Financial services employers are rethinking their model employee profiles and employer brands as they face having to recover public confidence in the wake of the economic downturn.

Candidates who embody the values of integrity, reliability and tenacity will be the recruits of choice for financial services businesses, according to Virginia Begg, an interim resourcing consultant who works with FTSE 100 companies. “They must be able to emphathise with the customer,” Begg told Recruiter.

She added that financial services businesses will have to “work on their employment brand to even attract new employees”.

Accountants have taken much of the blame for deep cost cutting and job losses during the downturn, and accountancy employers now want to hire accountants with good interrelationship skills “almost to repair the damage”, said Graeme Read, managing director of recruiter Antal International Network. “Accountants have been the ones laying down the law,” Read told Recruiter.

Read also warned that UK business generally would see “a lot of volume staff turnover” in the next six months. He added: “I don’t see a lot of companies preparing for it right now.