Gender Diversity: If You Are Female In Financial Services And Great At What You Do, You Are In High Demand

“Ideally a female”, we have heard this a lot recently when taking client assignment briefs. Gender seems to be the last requirement mentioned after covering off technical requirements of the position … “oh and a female would be nice to have.”

The movement around gender balance in financial services has been in play for some time. The reasons for this are many and the significant imbalance of staff ratios is widely supported by data and research that champions this cause.

Personally, I have seen examples of blatant bias against hiring females, as one less than admirable CEO of a boutique fund manager said to me, “I don’t want to hire females of child bearing age, as they are a potential disruption to our business.”

On a positive note, I have seen the opposite of this prejudice as well. We ran a small cap equities assignment last year, and you guessed it, the team was 100% male. The last phrase mentioned while taking the brief was, “a female would be nice to have.”

Our shortlist of four comprised one female. The best two, included the female and they both went through a rigorous recruitment process; four interviews, testing, (stock analysis and excel modelling) and psychometric assessment.

She wasn’t pregnant when we started the recruitment process but was when she was offered the position. I guess a lot can happen during a three-month recruitment process ☺.

She was petrified, after working so hard to develop her career, winning an offer for her dream job, she thought our client would retract the offer after she informed them she was pregnant.

They didn’t. They embraced her as they knew they were hiring her for the long term.

What this means from a recruitment perspective is that the majority of our clients have some formal policies around diversity and increasing / encouraging female participation and development. Importantly, this includes supporting them through time away from work due to pregnancy.

Most of our clients are challenging us to have equal representation on our shortlists (ideally 50% males and 50% females). Most of the time this is possible and we are up for the challenge. As a specialist agency, we know how and where to find talent.

Diversity matters.

One CIO recently commented, “It would be great to have a female in our investment team, as I think we make better investment decision with a team of diverse backgrounds (including gender).”

Ian Silk, CEO of AustralianSuper was also recently quoted, “It is our view that diversity matters not just as a social end in itself but in a value point of view. Diverse groups generally provide better outcomes than non-diverse groups.” (source: Financial Times)

Kaizen Recruitment statistics highlight the increase in female placements over the last two years. In 2016 30% placements of our placements were female which rose to 47% in 2017. However, talent pools for some skill sets remain shallow with female participants.

On a few instances (investment operations leadership positions for example), when our client insisted we find female candidates, we have seen our talent pools reduce by 90%. None of our clients will hire a female if they don’t have the appropriate skills, or are indeed a culture fit and interesting things can happen to a candidate’s salary expectation when they think that demand exceeds supply (economics 101).

Kaizen Recruitment is a leader in funds management recruitment and we fully support gender diversity. In the last few months alone we have placed talented females in positions including:

• head of marketing
• performance analyst
• senior management
• head of projects
• investment and performance analyst
• investment accountants
• client reporting

Ultimately, it is about finding the best person for the role including cultural fit. We believe that gender quotas are not something put in place as a short-term measure to balance numbers. The idea of gender quotas is that it forces organisations to provide support and opportunities to women through various stages of their career to ensure that when they are up for senior roles, they are on par with males.

It is a long-term play, and if done right, it should naturally be that gender split at senior roles will be a better reflection of the overall population.

Best regards

Matt McGilton – Director
It is Kaizen Recruitment’s assurance that all qualified applicants receive consideration for job opportunities without regard to gender, race, colour, religion, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic predisposition or carrier status, veteran, marital status or any other status protected by law.

Turn to Kaizen when you need assistance with recruitment in financial services. Please call +61 3 9095 7157 or submit an online form.