Treasury recruiter Mike Richards says hiring works better when you focus on what candidates want, not what you need. He renamed a role from Senior Treasury Analyst to Treasury Lead and got better applicants. Skip the psychometric tests upfront; build excitement first, then assess.
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It's not about you anymore, it's about them. That's what I keep saying to my clients. One of the biggest mistakes my clients make and companies make when recruiting treasury professionals is they look at recruitment from their perspective, not from a candidate's. They don't sit the other side of the desk. Sometimes that's difficult. You've been a treasurer for a number of years, you want to think about them. Why would you want to apply for the, this role to work for you? Maybe that's one of the key things that I talked about in this week's newsletter. It's not about you anymore, it's about them. There you go. Because in this market, it's quite dangerous. What I mean by that is treasury professionals you are trying to appeal to already have good jobs. If they don't have good jobs, they're probably applying all over the place on LinkedIn, but they sometimes aren't the people you want to attract. You want to go and get the people that are being looked after well, but not that well that you can't attract them. So if you want to attract them, you have to sit in their seat, say, why would I want this role to work for me? I'll give you an example. I'm currently recruiting for a client in New York. Great company, fast growing insurance business, brilliant opportunity reporting directly into the global treasurer who I've recruited. He's a great guy. Loads of exposure, real ownership, the sort of role where someone's career will accelerate very quickly. You get face-to-face time with the CEO, will walk past your desk and ask you a question and generally want to know the answer. You're gonna get face time with the entire board. It's like, yeah, you're right up there, but you're going in there. The role was titled originally Senior Treasury Analyst. I was like, ah, so you want me to approach Senior Treasury Analyst to ask them if they can become a senior treasury analyst. They were like, oh, hang on. Yeah. And they said, that's a sideways move. But the job isn't that, is it? You called it senior treasury analyst. It's not that. It's equivalent to a treasury manager role. Yeah, but the problem is, Mike, we're not here. We're not hung up on titles. And you're not going to manage someone. You're going to manage processes and things like that. So we can't call it a manager. It's like, okay, well, what can we do differently? So I actually talked to them about it and I said, look, this is a lead role. Let's call it Treasury Lead. Went through. Yeah, no problem at all. And that's the key bit. They listened and they will, and I will hopefully recruit this role because that's what the role actually is. There's a difference between advertising a role, how you label a role, and then how you attract candidates. For the role. That's the key thing. They're 3 very different things. And I see this in interview processes. That's the other bit I detailed in the newsletter. Client came to me and they said, right, we want to recruit different client a couple of years ago. We're going to start with testing. We want to make sure they're really good. I was like, okay. And then we're going to do psychometrics first stage. I was like, and then if they're lucky, they might get to meet someone in treasury. Maybe the treasurer, maybe a member of the team, maybe the treasurer at third stage. CFO, final closing at fourth, and then they get off of the job. I was like, would you do that? They were like, what? So would you go through that process for a job? Well, if it sounded good. I said, what, you really? Oh well, yeah. If I was told you want to apply for the job, immediately do a maths test, immediately do psychometric. Uh, I said, why don't we flip it round? Why don't you get them to come in? You can screen them on paper. They're the kind of people who you longlist, if you like. Why not let them meet people, have a coffee, come in and meet some of the team, talk about the business, talk about the Treasury team, get excited by the opportunity, go, actually, this is a place I want to work. Then later on in the process, when you know that they're engaged with you, they're willing to go that extra step, then you bring in testing and assessment. And actually, then people are committed to it. Don't put obstacles in front of candidates. Before you even know if they've got, they want the job before they've even got the job, if you like. Second part, and I'm trying to keep this a quick one, but it's taken a bit longer. Sorry, Mike Richards. You're always traveling. People have been saying to me recently, I said, yeah, you're everywhere. And I went, yeah, I want to be in the room with you. That's where I'm doing it. I can't properly understand the treasury market sitting behind a desk. Talk about this every week, but then I've just done Texas 3 weeks ago. Vegas last week. It was great to see so many treasury professionals. And in fact, gotta say, give a shout out to the team at AFP. Here you go, Jeff. Got it on AFP. What we got on here? It's a vibe thing. Yeah. AFP were there in Cariba, at Cariba Live. Met with Jeff, met with Tom, met with Pat. Big shout out to those guys. That's enough of the camera. You can't understand. What is going through, what challenges you treasury professionals are facing just by sitting behind a desk. I come and meet you. And do you know what? I'm seeing you guys next week in the UK. ACT Liverpool, speaking on a panel on the Wednesday. Come along and see it. We're talking about treasury talent challenges, about AI coming along. Everyone's talking about it. Then after that, we've got Dublin, our Treasury Career Corner Live. You got 90 people, over 90 people in the room. Amsterdam, 90+ people in the room. We've expanded it as much as we can. Treasury Career Corner live in London in a month's time. Sign up if you want to come. We've got Ask the Treasurer session. It's amazing. Loads of treasury professionals. You get some great treasury networking and it's all for free. Our sponsors have, you know, kindly agreed to, you know, sit outside the room as well so we can give the new treasury practitioners even more space inside, which we do appreciate. Thanks guys. But they'll be sitting in the bar. They'll be warming up the drinks and getting the drinks ready for you as well. Because that's what these events are about— real conversations, networking, relationships, not sales pitches. And that's why recruitment works, as I said, best face to face. Because when you genuinely understand, as I think we do, and I do through the podcast, through meeting you guys, you get better matches. So simple as that. Let's grab a coffee in Liverpool, Amsterdam, Dublin, London, wherever you want to meet, uh, and maybe something stronger and nicer tasting than coffee, maybe a beer or two. Thank you very much. That's it this week. Looking forward to seeing you guys all very soon. Cheers, bye.
