In finance careers, recruitment is mainly based on candidates’ hard skills and professional experience. Having said that, soft skills should not be neglected. A person’s behavioural, cognitive and emotional skills are decisive because they influence their success, efficiency and working relationships.

Discover the key soft skills you need in this area of business.

Soft skills vs hard skills in finance

The success of financial analysts, advisers and consultants relies a lot on technical skills such as financial data analysis, profitability studies and knowledge of financial regulations.

However, soft skills or interpersonal skills are going to have an impact that, while harder to measure, can be equally essential when it comes to being operational, to performing well, integrating and maintaining good working relationships. Because of this, as a HR specialist, you are well advised to pay attention to candidates’ soft skills.

6 essential soft skills in finance careers

• Communication

Financial professionals may find themselves having to communicate technical information (cash flows, market financial data, etc.) to colleagues who are not well-versed in financial jargon. Because of this, they need to be able to put their work into layman’s terms so that the opposite parties will quickly and simply understand the information and their results at a meeting or during a presentation to the management team.

However, being a good communicator is not just useful for the technical aspects of the job. To work effectively as part of a team and maintain smooth trust-based relations and dialogue with colleagues and clients, it is important to how to listen and demonstrate emotional intelligence. For Aleksandra Mazur, a financial recruitment consultant at Gentis, "being a good communicator is first and foremost about taking an interest and understanding the team dynamic. That way, you can adapt your communication and your attitude.”

• The ability to adapt and be pragmatic

The newly recruited colleague or freelancer joins a team that is already in place, with its own little rules and ways of working and communicating. They have to get to know the rules, rituals and best practice that govern the company and the finance department.

Over the course of the first days, they also have to get acquainted with the existing processes and the tools in use in order to be operational quickly. Remember that it took time to develop the processes that help accomplish certain tasks. For Aleksandra Mazur, this is an essential soft skill when you are looking for a freelancer: “When it comes to freelance financial advisers, companies are mainly looking for profiles that are not going to make waves among the legal processes that are in place. They want someone pragmatic, who will be operational quickly and who will help and relieve them.”

• Problem solving

In certain cases, the systems and processes in place may not be enough to fix a problem. Being able to think outside the box, to take a step to one side and be creative in removing an obstacle, knowing how to act in an emergency, prioritise tasks and demonstrate discernment can make you stand out from other experts in finance.

Aleksandra Mazur makes a point of assessing this soft skill from the very first contact on the telephone with candidates: “I systematically ask what they would do to handle this or that situation. The answers give me information about the way the candidates react when faced with a problem and how well they master this soft skill.”

• Be proactive and forward-looking

Working in finance requires you to see the big picture, to understand the impact of internal and market changes and to predict how the company and the sector are going to evolve. Being able to anticipate change, especially when it is liable to have consequences on the financial and operational organisation is therefore important. In practice, this supposes that you have a proactive stance, seeking solutions to problems by yourself. Let’s take a example.

The European Parliament recently adopted the directive on pay transparency, obliging companies with more than 50 employees to produce a report on data relating to the pay gap between women and men. States have three years to apply the directive. Your company is therefore not yet subject to this regulation, but it will be soon. The financial department will have to anticipate this by taking proactive measures, particularly by recommending an audit of remuneration ratios to ensure that the company monitors and communicates the necessary data to observe the regulation that will soon come into effect.

• Be solutions- and results-oriented

A manager who is solution driven uses his or her sense of analysis to understand the reasons why sales have fallen or why a project is not working. Basically, he or she finds the problems, analyses the causes and makes recommendations. Being results driven means ensuring that goals are achieved.

In finance as in other sectors, having this soft skill gives you a competitive edge when it comes to moving forward efficiently.

• Organisation

Having a sense of organisation is a prerequisite for success in the financial domain. And with good reason, because analysts, consultants, advisers and managers have to manage a large amount of financial data, while observing strict deadlines and ensuring that figures are exact and compliant. Without well-structured processes and good organisation, the risk of error is significant and it will be difficult to stick to deadlines.

For Aleksandra Mazur, the role of a financial adviser is to challenge the organisation by making new suggestions to save time and increase reliability. A word of warning, however. Our recruiter advises “striking a balance between being an innovative voice for change and respecting the cruising speed of the team in place as well as the processes that they have taken time to establish to avoid ruffling any feathers.” Striking this balance also means being assertive.

So now you know: while soft skills are not the be all and end all, they can make a decisive difference in finance careers!