Since the strength of a firm is heavily dependent on the quality of its employees, recruiting top professionals should always be the main priority. Although it can be challenging for some small wealth management firms to compete with those multinational financial services companies, you can still attract considerable talent by offering special incentives and showing them what your firm stands for.

Be Crystal Clear on What You Want for the Role

An effective way to find the right people for financial careers is to create ideal candidate profiles with must-haves and admirable qualities. Small wealth management firms should answer some of these questions before deciding who to hire:

  1. What type of person would be successful in this company culture?
  2. What type of candidate will be aligned with the company values?
  3. What personality traits are ideal for this position?
  4. What hard and soft skills will be needed in this role?

Then, you can look at current and past top performers to learn what skills and personalities are a good organizational fit. Use everything that you’ve discovered to create more substantial, inclusive job descriptions.

Hire for Alignment of Value First

Instead of hiring only based on skills and experience, hiring managers have to shift to shortlisting candidates that understand the firm’s values and culture first. But, screening potential employees for culture fit is often easier said than done. The first step is to define your professional norms, practices, and values clearly. Then, it’s important to share this information via social media, job postings, newsletters, etc. Or, some small firms use personality tests during the hiring process to confirm alignment.

Leverage Smallness with Flexibility

Regardless of business size, candidates are more likely to accept job offers from companies that promote flexible work arrangements. Recent surveys even suggest that 30% of workers would sacrifice some of their pay for a better work-life balance. Small wealth management firms tend to be more conducive to benefits like this, along with other attractive rewards like work-from-home opportunities, more vacation time, free meals, student loan assistance, free daycare services, etc. But, a significant advantage of working for small firms is that they tend to promote more of an employee-friendly workplace that makes them stand out from big companies. Financial recruiters quickly highlight some of the disadvantages of working for large firms. Employees are just cogs in the wheel, and there is more competition for promotions and less room for creativity.

Small wealth management companies with flexible, positive work cultures can compete against any sized firm to attract top employees. You can differentiate your opportunities by creating detailed job descriptions, promoting flexibility, and focusing on the alignment of value over skills.