Financial-services hiring is leaning towards genuinely senior, qualified roles. Recent government analysis found that in the financial services sector, recruitment was generally for Regulatory Qualification Framework (RQF) 6+ roles, rather than RQF 3 to 5 GOV.UK - Temporary Shortage List: Stage 2 report. In plain terms, RQF 6+ sits at degree level and above, so employers are competing for people with deeper technical skill and accountability.
That shift matters for how you assess people. When the bar is set at RQF 6+ roles GOV.UK - Temporary Shortage List: Stage 2 report, a polished CV only tells you so much. You need a way to see whether someone can handle the judgement, the numbers and the regulatory care the job demands before you make an offer.
Because the person you hire will spend their week doing those duties, not answering trick questions. If the advert says someone will reconcile month-end ledgers, prepare a board pack or flag a suspicious transaction, each line is a ready-made task. You already know what good looks like, so scoring is fair and consistent.
With more hiring aimed at RQF 6+ roles GOV.UK - Temporary Shortage List: Stage 2 report, realistic tasks are the fairest test of the deeper technical skill those roles require. A work sample drawn from real duties also reads as respectful: you are asking people to show what they would actually do, not to jump through hoops.
Start with the three or four duties that matter most, then turn each into a short, time-boxed task. Keep them close to a real day: a cash-flow forecast from a messy spreadsheet, a variance note for a non-finance manager, or a spot-the-error reconciliation.
Good work samples also check for the regulatory care that financial-services roles demand. A well-designed task can show whether someone questions odd figures, documents their working and knows when to escalate, which is exactly the judgement you are hiring for.
We read the duties in your job advert and search a database of 15 million candidates to surface people who can actually do that work, then rank them so you can move straight to realistic tasks and interviews. Our recruitment agent manages recruitment end to end for 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost. Tell Reed.ai about the role today and see your shortlist.
