior Search in 1999, having previously worked as an Army Officer and for the international search firm MRI. Shawn invites you to connect on LinkedIn.

Given that the unemployment rate is at a 50-year low, there are more job choices than ever out there for both active and passive job seekers, and – as the statistics show – that results in a challenging environment for staff retention.  Companies are having to work harder than ever to keep staff on board.  So, if you haven’t done so already, now’s the time to review your talent management plans, particularly those aimed at retention of your best employees.  A study by Leadership IQ shows that 46% of newly hired employees will fail within 18 months, and only 19% will achieve unequivocal success.  So it stands to reason that prevention (of your best people leaving) is certainly better than cure (the recruitment and onboarding process) when it comes to hiring.

 Here are four talent retention strategies to help you retain your best employees:

Understand employee motives 

Use formal meetings like regular performance reviews and informal discussions as opportunities to really understand your employees’ motives.  Ask probing questions like:

• What they like about the company and their role at the moment, any aspects they might change, any internal frustrations they’ve experienced etc.  This makes you aware of any negative ‘push’ factors that could prompt a decision to move – you can then aim to eliminate those, while reinforcing the good things.

• What they want to achieve in their current role with your company, and where they want to be a few years from now, whether they are still at your company or not.  Try to understand what each of your team is self-actualising for in their career.

• Whether there have been any changes in their personal circumstances that have impacted on their work-related priorities.  For example, if someone became a parent recently, is there anything you could do to adapt their role in relation to their new lifestyle?

 Besides building the bond of a manager that truly cares about their wellbeing and career, you’re also gathering information to help the employee achieve what they want in order to be happy within your company (whether that’s in their current role, or moving to a different role or department).  This line of questioning can seem counterintuitive, as managers worry about the answers they might hear, but it’s important not be selfish about your department or the role in this way.  Instead, think about the wider interests of your company and your employee, and be prepared to plan and manage change – it’s much better than being forced to react to change if that employee suddenly leaves.  

Pay someone more than market rate

Here’s another tactic some companies employ to retain their best staff, the A players making the biggest difference to the business: pay them a salary well above market rate, or at least much larger than normal bonuses.  Besides making the employee feel valued for their above-average contribution, this approach can have inherent retention value – put bluntly, it makes it harder for such candidates to find another company that will pay them the same or better.  As they are unknown and unproven to new potential employers, these candidates can be perceived as too expensive to even look at.  This is the case with the larger companies in particular, where candidates need to fit into budgets as benchmarked by HR – such companies might not even interview ‘expensive’ candidates, irrespective of the intrinsic value someone might have as a top performer. We’ve seen this tactic work well in practice – the top performer stays at their current company longer because they’re happy and ‘hitting the ball out of the park’ for their current company, so they will only move for the right opportunity.  But such opportunities become limited because of how much they are being paid.

Provide internal mobility

People with the longest fintech company tenures tend to have one thing in common: they’ve usually performed different roles, giving them fresh new challenges every few years (whether that’s a promotion or a sideways move).  Not every company can provide this, but take every opportunity to explore the idea as part of your wider company talent management strategy.  Take, for instance, a new business sales person –  they might be your top performer, but if they feel they want a change you shouldn’t try to keep them in the role just because it’s the safest way of meeting your team sales targets (there’s a good chance that he or she could leave anyway!). The right role to move to will of course depend on the individual’s motives, but perhaps there is a business development strategy role the person could perform, a new market they could target, or an account management role they could move to.  They key point is that by making the effort to understand the inner motives of your employees, you might be able to proactively offer them a new opportunity.  Having them stay at the company saves you the risks of having to go external to hire for that opportunity, and leaves just one role needing back filling.

Ask your recruiter for talent retention ideas

It might sound counterintuitive, but great recruiters would prefer to see their clients retain their best talent, rather than lose their top performers.  You see, a company that has an employee turnover rate that's higher than the industry average can easily find their reputation turns negative, which in turn can make it hard for them to attract top talent.  The best industry recruiters love to stake their reputation on placing the best candidates at the best companies.  So why not bring in your recruiter to ask their opinion on specific roles and profiles, and what best practices they’re seeing in the market?  This is just one of the free value added services  I provide for my clients.

If you’re at a financial technology, data or research firm that cares about retaining its best staff, and you would like to discuss these talent retention strategies (and hear a couple more that I’ll share with you), you’re welcome to book a free 30-minute talent strategy phone consultation with me.

About the author: Shawn Rutter is the founder of Excelsior Search, a market-leading, niche search company specialising in international executive search and recruitment solutions for financial technology (fintech), data and research providers to the global capital markets and investment industry.  With experience delivering search assignments across the Americas, EMEA and APAC, he founded Excelsior Search in 1999, having previously worked as an Army Officer and for the international search firm MRI. Shawn invites you to connect on LinkedIn.

Foremost, as a businessman I recognise that personal branding is key to my own business success, helping me to successfully engage with the companies and candidates that my team and I meet and speak with every day.  My studies on the subject have helped me to understand the benefits of branding for my company, and personal branding for myself and my consultants.  But it’s about more than that: branding is actually a core component of everything I do every day while conducting searches.  Perhaps you may not have considered this about us recruiters, but:

I’m an OBSESSIVE BRAND ASSESSOR;

• Assessing the brand of companies, considering how attractive they are to recruit for, and articulating their unique value to the candidates I’m engaging with on their behalf.

• Assessing the personal brand of candidates as part of my selection processes. 

• Assessing the personal brand of executives, the hiring managers whom candidates will need to ‘buy into’. 

With all three parties, I’m continually assessing, focusing on what they stand for, their points of differentiation, their relevance to each other, and their reputations.  This helps me to decide whether I want to do business with them, and work out whether other people will buy into their brands. 

This leads me to the other part of my role – I’m also an OBSESSIVE BRAND AMBASSADOR;

• Representing and selling these company brands to candidates.

• For candidates, helping them represent themselves to companies by ensuring they position their personal brand in the right way for what a company is looking for.

• Acting as an ambassador for executives, the hiring managers, as I go to market to attract great candidates for their opportunities.

Interesting, eh?  As you can see, as a headhunter I’ve got that natural mindset that continually assesses and sells the brands of both companies and people – it’s an integral part of everything I do in order to achieve my search success. 

But what specifically does one need to look at when understanding the brands of companies and people?  Well, if we look at how consumer brands are measured and monitored, we can simply apply the same principles to both company and personal branding.  Young & Rubicam’s Brand Asset Valuator (BAV) is the world's largest and leading empirical study of consumer brands, measuring brand strength within four consumer perception dimensions.  Its four key aspects are:

DIFFERENTIATION: What makes a brand stand out as different, and its ability to capture attention.

RELEVANCE: How buyers feel the brand meets their needs, and how appropriate and meaningful it is.

ESTEEM: A measure of how highly regarded a brand is, and how well it delivers on its promises.

KNOWLEDGE: The depth of understanding people have of a brand, and how much buyers know about it (both good and bad).

Whether you’re a company, a candidate or a hiring manager, reflect on these four perception dimensions for a moment and consider how well you meet these criteria when it comes to hiring or job searching.  Even more importantly, assess how well you articulate your brand based on these four perception dimensions.  That’s the key point here.

If you’re a fintech company or executive looking to develop your brand as part of your Employer Value Proposition (EVP) in order to give yourself a distinct competitive advantage in securing top fintech talent, then book a free consultation call with me.  It’s just part of the range of free value added services my firm provides.

About the author: Shawn Rutter is the founder of Excelsior Search, a market-leading, niche search company specialising in international executive search and recruitment solutions for financial technology (fintech), data and research providers to the global capital markets and investment industry.  With experience delivering search assignments across the Americas, EMEA and APAC, he founded Excelsior Search in 1999, having previously worked as an Army Officer and for the international search firm MRI. Shawn invites you to connect on LinkedIn.

The CEO did initially reply: “I’ve already got Korn Ferry working on that. No offence Donna but they’re the best headhunters in the world, what can you do that they can’t?” 

Nice plug for Korn Ferry, and forward wind, Donna goes back with 4 candidates and the dialogue continues:

Donna: “These are the top 3 candidates in the city. You are not gonna find a more qualified lawyer anywhere. But you should hire this one.”

CEO: “I’m sorry, but you want me to pass on these superheroes for a guy who graduated middle of his class from SUNY buffalo? Did you check to see whether my nana’s available?”

Donna: “Thomas, he didn’t go to Harvard and he graduated the middle of his class for the same reason. He was working full time to put himself through school, and if you give him a shot he will go to the end of the earth for you. And on top of that you’re going to love him, he’s just like you.”

Ok I know this is a TV drama, but based on my executive search experience some very real messages resonated with me that are worth highlighting.

The best qualified candidate on paper, is not always the best person for the role.

Of the points I’ll make, this is the most important one.  Donna demonstrated she truly understood her candidates and she knew “what good looks like” in a candidate for the role, but given her deep legal sector experience, network and knowledge of the candidates she was confident to highlight the paper underdog. She understood he was more than capable of doing the role, but even more than that, she had identified someone with immense talent, whom needed “a break”, and given that his motivations would drive him to go to the end of the earth for the company. This is so true to life, it’s important that your search partner looks beyond every CV, to understand the person and their motivations behind what’s on paper, in order to identify the best talent. In addition, Donna showed an appreciation for the chemistry need between the hiring manager and candidate, but as any Suits fans know, it would be hard for anyone to beat Donna’s intuition!

Big name companies are not necessarily the best, and many companies can do what they can do, sometimes better.  

As in any industry there are always bigger well-known company brands, and smaller lesser known brands, but big certainly doesn’t necessarily mean best, and Donna wasn’t phased by the big brand name already on the case. When you combine deep niche market expertise with best practise executive search process, it’s an extremely powerful combination. Executive search is a professional service, and a service which is so human driven that it’s only as good as the people executing it. Like many other niche search firm owners out there, I know that my team and I have what it takes to produce the strongest possible short lists, much quicker and cost effectively than many of the bigger blue chip search firms.

Niche industry experience is king.

Donna is not a headhunter, but rather ex secretary at a law firm whom is now COO, but she has a career of being ingrained and well networked in the NYC legal scene. I’ve been headhunting globally for technology, data and research providers to the capital markets and investment industry for over 20 years, building a deep understanding of the companies, business drivers and talent pool within this niche market that would rival any other international executive search professional. I still remember the first time I won a mandate from a private equity company for one of their portfolio companies after a search firm selection process. When I asked what swayed their decision in our favour, they said it was because we showed a much deeper understanding of the particular investment technology market sector and its talent pool, leading to a very clear plan on how we would execute. 

The CEO in Suits thought he had hired the best Executive Search firm in the world, but ultimately he was shown that there are alternatives, and nothing can be closer to the truth in the real world. 

So next time you’re looking to engage an executive search firm, don’t just think of the big blue chip names, there are many niche search firms out there that are equally, or dare I say, even more capable for your business, delivering the strongest possible short lists, quickly and cost effectively.

Contact us to learn how how our FinTech Executive Search expertise can help you.

About the author. Shawn Rutter is the Founder of Excelsior Search, a market-leading, niche search company, specializing in international executive search and recruitment solutions for financial technology (fintech), data, and research providers to the global capital markets and investment industry. With experience delivering search assignments across the Americas, EMEA and APAC, he founded Excelsior in 1999, having previously worked as an Army Officer and for the international search firm MRI.  Shawn invites you to connect on LinkedIn. 

With 46% of all hires being mis-hires,  and considering the importance of hiring A Players, the success of both your company and your executive career depends on finding the best people for your team.  And that all starts with sourcing the best possible talent to interview. 

But when did you last ask your human resources or talent acquisition team where they are sourcing candidates from, or ask your recruiters to explain their processes that result in the candidates whose details land on your desk?    

You see, in order to give yourself the best chance of hiring A Players, you need to be sure that your candidate sources aren’t limited to just the active 30% part. Even that 30% plus a little bit extra is not enough; you need to be covering 100% of the market.

Chances are that your company sources candidates using a selection of standard methods: putting job adverts on boards like Indeed and LinkedIn, placing social media notices, asking employees to refer anyone they know that’s looking for a new job, and using contingency recruiters.  Guess what?  That’s exactly the same as everyone else is doing.  Stick to this approach and you’re certainly decreasing your chances of seeing and engaging with the A Players that are not actively looking, but still waiting to hear from you.

Yes, of course there can be some great candidates out there that are actively looking, but it’s certainly not a given.  If you look at your own team now, generally speaking, which individuals would you say are more likely to be actively looking for new jobs at any one time?  Your A Players – your top performers who are happy, motivated and kicking ass against target (and who you’re working hard to retain with financial and non-financial incentives?)  Or your B and C Players – the people who are less motivated and not performing as well against target (some of whom you even hope might see the light and move on of their own accord)?

Once you acknowledge the need to target 100% of the market, the next step is to ensure you’re using the right candidate sourcing method.  The most effective proven methodology for this is search (also known as headhunting).

Before I became a headhunter I was in the military, so excuse the metaphors I’m about to use, but I think they help visualise my point.  Think of a professional headhunter as a sniper, an elite well-trained and experienced marksman with the best available long-range rifle.  In contrast, all other methods of recruitment are armed only with a short-range submachine gun.   

Done properly, search is an art in itself.  You’ll often hear contingency recruiters say: “Oh yeah, we do search and will approach everyone in your sector”, but in reality that’s far from the truth for most.  What they really do is send out 20 or 50 poorly worded emails, then maybe follow through with cold calls on a volume basis to “see what sticks”.  This would be like the ‘spray and pray’ method: firing a submachine gun into to bushes half a mile away and hoping if there’s someone in the bushes they might get a hit.  Compare that to taking a sniper’s calculated, focused approach that aims to guarantee hits. 

A highly proficient headhunter shares many traits with the sniper:

• He has an extensive set of tools in his armoury and the range to reach a much wider variety of targets than other foot soldiers.

• He has carefully identified his targets, based on extensive recon, sector knowledge and experience. 

• He understands his targets, and their backgrounds, value and locations.

• He is well prepared for the engagement, and knows exactly how to engage with his targets.

• He takes his time, favouring quality engagements over quantity of shots and mis-fires.

• When he confidently engages he will be determined to ensure it’s a successful shot.

Your success as a leader – which will in turn provide you with the career prospects, financial future and personal wellbeing you desire – is dependent upon building and leading a team of A Players.   But when it comes to hiring, are you sure you’re getting to see the best candidates the whole market can offer you, or are you limiting your options to just the active 30%? 

Contact us to discuss how our proactive search processes result in covering 100% of the candidate market in order to deliver you A Players.

About the author. Shawn Rutter is the Founder of Excelsior Search, a market-leading, niche search company, specializing in international executive search and recruitment solutions for financial technology (fintech), data, and research providers to the global capital markets and investment industry. With experience delivering search assignments across the Americas, EMEA and APAC, he founded Excelsior in 1999, having previously worked as an Army Officer and for the international search firm MRI.  Shawn invites you to connect on LinkedIn.

Personal branding is an integral part of every Executive to be enhanced on a continual basis and I’m extremely passionate about how important it is for executives to get this right, and how impactful getting it right or wrong is on an executives’ career.  Done well it leads to success in your current company, which adds even more value to your reputation, which you amplify through your personal branding.

As every executive knows, your value is only as good as what you’ve achieved in business as a leader, and ultimately that comes down to your workforce.  No amount of cash, or no matter how great a product or service is, will make a business successful without the right workforce to sell, deliver and service it.  If your staff are great at what they do, you will be a successful leader, which in turn gives you the performance metrics as an executive you can keep with you for your career, and adds to your personal brand.  If your personal brand is developed as being successful in business and as a great hiring manager, people will want to work for you, that is probably one of the most powerful personal branding tactics as an executive you can develop.

The leading public relations firm Weber Shandwick with KRC Research conducted a survey of more than 1700 senior executives across 19 countries, and 77 percent of respondents said a strong CEO reputation attracts employees.  Ultimately, it’s executive personal branding that will firmly establish CEO reputation, and it’s certainly not reserved just for CEOs, same goes for executives at all levels, across any organisation.  Fact is that executives with strong personal branding gives them great reputations, which provides them with a distinct advantage in attracting top talent over their competitors. 

Every executive tells me they only hire the best talent out there, always the top 10% of talent, the A Players according to TopGrading, and it makes me smile wondering where the other 90% of the workforce is.  But it is so true that by creating a team of A Players, and your business is more likely to succeed; keep a lot of B and C Players on board and you’re more likely to fail. It’s as simple as that.

Personal branding enhances reputation which is everything when it comes to attracting top talent, and done right it will make it easier for you to do one of your most important executive tasks, hiring, in particular attracting A players.   Attracting A Players makes executives so much more successful, and their lives so much easier compared to the headache of mis-hires, because:

• A players are the performers who will be achieving their targets, which in turn are your targets and successes.  These are your accomplishments that add to your personal brand.

• A players will attract other A players, whereas B players will attract B or C players.  It’s what is known as the halo effect.

But this will only work if your company is seen to have A Player Executives as well, and so if you are an A Player Executive, you need to ensure your reputation is articulated through personal branding.

Take this example of a candidate I recently spoke with.  He’s a top performing senior sales professional and got his sights set on senior management in the future, and the most important thing he is looking for in a move at the next stage of his career is a mentor, a proven C suite sales leader with a great leadership track record, someone he can look up to and learn from, because he knows it will set him up for sales leadership in the future.  This is where personal branding of his next hiring manager comes in, because to engage this candidates’ interest to interview in the first place, and then through the interview process the candidate is going to need to see the quality and value of that executive as an A Player – truly buying into his next managers executive brand. 

As you can see, personal branding is critical to developing a great executive reputation which in turn will help you hire top performers, the A Players, who will provide you with the business success you desire.  This success further enhances your reputation which you amplify through your personal branding to leverage both in your current company, and when the time comes in your resume for seeking that next top executive role.  Get your personal branding right to enhance your reputation and it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy to enhance your executive career!

If you're a securities fintech, data or research provider looking to attract A Players, and want to work in partnership with a search firm that will articulate your executive reputation to the market in order to attract the best talent, then contact us to discuss.

About the author. Shawn Rutter is the Founder of Excelsior Search, a market-leading, niche search company, specializing in international executive search and recruitment solutions for financial technology (fintech), data, and research providers to the global capital markets and investment industry. With experience delivering search assignments across the Americas, EMEA and APAC, he founded Excelsior in 1999, having previously worked as an Army Officer and for the international search firm MRI.  Shawn invites you to connect on LinkedIn.

Hiring success is a catalyst for the subsequent success of companies and executive careers, and getting it wrong has commensurate consequences for executives.  So unless your company has its own first-class talent acquisition team (one that’s out there every day proactively seeking the best industry talent for you), your business success is ultimately reliant on the recruitment partnerships your company develops.  Build strong relationships with top recruiters and they will deliver top talent to you on a consistent basis. However, there’s certainly more value you can derive from your recruiter partnerships at no additional cost. 

Let's take it as a given that you’re expecting your recruitment partner to fill open roles with top talent.  Beyond that, what added value and less obvious benefits can the best fintech industry recruiters provide for their clients? Here are six things they can do that you may not have considered:

1.  Bring you top talent first on an opportunistic basis 
Let your recruiter know what profile types you’re open to hearing about in the market, and he/she is more likely to think of you first when such A Players arise, even if you have no open hiring remit.  For a fintech sales team, for example, it's common to have upto 20% team turnover per annum, so best practice is for companies always to keep the door open to seeing sales people from the top 10% of the market (these are the A Players, as defined by Top Grading). Wouldn’t you rather at least hear about such candidates first, rather than miss out only to hear your recruiter say that they didn’t realise you would hire if a top performer arose?

2.  Help shape your hiring plans to improve efficiency and cost-effectiveness  
Share with your recruiter how you anticipate your organisation developing over the next 12+ months, talk through the nature of the roles you anticipate hiring, and ask your recruiter for their input.  Experienced fintech recruiters will have seen all manner of organisation charts, how they’re structured with roles as they grow, the nature of the skill-sets required, talent availability and salaries etc.  All this is extremely valuable intelligence that can help you develop your business plan to ensure you’re well positioned to get the right talent, in the right place, at the right time.   

3.  Help develop your Employer Value Proposition (EVP)  
Having built up a deep understanding of your company and represented it in the market, your recruiter will have gained a lot of valuable intelligence from candidates on how your company is perceived as a potential employer. Ask your recruiter for this feedback after each hire and use it to further develop your EVP.  And don’t limit this feedback to your company alone – recruiters have their fingers on the pulse with regard to the whole marketplace, and are well placed to share how candidates perceive your competitors as well.

4.  Become brand ambassadors to promote your fintech products and services 
Recruiters aren’t there to directly sell your products and services, of course.  However, the very nature of their role – networking across the industry all day and interacting with their social media networks – means they can be useful in spreading the word about your products and services to potential buyers.  For example, I set up and now manage the largest LinkedIn group focused on fintech innovation for the capital markets, asset and wealth management, where I’m regularly promoting innovative fintech companies. Clients of mine that fall into this category have benefited from social media promotion in this niche group, in addition to the expansive social network reach that comes directly from me and my team.

5.  Set up talent retention strategies  
It might sound counter-intuitive, but great recruiters would prefer to see their clients retain their best talent rather than lose their top performers and experience high employee turnover.  You see, a company that has an employee turnover rate that's higher than the industry average can easily find their employer reputation turns negative, which in turn can make it hard for a company to attract top talent.  The best industry recruiters love to stake their reputation on placing the best candidates at the best companies.  So when you’re reviewing retention strategies for your company, and even particular individuals, bring your recruiter in to ask their opinion in relation to specific roles and profiles, and what best practices they’re seeing in the market.

6.  Not headhunt the best talent out of your company  
Maintain ongoing relationships with recruiters and they become natural gamekeepers for you.  If you let that partnership wither and don’t show commitment to your recruiters, why should they commit to not poaching your best staff – those top performers who are driving your success?  Niche industry headhunters don’t aspire to having all companies in a sector as clients as their business model simply wouldn’t work.  Therefore, they will categorise companies as clients and sources – and a strong fintech industry headhunter is certainly worth more as an ally than enemy.

Build the right relationships with the right industry recruiters and you’ll certainly be rewarded in many more ways than perhaps you had realised.  Mutually beneficial business partnerships are a two-way street, where there’s respect and trust in each other.  Not every recruiter is necessarily capable of providing, or willing to offer, the value-added benefits I’ve described unless you ask.  But as you develop the right recruiter partnerships and you invest more as they gain your trust, you’ll be amazed with the value the right fintech recruitment partner can add to your company’s success, and ultimately your executive career.

Contact us to discuss how we can provide these value added services to your company.

About the author. Shawn Rutter is the Founder of Excelsior Search, a market-leading, niche search company, specializing in international executive search and recruitment solutions for financial technology (fintech), data, and research providers to the global capital markets and investment industry. With experience delivering search assignments across the Americas, EMEA and APAC, he founded Excelsior in 1999, having previously worked as an Army Officer and for the international search firm MRI.  Shawn invites you to connect on LinkedIn.

When asked how many recruiter they're using, they usually reply that: “We’ve only appointed a few, in addition to our HR team doing some direct sourcing.”

STOP – there’s the problem right there!

You see, there is already a major flaw in this strategy; the company is not really showing any true commitment to the service of the recruiters, so it’s only natural they are not accountable for delivering results (candidates).

“But the successful recruiter will get paid if they feel the role”.  They reply.

Yes true, but that’s exactly why they won’t all be fully committed to filling the role; they’re all being asked to work for free.

The simple fact is that the traditional contingency recruitment model is broken since it is based on volume and speed, which sacrifices quality over quantity. For this reason and many others as well, it is not in either the hiring company or recruiters’ best interests. Yet, many hiring managers don’t recognise this or even know that there are better ways of interfacing with recruiters to get better results since they are well used to the traditional contingency approach. It is all they are used to and put up with, what about you?

Recruiters on a contingency basis will happily take on multiple roles already knowing there is a good chance they won’t fill them, after all, statistics tell us that contingency recruiters only fill 1 in every 5 roles they take on. What most recruiters do is take a scatter gun approach. They target only 30% of the candidate market in order to find quick candidate fixes, quickly screen them, then rush to submit to the client before the next recruiter finds the same candidate. Sound familiar? 

With many recruiters happy to fill 1 in 5 roles, any more being a bonus, there is no culture of committing to quality service delivery to clients given that they are being made to work without any guarantee of remuneration. It is only natural that they reciprocate and give the client no more effort than is necessary to fill 1 in 5 roles.

Recruitment is a professional service, and the best results come through the right amount of consulting time applied to service delivery. It takes time, sometimes weeks of consultancy, the conduct of due diligence and application of skill to source A-Player candidates, who don’t exactly sit across a recruiter’s desk all the time waiting to be hired. For any professional service, time is money but basing whether a recruiter gets paid on how soon he fills his quota will certainly not get you the best results.

Let me put this in the context of your fintech business. Say a hedge fund asks your team to spend the next few weeks developing a front office tool, and if they like it, they will pay you for it. But by the way, they let you know that they are asking two other fintech companies to do the same, and in addition, their internal team of developers will in the meantime also see if they can build something they like. They also say they will even consider buying the first tool they like rather than wait to see the best, whether you’re finished or not. Absurd right?

What would you say to this hedge fund? Do you really think these terms would encourage your company to do their best work? Would you even accept such a project? How would you prioritise that project, tying up business analysts, developers and testers for a few weeks, when you have another client that following a vendor selection process, has selected you as the exclusive provider to build them a front office tool?

Clearly you would fully commit all your resources to that exclusive project for these reasons benefiting both you and your client;   

• No-one else is working on it or in competition with you, so when you deliver the fee is assured;

• You will have the time to thoroughly specify the clients’ requirements, for whom you will build the best tailored-made solution;

• The client will save time working with only one vendor, rather than having to brief, manage and follow up many;

• Having agreed on the time frame, you will project manage the schedule, taking appropriate time so as to ensure quality review;

• You will have the time to be creative, escalate your efforts, try out different designs, proofs of concept and builds in order to come up with the best possible solution;

• Since the client and your company are entering business on an equal partnership, you will be willing to share other ideas and expertise with the client free of charge as a value-adding service.

• Ultimately, by committing exclusively with you and agreeing on deliverables, you will be accountable for delivering the project to time and budget, in stark contrast to the first multi-development scenario.

So, if you’re used to briefing multiple recruiters on roles and have always wondered why they don’t tend to come across as being fully committed to getting you A-Players, and that a huge majority of candidates you get don’t fit your needs, put yourself in their shoes as a business model. Clearly, the contingency recruitment business model is not in the interests of either the recruiter or the hiring company.

Now is the time to go further than the traditional approach and take my advice. Run a contractual selection process as you would for any other business service and commit to one recruiter exclusively. You will be amazed by the accountability and results you will get!

Contact us to learn how we commit to finding you the best available FinTech talent.
 

About the author. Shawn Rutter is the Founder of Excelsior Search, a market-leading, niche search company, specializing in international executive search and recruitment solutions for financial technology (fintech), data, and research providers to the global capital markets and investment industry. With experience delivering search assignments across the Americas, EMEA and APAC, he founded Excelsior in 1999, having previously worked as an Army Officer and for the international search firm MRI.  Shawn invites you to connect on LinkedIn.

An A Player is someone in the top 10% of talent available for any job, at a given salary level. Create a team of A Players and your business is more likely to succeed; keep a lot of B and C Players on board and you’re more likely to fail. It’s as simple as that. 

A Players bring with them resourcefulness, energy, passion, analytical skills and persistence in abundance – all skills that can help them overcome hurdles in order to seek out success. According to Topgrading, A Players tend to be:

• Smart, intellectual and business-savvy

• Passionate and driven to succeed

• Trustworthy

• Consistently high performers

• Adaptable and able to adjust to working with many different personalities

• Prone to surrounding themselves with other high performers

• Very hard workers

• Resourceful and able to overcome obstacles

• Effective leaders

• Down-to-earth, well-grounded, self-aware and humble

While A Players are out there performing for your business, B and C Players often need to be closely managed, which can be an unwanted distraction from your main focus. There may be times when you consider hiring B and C Players just to fill a role, but this can actually cause more problems in the long term. Yes, they may make some progress with the job, but if they don’t do it well, you’ve actually created another problem to fix. By investing in only hiring A Players, you can save time on micromanaging and fixing the problems of B and C Players, and put all your efforts into achieving greater success with your team of A Players. On top of this, you’re likely to see other benefits:

• Your mis-hire rate will dramatically decrease (see also my mis-hire article). After implementing new hiring processes geared to hiring only A Players, General Electric’s CEO Jack Welch dramatically improved GE’s batting average for hiring A Players, with his mis-hire rate going from 60% to a game-changing 20%.

• A Players tend to attract other A Players. To some degree it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you’re a small and growing company that’s able to attract a small critical mass of A Players, you can start a favourable chain reaction and build a strong company. Both Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates did this, and it seems to have worked out pretty well for them.

It doesn’t matter whether there are 10 people in your firm or you’re managing a 10,000-person company – either way, your success will depend on putting the right hiring processes in place. But how are you going to hire only A Players, the top 10% of candidates in your business area? Well, it all starts with having access to them…

Contact us to discuss how we can help ensure your recruitment processes result in hiring only A Players.

About the author. Shawn Rutter is the Founder of Excelsior Search, a market-leading, niche search company, specializing in international executive search and recruitment solutions for financial technology (fintech), data, and research providers to the global capital markets and investment industry. With experience delivering search assignments across the Americas, EMEA and APAC, he founded Excelsior in 1999, having previously worked as an Army Officer and for the international search firm MRI.  Shawn invites you to connect on LinkedIn.