Ten years ago, the idea of working in superannuation had people running for the hills. Superannuation was viewed as dull, underpaid, and definitely not the sexiest of sectors in financial services. However, as the dark cloud of the Global Financial Crisis seems to be slowly dispersing, superannuation has emerged as the industry’s “new black”.  But as a result of this increasing strength and growth within the sector, the talent supply is struggling to keep up with demand.

Current trends suggest that the superannuation employment market has made a strong start in 2011 and we are anticipating 2012 will be even stronger. This is good news as 2010 was ultimately a disappointing year for people looking around for new opportunities. While there was consistent hiring for much of 2010, there was a “wait and see” attitude by organisations, with attention focused on the Federal election outcome and Government policy rather than the creation of new roles. However, hiring activity at all levels (executive, mid and junior) has been very strong since October 2010 and, as confidence continues to grow within the economy, we are expecting this surge of activity to continue. As a result of increased hiring in the first half of 2011 employers are starting to report talent shortages across a range of job families, in particular, distribution, product and marketing.

More specifically, recent trends suggest a rise in demand for managers and team leaders specialising in various areas of superannuation to accommodate the rapidly growing member and employee services teams. There has also been an increase in demand for those with actuarial qualifications or with a highly-developed technical skill set. As for the senior roles, recruitment activity has been particularly focused on executives with strong client facing skills. The ability to ‘sell’ an organisational message and to powerfully lead and influence thinking and outcomes in an organisation, or across the industry, has never been in higher demand.

Employers cannot afford to rely on market fluctuation to supply candidates; they need to have a proactive and effective recruitment strategy in place to ensure growth.

We are only going to see superannuation grow, particularly when contributions increase, and we don’t believe there will be enough talent to meet business growth. After three tough years and a soft employment market, it is easy to forget how difficult it is to do business in a talent-short market. Within two to three years, we expect to be facing a talent shortage across the whole sector, similar to what we experienced in 2006-2007.

There are five main challenges typically faced by employers when recruiting in the superannuation sector:

• The first challenge is the superannuation industry itself; it is a small community with a limited number of organisations and candidates. The close knit nature of the sector means that when someone is available or is looking for a new role they often move very quickly (you may not even know they are in the market or, even if you do, they move so quickly you don’t have time to act).
• Superannuation is a highly-specialised sector and it can take years of professional development and experience for an employee to develop a specific skill set.  Therefore, the talent pool that employers are drawing from is extremely small.
• Frequently we are finding that employers’ expectations are not aligned with the financial expectations, skills and experience level of the talent available in the market.  We are encountering clients who are either unable to afford the candidate they want  to hire or they are unwilling to pay for the available level of experience or skill set the potential employee has to offer.
• We are witnessing an increasingly prevailing view by employers that industry consolidation will provide a resulting fall-out talent pool from which to draw new employees. In our experience, this is not proving to be the case and consolidation is unlikely to alleviate talent shortages.
• Large and broadly-based financial services groups (yes, the Big Four) have re-focused on diversity over the past eighteen months. This means offering a range of flexible workplace options, career development and progression which can be difficult to compete with when you are a significantly smaller organisation with far fewer resources to invest in your people.

Organisations must recognise the importance of these challenges and their impact on their own firm. Employers would benefit from reviewing their talent management strategies and addressing talent issues both prior to recruitment and after the employee is hired. This includes the recognition of talent needs through strategic human resource planning.

Apart from the obvious solution of attracting candidates with salary, another option is to offer job flexibility. While we have all been hearing about flexibility for many years, how many organisations have truly undergone a true paradigm shift in this area?

Many organisations are “stuck in a rut” of setting up expectations and narrowly defining roles based on what “we have always done” or what is traditionally done by everyone else in their sector. While it is true that many organisations now offer flexible hours and working from home, how deep have employers really gone? As recruiters we frequently hear, “this is a senior role, we need someone five days a week”, “this is a key role, we have to have this person based in head office. A commute or working remotely just isn’t going to work.” This attitude is not necessarily bad in itself, but in changing times it is important for employers to be challenging their thinking in a much more profound way; using yesterday’s criteria to solve today’s problems is not an effective solution for matching our current needs to the available supply (or lack of) talent.

SYDNEY, 15 June 2011 – Overseas experience is crucial to developing a career in finance, according to a survey of 3,019 Asia Pacific finance professionals conducted by eFinancialCareers in May and June 2011.

According to the eFinancialCareers’ Movement of Finance Professionals Survey, 88% of finance professionals surveyed thought overseas experience was important or very important to their career, while 91% would consider taking a role abroad. Among Australians, 79% of finance professionals surveyed thought overseas experience was important or very important to their career, while 86% would consider taking a role abroad. Out of the 325 Australian finance professionals surveyed by eFinancialCareers, close to one in five (18%) of them are currently working abroad.

In terms of job opportunities, 68% of respondents from all markets believe Asia Pacific has the most job opportunities, and 65% of Australians concur.

When asked which city they are most keen on relocating to, Asian destinations were the most popular choice. Singapore (18%) came on top for finance professionals across all markets, closely followed by Hong Kong (14%) and London (12%). Australian respondents bucked this trend, instead preferring London (19%) and New York (18%) before Singapore (17%).

“These results show the level of intra-Asian mobility in financial markets,” said George McFerran, Head of Asia Pacific, eFinancialCareers. “However, New York and London remain the most popular choices for Australians to move to, even though they perceive most job opportunities are in Asia. It seems Australian finance professionals have not yet fully embraced the idea of relocating to Asia.”

“Given the opportunities on our doorstep, there really is no excuse for Asia-Pacific finance professionals not to have some international experience on their resume,” said McFerran. “In today’s highly mobile environment, staying at home is no longer an option.”

When it comes to explaining their preferred relocation choice, majority of Australian finance professionals cite better career opportunities, better pay and lower taxes. Sao Paulo, Mumbai, Geneva and Frankfurt, are amongst the least desirable places for relocation for Australian finance professionals.

More than three quarters (77%) of Australian finance professionals surveyed say they would require a 20% salary increase or higher to lure them abroad for a new job with a new firm, while only 5% indicated no amount can convince them.

According to the survey, the financial job market is livelier than the previous year. 77% of Australian finance professionals surveyed have been approached by headhunters or recruiters since the start of 2011 and 22% have been approached more than five times.

Despite this, finance professionals from Australia remain more cautious than their peers in other markets about the current job market outlook. The survey reveals that 36% of finance professionals from Australia believe it is easy to find a job in the current climate, which is significantly lower than the Asia Pacific average of 46%.

Finance professionals from Australia are, however, positive about the global economy with 83% feeling confident to very confident about the 2011 outlook. This was consistent with the overall survey result in which 89% of all respondents declared confidence in the world economy.

– Ends –

About the eFinancialCareers Movement of Finance Professionals Survey

The eFinancialCareers Movement of Finance Professionals Survey took place between May and June 2011. The survey polled a total of 3,019 respondents from Hong Kong, China, Singapore, and Australia, of which 325 are originally from Australia. The survey provides comprehensive research on finance professionals’ sentiments towards relocating abroad for work and their outlook on the finance job market in 2011.

About eFinancialCareers

eFinancialCareers, a Dice Holdings, Inc. service, is the leading global career site network for professionals working in the investment banking, asset management and securities industries. The website provides financial services professionals with job opportunities, job market news and analysis, salary surveys and career advice.  Recruiters and employers can post jobs targeting specific sectors within the financial services industry, both buy-side and sell-side, and can search the resume database for highly qualified and specialized professionals. eFinancialCareers has a network of co-branded career sites with industry-leading trade publications and offers local websites in 18 markets and 5 languages primarily across Asia-Pacific, North America, Europe and the Middle East.  Please visit www.eFinancialCareers.com.au for more information.

If you are interested in the future evolution of technology, check out this article by Ray Ozzie to Microsoft Staff.  Ray is the outgoing Chief Software Architect at Microsoft, a role he has held for the past five years (and was previously held by Bill Gates).

http://ozzie.net/docs/dawn-of-a-new-day/

And it isn’t just the media.  Over the past 10 days, I have been to two Banking and Financial Services events where the key note speakers addressed diversity within their business, specifically pertaining to the imbalance of women to men in senior roles.

One of the speakers acknowledged that their organisation had gone backwards in regards to diversity over the past two years; and in fact, the role responsible for diversity within their HR team had been made redundant during the GFC.

Last week, one of our clients, a global group, acknowledged at a quarterly review with its recruitment suppliers that it is well below national and global standards for women in senior roles.

This is very exciting, and no, I haven’t turned into a radical feminist.  The reason I am excited is that this is the most significant indicator of market recovery I have seen in some time.

The fact that global and local Banks and Financial Services groups are proactively raising and addressing diversity tells me how far organisational psyche has shifted back into business as usual.

In the past six weeks we have seen, across our business, a strong re-emergence of the sign on bonus and the counter offer. As a result we are now briefing our clients to expect this as a standard within a hiring process.

The employment market of 2007, which has been a distant memory for the past two years, is returning in full force. This is not to say 2010 won’t be a great year for hiring managers. There are a lot of talented people ready and keen to pursue new roles. However be ready to pay a premium and to work hard to get the person you want.

Salaries are increasing. Good people are currently exploring several options at the same time (internally and externally) and are receiving multiple offers. Bonuses were small last year, things have improved; don’t expect a good candidate to walk away from their bonus this year (two years in a row without a bonus is not acceptable to a high performer). Be prepared, have a back-up strategy, just in case your candidate of choice is successfully counter offered.

To find out more, click here to read our latest issue of Hiring Trends.

Feel free to share your thoughts and comments on hiring activity.

In January 2010, we received over 1200 new candidate registrations. That alone equated to 88% of the numbers from Q4 2009.  Even in the first five days of February, we had already had over 250 candidate registrations. This essentially means that we have exceeded the total registrations for Q4 2009, just six weeks into the year.

This is a strong and positive indication of the market’s increasing activity.

I’m even enjoying being able to say ‘twenty ten’, instead of the much longer ‘two thousand and nine’, which even in itself sounds and feels easier.

From a recruitment perspective January is traditionally a quiet month, however this year it’s been better than expected and we’ve seen a good steady flow of roles coming through, marking a busier than usual start to Q1.

These positive signs support what our colleagues and clients are all saying that  ‘twenty ten’ is certainly going to be a busier year for many of us.

In the weeks ahead I’ll be sharing the findings of our Hiring Trends Report for Q4 2009 – a review of job and hiring activity across key sectors and functional areas within the Banking and Financial Services market.  Our previous report for Q3 2009 can be viewed on our website.

I would also be more than happy to hear your views and perspectives on 2010, so do feel free to post any comments you may have.

And finally, to keep updated on future posts, simply subscribe to my blog.

Cheers – Simone

The employment market is reflecting a marked shift away from a series of tough quarters in late 2008 and early 2009 with most organisations actively hiring in the second half of 2009.

In the first half of the year there was limited hiring with organisations, in both the banking and financial services sectors, focusing on internal change (lots of restructuring) in order to increase efficiencies and maximise profits. As a result there was a steady level of hiring activity across the back office – in particular operations.

Responding to the need to increase revenue and market share the front office has followed suit in the second half of 2009 with aggressive recruitment of financial planners, relationship managers/ business development managers and other sales and marketing roles within business banking, platforms, insurance, superannuation and dealer groups. Significant uplifts (approximately 20-30%) were observed in July and again in October with new roles being created to suit the changing needs of businesses post GFC.

A key difference we experienced in 2009 compared to other periods of economic stress was that people were keen to assess new roles. Typically in any kind of down turn the last thing on anyone’s mind is changing their job. However during the GFC we had a completely different experience at Profusion. People (candidates) were very open to exploring new roles and changing employers; the view being “if I am being hired now, in these market conditions, it is because I am part of the solution and therefore key to business success”. Change equated to job security, not the other way round.

The outlook for the recruitment of new roles in 2010 is likely to be similar to the latter half of this year; steady. However I am expecting to see high turnover across most organisations as employees reassess their career options in the New Year. This is evidenced by the high level of interest we have from candidates. In late 2007 during the peak of the skills shortage we were likely to have two out of 10 people we head hunted about a role meet us to discuss the role; and those two were unconvinced about making a change. At the moment eight out of 10 people want to meet us to talk about a change and they are very keen to move.

My sense is that when you come through a crisis of any kind, a period of self reflection is normal. In 2010 we are heading into a market of intense self reflection with employees seeking a fresh start; whether that means a better role with more responsibility, more money, stronger and (more) functional leadership, or (more) competitive brand/ products to sell. It could also mean people are simply tired and were worn down during the GFC by too much change and they no longer feel the alignment to their employer that they did previously.

Whatever the motives, we expect to be extrememely busy in 2010 replacing roles due to resignation and a lesser degree internal progression.

All the best for a great New Year and I look forward to catching up with you in January

Cheers – Simone

Welcome to my blog! This blog is for anyone looking to receive insights on the latest happenings within the banking and financial services recruitment industry.

Having started out myself in the industry in 1998, I co-founded Profusion Group in 2004, specialising in the area of Executive Search.

As the year comes to an end, it is only right that I start this blog with a quick recap of 2009.

If there is anything you are particularly interested in hearing about, feel free to let me know.

I am open to any suggestions or feedback for this blog, and am looking forward to your participation come 2010!

Cheers – Simone