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Saturday 26th January 2008
Well here goes my first ever Blog! As most of my clients and candidates know, I try to be as to the point and straight talking as I can - so let me try to make this brief.
What do you want to know? Let’s go through in order;
What’s the Market like if you’re a Candidate at the moment?
What are you guys at MR Recruitment doing to try and help me find my next role or help me recruit someone?
Candidate Advice
Well the market is still busy despite the nay-sayers and the doom and gloom merchants – what better time to be a treasury professional than when people need to be able to get credit / raise cash / actively manage their relationships with their banks and creditors, well treasury seems like a good place to be.
The market;
For senior candidates – many market observers told us that 2007 was another quiet year at the higher levels. At first I agreed however I realised that I recruited six senior positions last year that were at the Group Treasurer level or equivalent so all in all it wasn’t that quiet at all! What was noticeable was that for clients were specific about the type of individual they wanted is it in terms of qualification, experience, or sector. We did find that we were able to recruit these roles through our existing contacts or through Advertised search on a few occasions.
For mid-level candidates – 2007 was busy with an influx of Treasury positions from across Europe, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands were extremely active. Many roles were on offer, which made competition fierce for a select few quality candidates who were able to choose their positions carefully. The UK market was also strong with greatest demand for generalist Treasury candidates who were able to demonstrate good all round treasury knowledge backed up with treasury qualifications.
At the junior level – wow, the crazy days came back with some junior level treasury candidates literally naming their price and getting it! Clients based outside of a central location struggled to recruit candidates and often they had to pay the same salary level as those who were in a major city i.e. clients in the South East of England were paying the same salary to recruit outside of London as inside of London.
In Oct 2007, we were flat out with roles coming in thick and fast across Europe, the Middle East & Asia. As we moved into Nov 2007, the market slowed as it seemed many candidates and clients decided to put job moves on hold and pause recruiting plans until the New Year. December, which along with August is traditionally our quietest month, proved to be the same as usual.
As 2008 began we found that the market proved to be busy despite press speculation to the contrary.
There was caution from our clients where they have decided not to advertise many roles as they hoped that once bonuses arrived there would be an influx of new candidates. However as we explained this is not the case, if you are currently doing a good job you are being well rewarded. It is candidates who are doing a great job that our clients want. The best way to attract candidates quickly and efficiently in the current market is to advertise and tempt them out of their roles by explaining what you are able to offer them in terms of career growth. This is usually a far more positive attraction for most.
We will discuss more about current market conditions for candidates in the next blog.
RE: MR Recruitment
It was very busy for our business throughout last year - we grew rapidly by expanding the size of our offices and increased the team size to seven with a definitive focus upon improving our candidate service model.
Often we hear complaints that consultancies don’t spend enough time speaking to candidates and helping them move on. We want to help even more treasury professionals find their next career move or at least give them useful career advice to enable them to expand their roles.
We know we’re not 100% there yet but that’s our ultimate aim – we’re a service business and we realise that by serving our customers we can become the most successful company in our industry.
We will answer the rest of the questions over the next few blogs and post the answers on our website, feel free to call us to get answers sooner or give us a call for more advice.MR |
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