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• [toc headings="h2,h3" title="Table of Contents"] While financial institutions have been using technology since the mid-twentieth century, the fintech industry as we think of it today is relatively young, emerging in the early 2000s. It's already seen shifts in that short time, too, starting with back-end systems in banks and other financial institutions and evolving into consumer-oriented software and services. These fast shifts can make it a challenge for companies hiring fintech talent to identify the skills and experience they need for the role. Working with a fintech recruiter is one way to overcome this difficulty. Fintech recruiters are experts in the field and specialize in identifying the right professionals for the role. These insights they can provide about the industry can be just as valuable for organizations as their candidate networks, helping them stay ahead of trends and developments and, with them, their competition. If you have a fintech role (or several) to fill, the recruiters below are among the best in the industry.

• The top eight fintech recruiters in the United States

• 1. Redfish Technology

• Founded in 1996, Redfish Technology has an established network of technology professionals from coast to coast, including the major tech hubs across the United States. This extensive experience also gives them a high level of insight into the finance industry and what businesses in this sector need from their technology professionals. Their Just in Time recruitment approach delivers the right people for your team quickly, with value-adding services like industry trend reports and onboarding guidance for new hires. Read more about Redfish Technology’s fintech recruiting

• 2. Optimal Sales Search

• Based in San Francisco, Optimal Sales Search is a national recruiter of financial sales and sales leadership talent, with a particular focus on fintech sales positions. They specialize in direct hires of permanent employees who will make an impact on any fintech sales team, and their tight industry focus allows them to deliver well-matched candidates in as little as 5-10 business days. They do this with their calibrated sales recruitment process, based on the specific candidate profile they develop with their clients, as well as their deep understanding of the fintech sales landscape and popular sales methodologies. Read more about Optimal Sales Search's fintech recruiting

• 3. Talent Partners

• If you need executive fintech talent, Talent Partners is one of the leading recruitment firms for connecting with top leaders in the field. Their candidates are experts in both financial technology and people management, a crucial combination of skills for fintech companies of all sizes, from brand new startups to global corporations. Their collaborative and transparent search process starts by identifying the client's specific hiring needs, not just in the moment but as they face new disruptions and challenges in the future. This allows them to deliver c-suite executives as well as middle managers who match the company's values and can drive revenue growth. Read more about Talent Partners' fintech recruiting

• 4. Yoh

• With offices in both the US and the UK, Yoh is uniquely positioned to find the best fintech professionals for global companies. Their twenty years of experience recruiting technical and business talent is an advantage for their partner companies. They draw on their expertise in this space to offer consulting services and recruitment process outsourcing in addition to their recruiting services. They offer a range of flexible hiring solutions, including entire or partial team recruitment along with direct, contingent, contract, and temp-to-hire individual placement. They're a particularly good fit for sectors like digital banking, regtech, and payments, sectors where they bring extensive expertise to the table. Read more about Yoh's fintech recruiting

• 5. Bowdoin Group

• Bowdoin Group was recently named one of the top 10 executive fintech recruiters in the United States by Business Insider, and it's easy to see why. Their long track record of success finding top leaders in this space makes them an executive search firm clients can trust to help them build exceptional teams from the top down. Their recruitment services include recruitment process outsourcing as well as direct placement, utilizing their deep technical knowledge to improve the staffing strategy across client organizations. Their holistic approach to recruitment makes them a top choice for filling job titles like CEO, CFO, and other c-level and executive roles. Read more about Bowdoin Group's fintech recruiting

• 6. FinTech Recruitment

• As you can guess from the name, FinTech Recruitment has a tight focus on the fintech, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Their mission is to connect experienced job seekers with the companies who need their skills, and they can deliver this talent around the world, with offices in Europe, Asia, and North America. While their main focus is on executive search, their services go beyond those of typical executive recruiting firms, with a network of talent ready to fill just about any role in the financial technology or insurance technology space. Read more about FinTech Recruitment

• 7. McLean Intelligent Workforce

• McLean offers data-driven and customized recruiting solutions for companies in niche tech-related domains. They have a broad reach within that area, recruiting for government agencies as well as private-sector businesses. Their talent network spans roles including IT services, engineering, software development, and sales, as well as professionals with a fintech background. Don't take this wide reach to mean they lack expertise, either. Their financial recruitment team has an in-depth understanding of key concepts like user experience development and impact payments recruiting, while their work in the broader area of accounting and finance gives them a holistic view of what fintech organizations need. Read more about McLean Intelligent Workforce's fintech recruiting

• 8. Excelsior Search

• Companies that hire Excelsior Search are entering into a partnership with a global leader in fintech recruiting. Building high-performance financial technology teams is all they do, and that's been their mission since they opened in 1999. Many of their clients are in the global capital markets and investment industry, though they can provide staffing solutions for any organization in the fintech ecosystem, including venture capital or private equity firms as well as banks and software providers. Their proprietary fintechSTAR search process is designed to address the most common pain points for companies, and has been refined over their two decades in the industry to provide seamless staffing solutions that quickly meet clients' business needs. Read more about Excelsior Search's fintech recruiting

• Challenges of fintech recruiting

• Hiring has been a challenge across industries in the early 2020s, and fintech is no exception. It was one of the fastest-growing sectors in 2020, as demand for digital options skyrocketed. This prompted established global banks to modernize their tech stacks, implementing technology like artificial intelligence and cloud-based software and applications. Meanwhile, the number of fintech startups exploded, with more than 8,700 in the Americas alone as of 2021. Whether they were launching for the first time or undergoing a digital transformation, financial companies first needed to hire the engineers, developers, and other tech professionals who can design and maintain this new technology. Financial institutions aren't the only ones who saw their tech needs increase during this span, though. This left them competing with a wide variety of companies across sectors for the same limited number of qualified professionals, and a depleted tech talent pool has remained a challenge for fintech hiring through 2023. Part of this problem stems from a lack of diversity in fintech hiring. Female professionals are one group historically under-represented in fintech. There has been some progress in this regard, but while 30% of the UK fintech workforce was female in 2022, only 17% of senior roles are filled by women. The perception of fintech as a male-dominated, homogenous environment can make it difficult for companies to attract the diverse talent that will ease hiring struggles and jumpstart innovation. Compounding this issue is the fact that many established financial companies don't understand how to navigate the current hiring landscape. Their recruiting practices are often outdated and were designed to hire professionals from gen X and older, not for millennials who are the largest group with fintech skills in the current labor market. This can lead to many issues, from mis-matched compensation to a lack of employer branding, inflexible work policies, or a poor corporate culture. These issues need to be fixed before companies can attract the right talent, but many get stuck on even identifying the root problem, much less making changes to address it.

• Tips for working with fintech recruiters

• Take full advantage of the recruiter's expertise.

• Recruiters have first-hand knowledge of the labor market and what the top candidates want from an employer. You could miss out on the benefits of those insights if you come into the process with rigid expectations and preconceptions. Being open to the recruiter's suggestions, not just about your current search but about your overall hiring process, can bring you the full value of the partnership.

• Understand the roles you're filling.

• Financial company leaders understand the finance world, but most aren't experts in technology. This often leads to them posting "purple squirrel" job descriptions with unrealistic, excessive, or downright impossible qualifications. Taking the time to understand the specific skills and traits required for the position can prevent this mis-step and help you to attract the right types of professionals.

• Be transparent and communicative.

• A recruiter can't help you solve problems they don't know about. The more you share with them about your hiring challenges and company's needs, the better they'll be able to deliver the impactful talent you're looking for.

• The future of fintech recruiting

• Like most tech sectors, fintech is constantly evolving as new technologies develop and customer expectations shift to expect more technology-driven options. This means the employment needs of financial institutions are always changing, too, and working with an expert can help companies keep up with these changes and maintain their competitive edge. Developing a relationship with a fintech recruiter now is the best way to prepare for the skill and staffing needs of the future.