Why Strong Fintech Executives Are Often Not Looking for a Job

Your next C-level hire may never apply for your vacancy.

Strong fintech executives are often already doing well where they are. They usually have a strong network across the industry, new opportunities reach them directly, and their current company also wants to keep them.

So even if they would consider a move, you may never see their CV in your applicant list.

We spoke with Dari Lenko, Recruitment Delivery Partner at Evotym, about what she sees when working with C-level candidates, why strong executives stay outside the active job market, and what companies can do to reach them.

Step 1. Check the Market Before You Start Searching

A C-level brief can look perfectly reasonable on paper: fintech experience, regulatory knowledge, leadership experience, a certain location, maybe several languages, a specific compensation range.

Then you start searching and realise there may be plenty of strong candidates, but very few who match all of those requirements at the same time. For example, a payments company may need a CFO with fintech experience who has also managed treasury, safeguarding, regulatory reporting and banking relationships in a similarly regulated environment.

This part is easy to underestimate in fintech. 

From the outside, the fintech market can look huge. Established financial companies, scale-ups, and fast-growing start-ups are all competing for talent. But once the requirements become more specific, the number of executives who actually fit can become surprisingly small.

That is why we conduct market mapping for executive roles at Evotym. It helps us and the client understand the size of the realistic talent pool, where relevant executives are currently working, which profiles are genuinely comparable, and which requirements are narrowing the search.

"One of the first questions we often help clients answer is what the realistic talent market looks like for a particular combination of requirements," Dari Lenko explains."Market mapping gives us a clearer picture of how many relevant profiles exist, where they are, and which requirements have the biggest impact on the available pool."

Step 2. Look Beyond Applications

Many C-level candidates do not rely on job applications when considering their next move. However, we do sometimes receive applications from executives through Evotym Careers, and some of them move through the interview process and even reach the final stages.

So applications are still worth having. They just do not show you everyone who could be interested.

Executives often spend years building visibility across the fintech market. If they start thinking about a career move, they may already know who to speak to.

That's why these candidates usually don't need to actively look for something new. New opportunities often come to them directly.

"They often don't need to actively approach the market themselves. They already have an established network, and recruiters are often reaching out to them directly." – explains Dari. 

For an executive search, this means looking beyond whoever happens to apply. For example, sometimes we already know people in our network who could fit the role. In other searches, we identify specific companies, markets, and backgrounds and approach executives directly.

We explain how job boards, networks, referrals, and direct outreach work together in our guide to where to find fintech talent. And if you want to see what that direct approach looks like from the candidate side, we have also broken down how fintech executive search works for candidates.

Your applicant list can be useful. It should not define the limits of your search.

Step 3. Learn What Matters to the Candidate

Once you find an executive who looks right on paper, another question appears:

Why should they reply and say "yes" to an interview invitation?

The answer will be different for different people.

Previous experience can give you useful clues about what may matter to them. Understanding their motivation requires an actual conversation – for example, someone who has spent 10 years working in banks may still be interested in joining a start-up precisely because they want to build something from scratch.

"You need to understand where the candidate has worked, what kind of environment they perform best in, what motivates them, and what they would not want to repeat," Dari says."Then you can come to them with a role that actually fits, rather than just another vacancy with the right title."

And a personal touch matters a lot here. Sometimes our relationships with C-level candidates start months before the right role appears.

For example, Dari stays in touch with executive candidates she has worked with or spoken to before, keeps track of their career moves and checks in from time to time.

Then, when a suitable opportunity comes up, she already has context. And the candidate also knows who is contacting them and why.

This kind of relationship takes more effort than sending the same message to 50 people. For a C-level search, that context can be much more useful than volume.

Step 4. Check the Level Behind the Title

Finding an executive with the right title is only the beginning.

For C-level roles, the same title can mean very different levels of responsibility. 2 candidates may both be CFOs in fintech, while the scale, complexity, and scope of their roles are completely different.

This is why the assessment needs to go beyond job titles and years of experience.

Look at:

• what they have actually built;
• which problems they have solved;
• how they worked with founders, boards, regulators, investors, and other senior stakeholders; 
• the scale they have worked at;
• the regulatory environment they know;
• what they were personally responsible for;
• the size of the team they managed;
• which decisions they had the authority to make;
• what changed in the business because they were there;
• why they left previous companies;
• what evidence supports their impact. 

For example, 2 candidates may both have CFO, EMI on their CV.

One may have led the finance function in a €20m-revenue company with a team of 15. Another may have worked in a €200m+ business with responsibility for treasury, banking relationships, regulatory reporting, and fundraising.

On paper, both can look like "a fintech CFO."

For an executive search, they may represent very different levels of experience.

The key question is: has this person already solved a business problem similar to the one you are hiring them to solve, at a scale and level of complexity that make sense for your company?

Step 5. Give Them a Reason to Make the Move

Getting an executive into the process is only part of the job. Now they are comparing that position with yours.

At Evotym, we often see C-level candidates wanting to understand the things behind the job description. What is happening in the business? Why is this role open? What would they be responsible for? What could they change? Who would they be working with?

The company may already know why the opportunity is exciting. The candidate does not.

"Companies usually expect a candidate to research the business and come to the interview already interested," Dari says. "And that's fair. But at C-level, it really has to work from both sides. The company also needs to explain the opportunity and help the candidate understand why the move could make sense."

This becomes even more important when you approach the person first.

Give them enough context to make a serious decision. Talk about the product, business plans, leadership, challenges, and the real scope of the role: what they would be responsible for, what they would have the authority to change, and what success would look like.

Your employer brand also matters. Before a candidate agrees to a move, they will probably want to understand what your company is really like to work for. A strong employer brand helps them see the people behind the business, how the company works, and what kind of environment they would be joining.

In our article on fintech employer branding, we explain how companies can make this clearer by making leaders visible, sharing real employee stories, showing the business in action, and introducing candidates to the people they would actually work with.

And there is one more thing you can't underestimate – speed. Passive candidates are often evaluating several options, and a slow or unclear process can make a strong opportunity less attractive. The hiring team should agree on decision-makers, interview stages and timelines before the search begins.

Step 6. Stay Flexible During the Search

Even with market mapping and a clear brief, you will learn more once you start speaking to candidates.

You may find that the compensation range is too low for the people you want to attract. A single location may be making the pool too small. A requirement that looked important at the beginning may exclude executives who have almost everything else you need.

This is where some flexibility matters.

Before the search goes too far, decide which requirements are true dealbreakers and where you have room to move. The goal is to keep the standards high and focus on what really matters for success in the role.

• Which experience is truly essential to solving the business problem?
• Could you consider another location?
• Is every language essential?
• Could experience from an adjacent fintech sector work?
• Is the budget flexible for a candidate who brings significantly more relevant experience?

The answers may change once you see who is actually available.

A search for the "perfect" profile can easily become too narrow. At some point, the key question is: can this person actually solve the problem we are hiring them to solve? If the answer is yes, it is worth focusing on the whole profile over any single missing box. 

Dari also recommends paying attention to patterns as the search develops. If strong executives repeatedly decline because of the same requirement, compensation level, location, or part of the opportunity, that is useful market feedback.

"What works for other roles may not work here. You need to keep testing your assumptions against the market and the candidates throughout the search. At C-level, the goal isn't to generate the largest number of profiles, but to identify people who can genuinely solve the business problem." – shares Dari. 

Keeping some flexibility in the brief gives you more room to react to what the market is actually telling you and focus on the executives who can bring the most value to the business.

Ready to Start Your Fintech Executive Search?

Evotym runs executive searches for fintech companies across Europe and the UK.

We help clients define which executive they actually need, test that profile against the real market, and assess candidates based on whether they can solve the business problem behind the hire.

We start by understanding exactly who the company needs and what the market for that executive actually looks like. From there, we map the market, approach relevant executives, assess candidates, and support the process through to the final hire.

If you're planning a C-level hire and want to know who is actually out there, let's talk.