The New Rules of Fintech Hiring: Why the Best Search Doesn't Always Start With a Job Posting

At first glance, fintech hiring should be getting easier.

Post a role today and applications will come in. LinkedIn has made professional networks more accessible than ever, job boards give companies instant reach, and AI now helps candidates find and apply for roles faster.

But ask a hiring manager looking for a strong fintech professional, and you may hear a very different story: plenty of CVs come in, and finding the right person is still hard.

The numbers reflect the same problem. In LinkedIn's 2026 talent research, 66% of recruiters said finding qualified talent had become harder over the previous year. And SmartRecruiters' 2025 Recruiting Benchmarks analysed 89 million applications across 1.5 million jobs and found that the average role received 73 applications, while only 3 candidates reached an interview.

AI is adding another layer to this. Applying is becoming faster and easier for candidates, but a higher number of applications does not automatically give companies a stronger shortlist. LinkedIn describes the growing challenge as one of signal quality: finding the relevant people among all that volume.

And in fintech, some of the strongest candidates may never enter that application pile at all.

Why don't the best fintech candidates apply?

We see this often in our own work at Evotym, especially with senior and highly specialised fintech professionals.

They may already have a good job and no urgent reason to look for another one. They are not checking every new vacancy or sending CVs every week. Still, the right role, company or challenge may get their attention.

This matters even more at the executive level. As we explain in our article on why strong fintech executives are often not looking for a job, many already have strong industry networks, are approached directly by recruiters and companies, and have little reason to actively apply themselves.

Now add specific requirements: payments experience, a particular market, a certain product background, location and seniority. Suddenly, hundreds of LinkedIn profiles can turn into a much shorter list of people who actually match.

So where do you look when applications are not enough?

Where do fintech companies find talent today?

Our Founder & CEO, Anastasia Zencika, uses a simple framework when fintech companies ask where they should start looking for candidates.

Her recommendation is to work through several channels, roughly in this order:

1. Start with your own network. As a founder, you already know which companies perform well and where strong people come from.
2. Ask your mentors and investors. A warm introduction from someone you trust can move much faster than cold outreach.
3. Use LinkedIn for direct outreach. Identify strong specialists and approach them personally.
4. Use job portals. They still work well, especially when the candidate pool is broader.
5. Bring in a specialised recruitment agency when needed. An industry-specific agency can search beyond the people already visible to your company and give you access to an existing fintech network.

We explain how each of these channels works, when to use them and why the order matters in our guide on where to find fintech talent.

However, there is one more option worth checking before starting a search from scratch: strong candidates who are already in an existing recruitment network.

At Evotym, our Recruitment Partners are constantly reviewing applications, sourcing candidates, conducting interviews and staying in touch with professionals across fintech, payments and crypto.

Some of these people match an open role immediately. Others do not: perhaps the right position is not open yet, the location does not work, or the candidate is looking for something a particular client cannot offer.

That does not make them less interesting.

For years, we simply kept strong candidates in our internal database and returned to them when a relevant role appeared. Today, our network includes more than 47,000 fintech professionals.

Then we realised we could give both sides a better chance: candidates a chance to be seen, and companies a chance to find someone they may never have come across otherwise.

And this is where our Talent Board story begins.

"Do you already have someone like this?"

For this article, we spoke with Oksana Bazeliuk, Marketing Lead at Evotym and Project Manager of the Evotym Talent Board, about how the product was built and why we decided to launch it.

The original idea came from Evotym Founder & CEO Anastasia Zencika, and Oksana immediately recognised the problem behind it.

"We have a huge candidate database, and some really strong people in it are simply waiting for the right opportunity." – she says. 

At the same time, clients were asking us one question more and more often:

Do you already have someone like this in your database?

Often, we did.

Usually, a new search starts with several steps: defining the role, agreeing on the requirements, looking at the market, sourcing candidates and only then starting conversations.

But often the right person is already in the network, and those first conversations have already happened.

That is the core idea behind the Evotym Talent Board.

"If you need someone immediately and don't want to spend a lot of time starting a search from scratch, you can first look at the Talent Board. The person you need may already be there," says Oksana.

How does the Evotym Talent Board work?

We could explain it with a very serious process diagram. Oksana has a much more memorable version:

"Think of the Talent Board a bit like a market. You come in, look around, choose a nice tomato and say: 'I want this one.' And we say: yes, that tomato really is good. We chose it ourselves and looked after it with love."

The real process follows the same simple logic. Companies can browse anonymised candidate profiles on the Talent Board and see the information needed for an initial decision, including:

• location;
• seniority;
• industry background;
• languages;
• salary expectations;
• professional experience.

The candidate's name remains private at this stage.

If a profile looks relevant, the company contacts us. We reconnect with the candidate, confirm that the opportunity is still relevant for them, sign a simple agreement with the company and make the introduction.

From there, both sides can meet and decide whether the match makes sense.

Who makes it onto the Talent Board?

This is probably the most important part.

The Talent Board is curated by our Recruitment Partners. We do not upload every person from the Evotym internal database.

The people you see there are professionals we have already spoken with and consider strong based on their experience, expertise and our conversations with them.

Simply put, they are candidates we are proud to introduce and want more fintech companies to know about.

That also answers another obvious question:

If these candidates are so good, why haven't they already been hired?

As Oksana explains:

"Sometimes the right match simply hasn't happened yet because of the circumstances. There may be no suitable vacancy at the moment, the right role may be in another country, the company may need a different combination of skills, or the right opportunity may simply appear a few months later. None of that says anything negative about the candidate."

Why not search LinkedIn yourself?

You can.

And for many roles, LinkedIn should absolutely be one of your search channels.

But finding a profile is only the first step.

You still need to understand whether the person is actually open to a move, what they want from their next role, what their salary expectations are, whether their background matches your actual requirements and whether your opportunity is interesting to them.

With candidates on the Talent Board, we have already had those initial conversations. We know more than what appears in a public profile: the candidate's professional background, career goals, motivation and what they are looking for next.

"The value is not just in seeing another CV. We have already spoken with these people, discussed their background, goals and expectations, and understand what kind of opportunities may be relevant to them. So when a company sees a profile on the Board, part of that initial work has already been done." – explains Oksana. 

The company still needs to meet the candidate and decide whether they fit the role and the people they will work with. A lot of the work that usually happens at the very beginning of a search has already been done.

And that matters when time is important. And in fintech it’s important more than everywhere else. 

Based on our internal hiring data, companies take around 40 days on average to make a hiring decision, while senior fintech roles typically take around 4-8 weeks from brief to signed offer.

With the Talent Board, you can skip part of the early search and see who is available right now.

When does the Talent Board make the most sense?

When we asked Oksana where the Talent Board can make the biggest difference for a company, she pointed to a few hiring situations.

You need someone yesterday

You have an open role and speed matters. Before beginning a completely new search, you can check whether a relevant candidate is already on the Board.

You want to see who is on the market

Maybe you know you need a compliance specialist, sales lead or AML professional and still have questions. What kind of profiles are actually available? Where are they based? What industries have they worked in? What salary expectations should you plan for?

The Board gives you an initial view of experience, locations, industries and salary expectations before you define a wider search.

You are hiring, but want to check the market before a full search

You have an open role and are ready to hire. Before launching a broader search, you can check whether the right person is already on the Talent Board. If not, you can always ask us whether we already know someone suitable or move on to a full recruitment search.

You want a more cost-efficient option

Talent Board candidates come with a discount compared with our standard recruitment search because part of the sourcing and initial assessment has already been completed. Specific terms still depend on the case.

When is a full search the better choice?

The Talent Board does not cover every hiring scenario.

If you need a very specific combination of experience, geography and skills, the right person may simply not be there today.

You may also want a broader shortlist to compare, or need deeper market mapping and active sourcing for a senior or executive role.

In those cases, a full recruitment search with us makes more sense. 

And if you are not yet sure what kind of profile you need, you can still start with the Talent Board: have a look at the candidates, see who is available and get in touch with us. We can help you understand the market and decide what kind of search would make the most sense for your role.

What do we hope the Talent Board will do?

The business case for the Talent Board is straightforward: faster access to candidates, a lower fee than a full search and another way to understand what talent is already available on the market.

There is another side too.

Every person on the Board is someone who we have met, listened to and genuinely want to see in the right role. For Oksana, that is what the whole project is about:

"Maybe the company would never have found this person itself. Maybe the candidate would never have heard about this company. And we can put them in front of each other and say: look, perhaps you were searching for each other."

That is probably the simplest way to explain what we want the Talent Board to do.

If you are currently hiring in fintech or simply want to see who is already available, explore the Evotym Talent Board and browse the candidates our Recruitment Partners have selected.

Found someone you would like to meet? Click Contact Us on the Talent Board and we will get in touch to take it from there.