News & Thoughts

.When you’re hiring, you want to attract the right talent. Getting the salary and benefits package is obviously important, and these days, it’s not a nice-to-have anymore, it’s business-critical. If you offer too little, you might miss out on the expertise that you need. If you pay someone too much, you risk internal disparity and unsustainable costs in the long term.

Companies can shorten the recruitment process for financial controllers by improving job clarity, using pre-vetted talent pools, streamlining assessments, and automating admin tasks. These changes cut time-to-hire without sacrificing quality, making it easier to secure top talent for critical finance roles.

TLDR; The HR talent market in Sheffield is competitive, with rising demand for experienced professionals and a limited supply of candidates. Employers using specialist HR recruiters gain faster access to pre-vetted talent, clearer market insights, and more efficient hiring processes, helping them secure the right hire before competitors.

Six months ago, Eleanor Kirk joined our transactional finance team, working out of our Sheffield offices. We hired her for her resourcing experience, and candidate management skills, but also for her personality – she’s upbeat, driven and she wants to learn everything. We sat down with Eleanor and her manager, Hannah Sharp, to talk about how she’s found it so far and get her to tell us what sets Sewell Wallis apart from the rest.

​Technical proficiency alone no longer guarantees success in a finance career these days. The people responsible for hiring are putting a lot more focus on soft skills - communication, adaptability, empathy - and these are becoming essential, not desirable. Business partnering in the finance sector is much more prevalent these days, and recently collected data only highlights the growing importance and the tangible impact these skills have on both your individual finance careers and the sector as a whole.​

Stepping into a managerial role is a big moment. But let’s get one thing clear: being a manager shouldn’t be a reward for long service. It’s a job in its own right, and it demands a very specific set of skills.

Today’s workplace moves at an ever-increasing pace, and while technical know-how will get you so far, strong HR professional interpersonal skills are the things that build trust, encourage change, and make businesses better places to work for everyone.

We’re nearly halfway through 2025, and whilst we shouldn’t need to be still having the conversation around the gender wage gap, and how women are kept out of boardrooms and passed over for opportunities, we are. Many businesses shout the words equality and diversity from various rooftops, yet despite these good intentions, these gaps and deficiencies still exist. Let’s be fair, it’s not all doom and gloom. The gender pay gap has been closing year by year, due to changes in legislation requiring businesses with over 250 staff to report on their salaries. There are more women than ever before in senior leadership roles, and whilst we no longer scoff at the idea of women in the boardroom, there’s still work to be done. Here at Sewell Wallis, we like to talk about difficult topics, and we like to get everyone involved in these conversations.