Introduction: Why Entry-Level Finance Hiring Feels Broken
For graduates aspiring to launch careers in finance and investments in the Netherlands, the early steps often feel discouraging. As of 2025, just over 80 graduate-level finance jobs are listed nationally (Glassdoor, 2025), despite thousands of applicants vying for them. Add to this the reality that Dutch hiring processes can take anywhere from under a week to more than a month (Reddit, 2025), and it’s clear why many candidates feel stuck.
Employers face a different challenge. They report being overwhelmed by applicant volume but underwhelmed by signal quality. The CIPD Labour Market Outlook shows that over half of employers across Europe struggle to hire candidates with the right skills (CIPD, 2023). Universities meanwhile attempt to align teaching with industry needs—balancing theory-heavy finance courses with hands-on training in modeling, compliance, and data analysis.
The outcome is systemic friction. Graduates feel invisible, employers gamble on proxies, and universities are caught in the middle.
At Talantir, we believe the solution lies in a shift: evaluating capability through real-world tasks, not just CVs.
Current Frictions in Early-Career Finance Hiring
1. Application Volume
Entry-level finance roles in the Netherlands are scarce, but demand is high. Each open role attracts dozens, sometimes hundreds, of applications. Employers lean on automated filters or degree prestige, which risks excluding capable candidates who lack keywords but possess real potential.
2. Time to Hire
Finance hiring in the Netherlands is often prolonged. While some roles move quickly, others stretch over several weeks, with time-to-hire benchmarks in Dutch markets ranging from under a week to more than a month (Reddit, 2025). For students, this means uncertainty; for employers, it means delayed onboarding and stalled projects.
3. Skills Mismatch
The CIPD Labour Market Outlook reports more than half of employers face mismatches in graduate skills (CIPD, 2023). In finance, mismatches often occur when graduates understand theoretical models but lack fluency in tools like Excel VBA, Python for financial analysis, or compliance workflows. This slows readiness and reduces employer confidence.
4. Poor Signal Quality
Resumes don’t reveal whether a candidate can prepare an investment memo, run a sensitivity analysis, or explain financial results to non-specialists. Interviews reward confidence but don’t always surface analytical rigor or ethical judgment. Employers make high-stakes decisions with incomplete evidence.
5. Assessment Drift
Some firms rely on abstract aptitude tests or lengthy case studies that diverge from real work. Candidates may spend hours preparing pitch decks or solving puzzles that don’t reflect day-one responsibilities. This frustrates applicants and doesn’t help employers identify genuine fit.
Why Finance and Investment Roles Are Hard to Evaluate Early
Finance roles require a blend of skills that are difficult to judge through traditional methods:
- Hybrid skill sets: Analysts must master technical modeling, regulatory awareness, and communication. Graduates rarely arrive with all three.
- Rapidly evolving tools: Data-driven finance increasingly uses Python, Power BI, and machine learning, but curricula often lag.
- Unclear job titles: “Analyst,” “Investment Associate,” “Graduate Finance Trainee”—titles overlap, creating confusion.
- High stakes: Errors in analysis or compliance can have major reputational and financial costs, so employers are risk-averse.
Employers respond by narrowing pipelines to certain schools or certifications, which excludes talented candidates who may not have elite credentials but do have ability.
The Alternative: Work-Sample Evaluation
Work-sample evaluation provides a fairer, clearer way to identify readiness. Instead of relying on CVs or abstract tests, candidates complete short, realistic tasks that reflect day-one work.
For finance and investment roles, work samples could include:
- Preparing a short investment summary from a dataset
- Running a simple financial model and explaining assumptions
- Drafting a compliance-ready report section
- Communicating findings in a brief presentation for non-finance stakeholders
These tasks can be completed in 30–90 minutes and reveal problem-solving, attention to detail, and communication—far more than resumes.
Why it works:
- Students: Gain fairer opportunities to show capability, even without top-tier internships.
- Employers: Get sharper, more reliable signals of readiness.
- Universities: Align learning with real-world expectations, improving employability.
Research confirms that work-sample assessments are among the strongest predictors of job performance. In finance—where clarity and accuracy matter—this approach offers immediate benefits.
Talantir’s Perspective: Capability-First for Finance
At Talantir, our model is built on capability-first readiness and hiring. Students complete structured roadmaps with job-based cases, then move into challenges aligned to employer needs.
For finance and investment roles, this could look like:
- Roadmap cases: preparing cash-flow forecasts, analyzing company filings, or creating sensitivity tables.
- Milestones: completing integrated projects such as building an investment model and writing an accompanying memo.
- Challenges: employer-aligned tasks such as assessing a mock portfolio or reviewing compliance scenarios.
For students: This provides clarity on whether finance fits their skills and gives them a portfolio to showcase.
For employers: Instead of 200+ CVs, they review deep candidate profiles, complete with AI-generated abstracts of how students approached tasks.
For universities: Roadmaps can be embedded into programs, offering analytics on readiness and stronger alignment with employers.
By emphasizing real work over proxies, Talantir reduces friction, builds confidence, and strengthens the link between study and work.
Conclusion: What If We Evaluated Real Work, Not Promises?
The early-career finance and investment job market in the Netherlands is stuck: scarce openings, long timelines, mismatched skills, and weak hiring signals. CVs and interviews cannot capture what matters most—whether a graduate can deliver value on day one.
Work-sample evaluation offers a reset. By focusing on authentic, manageable tasks, employers can identify talent faster, students gain visibility, and universities can close the skills gap.
What if we evaluated real work, not promises? That’s the question Talantir puts at the heart of early-career hiring.
Explore how work-sample evaluation can reset early-career hiring standards.