State of Gender Diversity: Year-in-review

As an award-winning and leading funds management and superannuation recruitment firm, Kaizen Recruitment fully supports diversity and inclusion, including gender diversity.

Our placements of female candidates have risen over the years and been close to parity in some years. For the year 2022, 43% of the candidates placed were female, a significant majority of which i.e. 85.5%, emanated from our extensive database and networks.

This closely aligns with our typical sources of placements overall as well; directly corelating to our ethos of relationship-based recruitment, and consultative approach.

Investments, which is largely an area in which clients look for better female representation in, saw a placement of 50.5% female candidates across all investment roles. As a subset of investments, ESG/responsible investment and sustainability-oriented roles typically see a stronger draw from candidates who identify as female, with 71% of the placements here having been female. With other investment and product roles being at slightly lower record, yet achieving the minimum thresholds desirable by most clients.

Client services and relationship management fared well in female candidates placed as well with it being a majority, with roles across investment data and member services roles seeing a parity.

There was largely an even balance across legal, risk and compliance and investment operations and accounting in the 40-50% bracket.

Wealth management and finance roles saw a larger majority of candidates who identify as male, with business development/distribution, and quantitative analytical positions being all male.

Given the nature of the employment market in 2022, there were fewer contract positions overall, however there was an even balance of female and male candidates placed.

The numbers across the types of roles reflect only a part of the story, however. There are intangible and softer sides to our role in improving diversity within the industry. For example, we have on numerous occasions noticed female candidates self-deselecting themselves, especially for newly created and/or hybrid positions on the premise of not meeting all or majority of the criteria required. Whereas, as consultants, based on an understanding of clients’ requirements and culture, as well as candidates’ skills we know they will be a good fit. Here is where relationship-based recruitment, which we are propagators of, comes into the picture in exercising a level of influence to at least bring them to the table.

Kaizen Recruitment’s purpose is to “align our clients’ needs with our candidates’ aspirations” and ultimately it is about finding the right candidate for the role, with the most suited skillsets, aptitude, and cultural fit to the organisation. There are certain areas that continue to face a higher demand for female candidates than the depth in the talent pools. The increase in diversity initiatives is heartening, with ample room to further enhance initiatives and build robust policies across a broader spectrum of diversity issues.

None of our clients will hire someone only with the purpose of meeting quotas. Quotas alone do not support inclusion, and as recruitment partners we facilitate better diversity at the table, but this needs to be backed with internal policies to educate and imbibe, above the celebration of diversity.

So what role can recruitment play in increasing diversity in financial services ? Check out part 1, A Diverse Workforce Starts With Diversity In Recruitment, where we  share what initiatives we’re seeing adopted to tackle diversity challenges.

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 career status, veteran, marital status, or any other status protected by law.

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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