Recruitment Roundtable: banks get more upbeat

[admin]

Recruitment Roundtable 25 September 2009
Simon Mortlock

eFinancialCareers recently ran a roundtable in Sydney, which was attended by 12 senior HR professionals from major domestic and international financial services institutions. In the first of a two-part report, we give you the delegates’ take on recruitment, retention and compensation. Attendees asked not to be named in this article.

Six months sure is a long time in financial recruitment circles. Cast you mind back to the previous eFC roundtable in March (or just click here to read the report). Many HR professionals opted not to attend that event – recruitment was just too sensitive a subject for them. And those who did come along were hardly in high spirits – their talk focused on fending off a surplus of hapless applicants for whom they had no jobs.

The mood this week was much more upbeat, although attendees agreed that we are still far from being back in a hiring boom.

“Our recruitment volumes are about double what they were this time last year,” remarked an attendee from a Big Four bank.

Front-office, revenue-generating roles are the current focus of most recruitment campaigns. “In the front office, it’s new-growth hiring. In the back office, it’s mainly replacement and redeployment,” he added.

Of all the client-facing functions, the delegates cited relationship managers for both private and consumer banks as the most difficult to source. “Recruiting RMs isn’t easy. There are very few people with the right skill sets who can hit the ground running.”

There are, however, a few exceptions to the front-office emphasis. Governance-centric roles (in particular, risk, compliance and internal audit) are still in demand at most banks, while claims jobs in the insurance sector are also on the up.

No matter what the role, employers are lot more demanding in their hiring than they were a year ago. But roundtable delegates dismissed the common agency-recruiter complaint that banks have raised the recruitment bar too high and are demanding an unrealistic “perfect match” for every job.

“The financial crisis has fundamentally and rapidly changed the types of roles we are offering, so therefore the skills sets are naturally harder to find. The capability we expect is a lot higher,” explained one attendee.

The retention dimension

Foreign financial institutions in Australia are concentrating on retaining their key senior talent. And for a few high-flyers, this policy can have concrete benefits. “Counter offers are returning in the form of salary rises, job title changes, and management structure changes.”

The Big Four accounting firms haven’t had to offer such inducements to retain their junior staff. Because the financial crisis has made banking careers seem comparatively unstable, there has been a recent rise in the number of newly qualified accountants staying put, rather than defecting to the banks.

And in an encouraging sign for the employment market, Australian-owned banks say they are converting an increasing number of temporary workers – hired to staff essential projects in the wake of the financial crisis – into permanent roles at the end of their contracts. Banking IT professionals are at the forefront of this trend.

Compensation expectations

Bonus expectations are rising again. “In the first three months of the year, people thought 2009 would be so bad that they were happy just to have a job. Now they are thinking ‘surely we can’t have two bad years in a row’,” commented one panellist.

Get set for more movement in March. “This time 12 months ago, bonuses weren’t having much of an impact. But now as we get closer to bonus time, turnover might be seasonally low again in November/December, in readiness for March."

Some international banks in Australia have recently given 20 to 50 per cent base salary rises for some senior staff. Delegates admitted that this has upset the traditionally consistent nature of Australian salary scales.

“The crunch will come in March for banks who have raised their base. It might not stop people moving. If you’re annoyed with your bonus, you don’t care so much about your base.”

Look out for the second part of this report next week, which will deal with candidates and recruitment agents

[JohnG]

Jennifer Foreshew From: The Australian December 08, 2009 12:00AM

JOB vacancies in the technology sector rebounded strongly last month, rising 11.75 per cent, seasonally adjusted, in what is expected to be a strong hiring finish to the year.

The latest Olivier Job Index, released on the weekend, shows the overall market rose 5.88 per cent, with full-time positions up 5.9 per cent compared with part-time at 4.6 per cent.

Olivier Group director Robert Olivier said the turnaround followed the boost in consumer and business confidence.

In October, the overall market fell 1.67 per cent and IT&T dropped 0.78 per cent.

"It has happened sooner than . . . expected and it has obviously got to be sustained, but that 11.75 per cent is a marvellous increase you can't ignore," Mr Olivier said.

IT&T was ranked the third best performing sector out of 16 sectors surveyed.

"IT employers are obviously feeling more confident in terms of projects coming back online and discretionary expenditure up," he said. "And that is a reflection of businesses starting to think beyond survival and tomorrow, to what happens next."

While all occupational sub-sectors in IT were up last month, a notably weak performer was management and sales vacancies, which climbed just 0.3 per cent.

Networks, communication and security roles rose 3.6 per cent. The software development and engineering category, which represents 35 per cent of the overall market, saw a 13.4 per cent lift in roles in November. The smaller category of instruction, training and technical writing was up 21.4 per cent, as was internet graphics and multimedia, which jumped 21.2 per cent.

On a state basis, IT roles were up 15.74 per cent in November in NSW and 5.24 per cent in Victoria. Queensland tech vacancies rose 1.7 per cent, while in the ACT ads leapt by 26.7 per cent.

Peter Acheson, chief operating officer of Peoplebank, the country's largest IT&T recruiter, said there was a surge in IT hiring from late October. "We have also had the best month in Canberra in November for 18 months and that is a good sign," Mr Acheson said. "The majority of the work we have seen come through there is from the federal government."

He said there had not been a tapering off in demand yet, with employers looking to hire as many people as they could up to Christmas. "We are preparing for a pretty strong late January-early February, when we would expect major employers to be back in the market hiring again."

Professional Recruitment Australia chief executive officer Jane Bianchini said there was now demand for permanent as well as contract roles. "I see a lot of promise in the market in the New Year."

Peter Noblet, Australia and New Zealand director of recruiter Hays IT, said: "Certainly candidates are more discerning with the roles that we are putting in front of them, because they are aware there is a bit more choice out there," he said.