Written by Trevor McGlochlin, Research Consultant
The financial services industry has seen big changes in hiring trends within the last few years. While specific details may differ from job to job, there are some common issues arising from trends in the financial industry that warrant serious attention and require preparation from a workforce planning perspective. Explore three of the latest trends in finance and their impact on hiring within the industry, including how to address them using some forward thinking and an intentional talent acquisition strategy.
3 financial services industry trends to consider for hiring
1. Shortage of finance talent
A lack of talent is one of the latest trends in the finance industry and is a huge concern for many organizations in the financial services industry. Over the past two years, the US has seen a significant decline in accountants and auditors, with over 300,000 professionals leaving the field according to the Wall Street Journal. The shortage isn’t just due to retirements – workers of all experience levels, from early careers to mid-career, are exiting the profession. A key factor? Many cite stagnant wages and a lack of growth opportunities as major reasons for their departure. Meanwhile, there aren’t enough new college graduates entering the field to fill the gap, creating a growing talent shortage that businesses must now navigate.
Since this trend is not going away anytime soon, businesses must learn how to make smarter talent decisions in a tight talent market and HR departments need to make their organizations more appealing to attract and retain top talent. However, this doesn’t mean that high quality applicant screening, assessments, and structured interviews should be sacrificed in the process. These steps are still important for obtaining good candidates who fit within the organization and are motivated to do the job, thereby reducing potential turnover.
2. The utilization of artificial intelligence
The use of artificial Intelligence (AI) in the workplace is one of the latest trends impacting not only the financial services industry, but most of the business world. Many organizations are looking to keep up with this revolutionary technology by incorporating AI into their talent management processes in some way. To combat these new trends in finance of talent scarcities, a lot of companies are devoting budget towards AI training for employees, including machine learning and data camps to learn programs such as R, Python, and SQL. Effectively employing AI can make it much easier to gather data, assess that data, and to automate other processes, freeing up the humans to devote more time to high priority projects.
AI chatbots are one example of where this technology can be used to make the candidate selection process much faster. This functionality can be programmed to answer the most frequently asked questions of recruiters or HR staff, saving them time and resources that can in turn be focused on more pressing issues for talent acquisition that requires human involvement. When organizations make AI a top priority, it will also show top talent that they are focused on innovation, making them more attractive to applicants. Therefore, organizations can at least partially address the challenge from our first financial trend by incorporating AI technologies into the hiring process.
3. Cybersecurity talent is a top priority
This might be the most obvious and not at all new in the finance services industry. However, if you are in the money business, you are also in the security business. With banking, transactions, direct deposit, and everything monetary capable of being done online, cybersecurity is a vital component to all organizations, especially those in the financial industry.
With new scams and data breaches dominating headlines daily, employing cybersecurity professionals in the financial sector is no longer a ‘nice to have’ – it’s a critical business necessity and a growing field. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts the average growth for the role of Information Security Analyst as 33% between 2023 and 2033. For some context, the average growth for all jobs is 4%. Not only that, but these positions typically pay quite well with the median salary sitting comfortably at six figures.
Addressing the latest trends in finance
With talent shortages materializing, AI creating efficient but disruptive change in the finance industry, and cyber threats lurking, it is an understatement to say just how important it is to get it right when you’re hiring for any role in the financial field. The good news is that HR hiring experts like Talogy have a portfolio of online talent assessments to assist all industries select the best talent while providing users with a positive candidate experience.
About the author: Trevor McGlochlin, Managing R&D Consultant, has over 10 years of industrial/organizational psychology experience focused primarily on selection assessment content, scoring and reporting used for screening and selection within manufacturing, service, healthcare, finance, and general professional roles.
