Ron van Haeff
Director Interim Services
Treasury is one of those areas in finance that looks straightforward, but becomes highly specialised the moment you get closer. Cash, funding, risk, banking relationships, FX, liquidity… it all sounds familiar, until you realise how different each treasury setup is. And that is where things often go wrong in recruitment.
In many large corporates, hiring a treasurer is still approached like a standard finance hire. A solid finance profile, a few years of experience, good stakeholder management skills, and ideally some exposure to systems. It maybe makes sense on paper, but it doesn’t often works that easily in reality.
Because treasury is a niche discipline with its own language, dynamics and talent pool, not a generalist function.
The first challenge starts with the intake
Most recruitment processes begin with a conversation between HR and the hiring manager. The intention is good, but the outcome is usually too broad.
What HR hears is something like: someone with 5 to 10 years of experience, strong analytical skills, and preferably exposure to treasury systems or cash management.
What treasury actually needs can be very different depending on the organisation. A centralised treasury in a global corporate is something else entirely than a decentralised structure across multiple business units. Add funding complexity, FX exposure or M&A activity, and you are suddenly talking about a completely different profile.
Without a deeper context, the role easily turns into a wish list rather than a realistic candidate profile.
The market is smaller than most people expect
One of the biggest misconceptions is that treasury talent is widely available. It is not.
Good treasury professionals are usually not actively looking. They are already embedded in roles where they manage complex structures, work closely with CFOs, and have built up deep institutional knowledge over time. Meaning that the best candidates are hidden in plain sight. They are not scrolling job boards or responding to generic outreach, and they are certainly not applying to broad finance vacancies.
So, when sourcing stays within active channels, a large part of the market is never reached.
Screening treasury talent is not easy without context
Many candidates have similar profiles. Experience with cash management, some exposure to FX, maybe a treasury management system in their CV. But the depth can vary significantly. One candidate might have owned liquidity strategy across multiple countries. Another might have supported parts of a process without ever owning the outcome.
For HR teams without treasury background, it is not always easy to distinguish between exposure and ownership. And that is where mismatches tend to happen.
Time kills momentum!
Treasury candidates are usually in demand. When they decide to move, they often have multiple conversations running at the same time.
This is where corporate hiring processes sometimes struggle. Multiple interview rounds, internal alignment cycles, and slow feedback loops can easily stretch the process over weeks. In the meantime, strong candidates accept other offers, because your process took too long.
In this market, speed is not a nice to have. Read Antonio’s short article: Can Companies Afford Slow Hiring Processes Anymore?
Your message is too generic
Many treasury roles are still described in very broad terms. International environment, dynamic team, interesting challenges. While these statements are not wrong, they do not really speak to treasury professionals.
What they want to understand is more specific:
- How complex is the funding structure;
- How much autonomy they will have;
- What systems are in place;
- How close they sit to strategic decision making;
- Whether they will actually influence liquidity and risk decisions or mainly execute them.
When that level of clarity is missing, strong candidates tend to move on quickly.
Where a specialist recruiter actually adds value
In a niche like treasury, recruitment is about translating a complex business need into a realistic and attractive market message.
A specialist understands how treasury functions are structured, what good looks like in practice, and where the real talent sits. They know which profiles are strong, not just well presented. And they can engage candidates who are not actively looking but open to the right opportunity.
Just as importantly, they can challenge assumptions early in the process:
- Is the profile realistic;
- Is the scope too broad;
- Is the salary aligned with the market.
That kind of feedback often prevents months of searching in the wrong direction.
If you have to hire without an external specialist
Sometimes organisations choose to run the process internally. That can work well, but it requires a slightly different approach.
It starts with going deeper in the intake than usual. How the treasury function actually operates day to day, not just what the role should do. What decisions are made, what systems are used, and where the real complexity sits.
From there, it helps to define the role in context rather than in skills alone. Instead of listing requirements, describe the environment. The scale, the structure, the exposure to risk or funding decisions. That alone already attracts a more relevant candidate group.
Another important factor is focus on sourcing. Looking at peer organisations with similar treasury setups is often far more effective than broad market searches. Treasury talent tends to cluster in comparable environments.
And finally, speed matters more than you realise. Two or three well-structured interviews, fast feedback, and clear decision making will outperform a longer and more cautious process almost every time.
Conclusion
Treasury recruitment is about precision! Small differences in experience can have a big impact on performance, especially in roles that directly influence liquidity, funding and financial risk.
That is why the best hires in treasury should be understood, identified and engaged in the right way.
And in a market this specialised, that difference matters more than most organisations initially expect.
