The war for talent continues to escalate! Crypto companies are offering hundreds of positions to compete for top talent

Booming cryptocurrency companies are struggling to find suitable candidates to fill hundreds of positions as the craze for digital currencies and other assets puts them in competition with some of the world’s largest financial institutions, according to an article published today by Bloomberg.

Despite a plunge in May, the total market value of cryptocurrencies has grown 400% over the past year to about $1.4 trillion, with traditional financial firms such as Goldman Sachs, Bank of New York Mellon and DBS Group beginning to offer related services and trading. Meanwhile, firms such as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange are expanding their offerings of crypto derivatives products, all of which are helping the asset class mature.

The article notes that this leaves crypto companies that need dozens or hundreds of new employees to expand their businesses with fewer candidates.

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, is advertising for about 370 positions worldwide, according to the LinkedIn job portal. New York-based Gemini plans to increase its Singapore headcount from 30 to 50 by December. Hong Kong-based Crypto.com, which has more than 900 employees, has more than 200 job openings on its job page.

“We are actively hiring. We see the industry growing exponentially every year, and we need to expand our team to cope with it,” Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said in an email.

For potential candidates, interest in crypto jobs has increased about five to 10 times in the past nine months, said Neil Dundon, founder of recruitment agency Crypto Recruit. A single job posting can attract hundreds of applicants, he said.

Yet finding candidates with relevant experience can be difficult, which means some companies are lowering expectations or changing job standards.

“One to two years is enough now in terms of work experience,” Dundon said. “The skills shortage is so severe at the moment that companies are casting a wide net.”

Jeremy Ng, head of Asia Pacific at Gemini, and Tom Lau, director of talent acquisition at Crypto.com, both agree that experience is a major challenge.

“If you want to find someone with deep crypto knowledge, it’s not easy,” said Jeremy Ng.

Ng said Gemini is considering expanding into markets such as Hong Kong and Australia in the next 12 months and is offering benefits including unlimited vacation and profit-sharing plans to attract global talent.

Ng and Zhao prefer candidates with expertise in banking and fintech because those skills are transferable to new positions.

“Developers and customer support are two of the larger teams in our organization, and they are usually in the highest demand from a hiring perspective,” Zhao said. “Luckily, these are the same skills used by large internet companies. We see a lot of interest in internet companies and other crypto projects.”

Bobby Ong, co-founder and COO of crypto data company Coingecko.com, recently tweeted that it was becoming increasingly difficult to find suitable employees in Malaysia. He said the company had made internal adjustments and now offers some positions that can work fully remotely from anywhere in the world.

Some compensation packages include a token component, and if token prices plummet during the hiring process, the deal may need to be renegotiated, Dundon said.

“We are competing with companies like investment banks or big tech companies, so we have to pay parity or premium,” Lau said. “This will make the market even hotter.”