Financial Services Job Market Update – July To September 2020

Despite the challenges of COVID-19 and Melbourne being in lockdown since July, the financial services job market held up remarkably well. It’s been a busy quarter and at the time of writing, we have a very strong pipeline of work as we head into the last three months of the calendar year.

The majority of our clients have comfortably adapted to working from home and remote onboarding of staff. Leaders have also adapted and developed new leadership skills staying connected to their teams.

The future working environment remains unclear with most clients feeling optimistic about returning to some form of normal office environment in early 2021.

One Melbourne based client hired an executive who will work from Auckland until a planned relocation in early 2021. This has been a common theme with many organisations being indifferent to the candidates’ location due to remote onboarding. This was reflected in our survey results from June in which 60% of clients surveyed indicated they were open to hiring candidates in remote locations.

Kaizen Recruitment was thrilled to win a national preferred recruitment supplier partnership with Aware Super. It was reassuring to hear the high level of importance that Aware Super was placing in their recruitment partners to find the markets’ best talent that align with their values.

For the period of July to September 2020, 40% of our recruitment assignments were completed within funds management, followed by insurance at 26%, with the remaining split across investment research, superannuation and wealth management.

The positions we delivered on included a Head of Strategic Finance, Fixed Income Portfolio Manager, Ethics and Impact Manager, Business Development Managers, Investment Accountants (contract and permanent), numerous Client and Investors Services positions, Project Managers, Investment Analysts, Finance Operations Manager, Marketing Coordinators, Investment Operations, Business Analysts, Investment Consultants, Associate Advisers, and an Investment Risk and Compliance Manager.

The average salary of all positions we delivered on was $145,000, with the highest salary at $300,000 and the lowest at $62,500.

65% 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.

50% of all placements came from candidates which we had previously interviewed via our database or our existing network.

35% of placements were female, which was significantly lower than previous quarters, this is despite our commitment to ensure gender diversity on all our shortlists. The demand for female talent with investment experience was high. This reflects the importance of diversity with some investment teams still being 100% male. Most of our clients are trying to get to at least a 40 / 60 ratio.

We would like to thank our valued clients, Victorian Funds Management Corporation, REST Super, Generation Life, Catholic Church Insurance, Equity Trustees, Prime Super, legalsuper, U Ethical, Zenith Investment Partners, Payton Capital, Bell Asset Management, Cooper Investors, The Practice, Paradigm Group, Aware Super, IFM Investors, and LUCRF Super for giving our team the opportunity to partner with their businesses on a range of talent acquisition opportunities.

We hope you like this summary of our activity during the July to September quarter.

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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