Financial Services Job Market Update – April To June 2021

The positive momentum from the first quarter of 2021 has accelerated with Kaizen having had its best quarter on record. Kaizen Recruitment was also announced as the winner of the RCSA Boutique Recruitment Agency of the year.

Lockdowns and the busyness it can create with people having to juggle work and family commitments has slowed down some interview processes, but it has not stopped the flow of new opportunities coming onto the market.

Flexibility to work from home has continued to be a topic of discussion with many candidates opting for roles that provide this as a benefit.

We are seeing career development and flexibility just as, or in some cases more, important than salary. Many candidates are open to taking a sideways step if it means getting them closer to their long-term goal, such as going from an operations or accounting position into the front office.

The current recruitment market remains very buoyant and is still in the candidates favour, with strong demand from employers which continues to put upward pressure on salaries.

As the borders remain closed to international talent, recruitment processes have become more competitive as firms are all competing to attract the best candidates from the local talent pool. The contract market has been challenging, as typically we would rely on offshore candidates to fill majority of these positions.

We have also seen a skillset shortage across investment operations and fund accounting positions, especially for end of financial year support.

Kaizen has seen an increase in counter offers, with candidates receiving counter offers from their current employers when they notify them of their resignation. In some cases, we have seen sign-on bonuses offered to candidates to get them across the line.

For the period of April to June 2021, 59% of our recruitment assignments were completed within funds management, with the remainder across superannuation, insurance, private lending, and wealth management. There was strong demand for professionals across investment research, investment operations, ESG/responsible investment, client services & administration, data & performance analytics, marketing, and risk & compliance.

Risk & Compliance Senior Consultant Amanda Chisholm states in her recent market update. “The current Risk and Compliance market is especially buoyant, with renewed demand for talent as employer confidence continues to grow. 13.5% of roles advertised on active job boards within financial services last quarter were in Risk, Legal, Compliance, Governance and Audit. This has been a 20% increase overall in requests for Risk and Compliance professionals since the Royal Commission 2019.” Find out more in Amanda’s Market Update – Risk And Compliance

It was a busy quarter for the Kaizen team with a record level of recruitment. The average salary of all positions we delivered on was $139,000, with the highest salary at $300,000 and the lowest salary at $75,000.

68% of our recruitment assignments were retained and/or exclusive which enabled us to complete a comprehensive search process, and several search processes mapping the entire Australian market which added significant value to our clients.

55% of all placements came from candidates which we had previously interviewed via our existing network and 54% of placements were female.

We would like to thank our valued clients for giving our team the opportunity to partner with their businesses on a range of talent acquisition opportunities. Victorian Funds Management Corporation (VFMC), REST Super, Generation Life, CCI, Funds SA, Payton Group, U Ethical, Aware Super, Australia Council of Superannuation Investors (ACSI), IFM Investors, Adviser Ratings, Janus Henderson, MSC Group, Western Asset, Legal Super, Aberdeen Standard, MaxCap, Paradigm Group and CFA Societies Australia.

Kaizen also welcomed Jack Brown as Associate Director who will lead Kaizen Recruitment’s Sydney office and will be recruiting for roles across Investment Operations.

The above summarises Kaizen’s activity during the April to June quarter and we look forward to working with our valued clients again through the rest of 2021.

Kaizen Recruitment specialises financial services recruitment across funds management, wealth management, superannuation, investment consulting and insurance. We are based in Melbourne and Sydney. For assistance or further information please telephone our office at +61 3 9095 7157 or submit an online form.

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