How to Brief a Finance Recruitment Agency

The quality of a shortlist a finance recruitment agency produces is almost entirely determined by the quality of the brief you give them. A detailed, honest brief from a hiring manager who has thought carefully about what they need will consistently produce a better shortlist than a vague briefing note sent to five agencies simultaneously. This is not a reflection of the agency’s capability — it is a reflection of what they have to work with.

This guide covers what a good agency brief looks like, how to structure the relationship with your recruiter, how to avoid the mistakes that lead to poor shortlists and wasted time, and what to expect from a specialist finance recruitment agency at each stage of the process.

Why the Brief Is the Most Important Document in the Search

Most hiring managers underestimate how much the brief influences the shortlist. An agency that is working from a clear, detailed brief — one that tells them exactly what the business does, what the role involves, what the candidate must have done, what the salary is and why this is a good opportunity — will approach the search with precision. They know which candidates are right and which are not. They can have an intelligent conversation with a candidate about the role. They can write a compelling message that gets responses from passive candidates who are not actively looking.

An agency working from a vague job description and a note that says “ideally ACA qualified, 5+ years experience, competitive salary” is guessing. They will produce a broader shortlist with more variability in quality. More candidates who look right on paper will turn out to be wrong in the interview. More interview time will be wasted. The process will take longer.

Investing thirty minutes in a proper briefing conversation before the search starts is consistently the highest-return activity in a senior finance search.

What a Good Brief Contains

The Business Context

Candidates at Financial Controller, Finance Manager and Finance Director level assess the business they are joining, not just the role. A strong brief gives the agency enough context to sell the opportunity credibly: the revenue and growth trajectory of the business; the ownership structure (founder-owned, PE-backed, listed, family-owned); the sector; the number of employees; the location and working arrangements; and the business’s stage of development.

Do not limit this to dry facts. If the business has a compelling growth story — doubled revenue in three years, recently completed a first PE investment, entering a new market — include it. This context is what differentiates your opportunity from others the candidate is seeing simultaneously. A senior finance professional who is not actively searching will be more likely to engage with an opportunity that has a clear and interesting story attached to it.

The Finance Function

Describe the current state of the finance function honestly. How many people are in the team? Who does the role report to? If there is an existing team, what is its composition and quality? Is the finance function currently performing well and this is a growth hire, or is the role a hire to improve a function that has underperformed? What systems does the business use?

Honesty about a finance function that is in a difficult state — late management accounts, reconciliation problems, a team that needs rebuilding — is more useful than presenting it as better than it is. Candidates who discover the reality in week two and have been misled about it in the interview process will leave. Candidates who are told the honest picture in advance and choose to take the role are buying into fixing it, which dramatically improves the chances of success.

The Specific Requirements

Separate your requirements into must-haves and nice-to-haves. Be disciplined about this distinction — most hiring managers have more must-haves than they actually need, which produces an unnecessarily narrow shortlist. Ask yourself: if a candidate met every requirement except this one, would you rule them out? If the answer is “probably not”, it is a nice-to-have, not a must-have.

Common genuine must-haves for senior finance roles: full professional qualification (ACA, ACCA or CIMA); minimum years of post-qualification experience; experience in a business of comparable size or complexity; specific technical requirements unique to your business (group consolidation, IFRS, specific sector knowledge, specific ERP). Common over-specified pseudo-must-haves that typically narrow the shortlist unnecessarily: specific software experience when the candidate will learn a new system quickly; specific sector experience when the core finance skills transfer; a preference for a particular training firm background.

The Salary and Benefits

Tell the agency the salary range. If you do not want to publish the salary in an advert, you can instruct the agency not to include it in advertising while still briefing them on it for their candidate conversations. A recruiter who does not know the salary cannot manage candidate expectations accurately, which leads to candidates being presented who will either be disappointed by the offer or decline it on salary grounds. The agency needs the salary to do their job properly.

Include all material elements of the package: base salary, bonus structure and realistic achievement levels, pension contribution, car allowance if applicable, private healthcare, share options or equity at relevant levels, and working arrangements (days in office per week, flexibility). Senior finance candidates compare total packages, not just base salary, and the agency needs the full picture to present your opportunity competitively.

The Timeline

Give the agency a realistic timeline for the process and tell them if there is a hard deadline. If you need someone in post by a specific date — a year-end, a new system go-live, a PE deal close — the agency needs to know this to manage the process accordingly. Be honest about your capacity for the interview process: if you can only conduct interviews on specific days or specific weeks, say so. An interview process that takes six weeks because the hiring manager is unavailable consistently loses candidates to competing offers.

Exclusive vs Multi-Agency: Which Produces Better Results?

The instinct of many hiring managers is to brief multiple agencies simultaneously — on the logic that more agencies means more candidates and a faster process. In practice, this logic does not hold for senior finance roles and often produces the opposite of the intended result.

The multi-agency model creates several problems. First, the best candidates at FC and FD level are passive — they are not actively applying to advertised roles and can only be reached through a recruiter who has an existing relationship with them. A recruiter who knows they are one of five agencies on the same brief will not invest the same time and relationship capital in approaching passive candidates as one working on an exclusive or preferred supplier basis. The risk of losing the candidate fee to a competing agency makes it economically rational to focus on active candidates who respond to advertising, rather than passive candidates who require time-intensive headhunting.

Second, the same candidate may be submitted by multiple agencies simultaneously, creating confusion and sometimes leading to disputes about who represented them first. This is time-consuming to resolve and does not serve the candidate, the agency or the employer.

The preferred model for senior finance hires is to give one specialist agency an exclusive period — typically two to three weeks — to produce a shortlist. If the shortlist is strong, proceed with that agency. If it is not, open to a second agency at that point. This approach gets the best effort from the agency and produces a better candidate experience, while maintaining the option to open the search if the first agency underperforms.

Choosing the Right Agency

Not all recruitment agencies are equally effective at senior finance search. The quality of the shortlist you receive is directly linked to the agency’s depth of network in the specific area of finance you are recruiting for. The considerations when choosing:

Specialism. A recruitment business that specialises in qualified finance professionals — Financial Controllers, Finance Managers, Finance Directors at SME and mid-market level — will have a deeper and more current network in this specific area than a generalist recruiter. The consultant you work with should be able to name relevant candidates they have placed or spoken to recently without reaching for a database search. If they cannot, they are not genuinely specialist in this area.

Consultant quality. The quality of the individual consultant matters as much as the agency. A consultant who has a deep network in your salary band and sector, who speaks to candidates regularly and is trusted by them, will consistently outperform a consultant with a large brand behind them but a more transactional approach. Ask how long the consultant has been in the finance recruitment market and which recent placements they have made that are comparable to your role.

Sector relevance. Some sectors are sufficiently specialist that only agencies with deep sector networks will be able to produce the right shortlist. Financial services, PE-backed businesses, and professional services all have specific sub-cultures and technical requirements that a generalist finance recruiter may not understand. If your business is in a highly specialist sector, prefer an agency that can demonstrate recent placements in that sector at the relevant level.

The fee structure. Standard placement fees for senior finance roles are typically 15–20% of the first-year base salary, payable on the candidate’s start date. Retained search — where a portion of the fee is paid at briefing stage — is common for FD and CFO-level searches. The fee structure should be agreed in a signed terms document before the search commences; verbal agreements about fees are not enforceable and lead to disputes. Ensure you understand the rebate structure if the candidate leaves within the rebate period (typically three to six months).

How to Work Effectively with Your Recruiter During the Search

Give feedback quickly. When the agency sends you a CV, respond within 24–48 hours with a clear decision: interview, pass, or pending. An agency that does not receive feedback within a week will begin to deprioritise your search relative to clients who are more responsive. More importantly, candidates who are kept waiting for more than a week without hearing anything will take another offer or become disenchanted with the opportunity.

Be specific about feedback. “Not quite right” is not actionable feedback. “The candidate’s experience is at businesses that are too small — we need someone who has worked at £30m+” is actionable feedback that the agency can immediately apply to the next submission. The more specific your feedback on passes, the faster the agency learns what you are looking for and the better the subsequent submissions.

Keep the agency informed of changes to the brief. If the role scope changes, the reporting line shifts, or the salary budget is revised during the search, tell the agency immediately. Running a search on a brief that no longer accurately describes the role produces candidates who are right for the original brief but wrong for the actual role.

Be honest about internal candidates. If there is an internal candidate being considered for the role alongside the external search, tell the agency. Running an external search while an internal candidate is the front-runner wastes everyone’s time and damages your employer reputation in the candidate market. If the internal candidate falls through and you genuinely need to go external, the agency will understand — but they need to know the situation.

Move quickly at offer stage. When you have identified your preferred candidate, make the offer within 24–48 hours. At senior finance level, the best candidates are typically in multiple processes simultaneously and will accept an offer from another employer if yours is delayed without a good reason. The agency will manage the candidate’s expectations during a reasonable delay if you keep them informed — but an unexplained week of silence after a final interview consistently leads to the candidate accepting elsewhere.

The Brief Template: What to Send to the Agency

The following structure covers everything a specialist finance recruiter needs to run an effective senior finance search:

• Business overview: revenue, growth trajectory, sector, ownership structure, headcount, location
• Finance function current state: team size and composition, systems, close timetable, main challenges
• Role scope: specific responsibilities, what the person owns from day one
• Reporting line: who the hire reports to and who reports to them
• Must-have requirements: qualification, minimum experience, specific technical requirements
• Nice-to-have requirements: sector experience, specific systems, additional skills
• Salary and total package: base, bonus, pension, benefits, equity if applicable
• Working arrangements: days in office, flexibility, travel requirements
• Timeline: when you need someone in post, availability for interviews
• Why this is a good opportunity: what makes this role and business attractive to a strong candidate

Further Reading

• REC: Recruitment Industry Trends — the Recruitment and Employment Confederation’s research on UK hiring markets, useful for understanding current market conditions.
• ICAEW: Finance Function Leadership — guidance on finance team structure that informs how to define the right brief for different business stages.
• GOV.UK: Employment Agencies and Businesses — the regulatory framework governing recruitment agencies in the UK, including the Employment Agencies Act and conduct regulations.
• CIMA: Management Accounting Principles — useful for understanding the competency framework against which you are assessing Finance Manager and FC candidates.