27 February 2026
The best finance professionals aren’t looking
The recruitment market has shifted. Larger companies, in particular, are taking their recruitment in-house. This can have a number of benefits, not least:
- Cost control
- Control over the candidate experience – important in helping build your employer brand
- Creating career-development pathways and talent pipelines
However, internal talent acquisition teams are by their nature generalist. Where they can struggle, is in the search for more senior, specialist, business-critical roles, like a Financial Controller.
Context
The company had been advertising for a Financial Controller for four months and had had no suitable applications. Having noticed their recurring job advert, we contacted them to offer our support.
The challenge
Disappointing experiences in the past meant they were staunchly anti-recruitment ‘agency’. And so, it was with sceptical reluctance that they accepted our offer.
While the best results are always attained through an exclusive, retained recruitment model, aware of the client’s reservations, and confident we could source a shortlist of quality candidates, we took the role on a contingent (no-win-no-fee) basis.
Our approach
An advert-only approach limits a search to those who are actively looking — recent research by Reed suggests that is only 11% of the workforce.
Where a niche, finance specialist recruitment consultancy has the advantage is it can headhunt from a deep pool of passive talent, reaching 70 – 75% of the workforce.
The passive market tends to be the high performers — the content, engaged employees focused on delivering in their current role rather than job-hunting. These individuals are not open to any opportunity. They are, however, open to the right opportunity.
Recent research suggests that only 12% of passive candidates respond to cold outreach, however. Relationships, networks, and sector-specialist credibility make all the difference.
When you have over 25 years specialising in finance recruitment one builds extensive talent networks, deep market insight and sector credibility. Leveraging personal networks, the networks of the wider Seymour John group, our LinkedIn licences, alongside job board advertising, our specialist credibility meant we were able to build a high-quality long list.
The result
Within a month — over the Christmas period — we presented a shortlist of four proceedable candidates, one of whom was successfully appointed.
Not only were we able to quickly secure the right candidate we were also able to change our client’s perceptions around the benefits of working with an external talent ally.
Internal talent acquisition teams cannot be experts in every discipline. Nor should they be. Neither should internal teams be in competition with external suppliers. They operate in different spheres.
We don’t replace internal teams, we strengthen them. We provide the specialist capability that enables internal talent functions to deliver their best work — without stretching their capacity, compromising on quality, or risking the failure of a critical hire.
The recruitment market has shifted. The best results are being achieved through a hybrid approach, where generalist recruitment is increasingly being undertaken internally, with specialist, high-risk, business-critical roles, like senior finance, being outsourced to niche specialists, like Seymour John.
27 February 2026