Financial services firms come up short on trainees

Scotland's financial services employers are eager to add staff, but there are signs that the staff may not be there to add.

Two recent studies underscore the health of Scotland's finance job market. A November 2005 survey by Joslin Rowe, the middle and back office recruiter, found 82% of Scottish finance companies surveyed planned to add staff in 2006, the highest number for the past five years.

Meanwhile, a retrospective study of third quarter 2005 job creation in Scotland by Scottish Financial Enterprise (SFE), found 100% of respondents in the asset servicing sector had added staff in the previous three months.

Margaret Dyer, director of Joslin Rowe in Scotland, says Scottish financial services companies are finding it difficult to recruit experienced staff and are having problems retaining trainees. "This is the first year that respondent companies have mentioned difficulties at the trainee level," she says. "Employees definitely have more choice: they are gaining experience and looking for new jobs after 18 months."

In an effort to deal with staff shortages, Dyer says Scotland's financial services firms are running referral schemes in which existing staff are paid between 1,000 and 3,000 for successfully introducing new employees.

However, she reports an unwillingness to do so for fear the new employee will either prove a disaster, or perform so well as to eclipse the talents of the person who introduced them. "There is some reluctance about this," Dyer says.

Linda Houston, chief executive of Scottish Investment Operations (SIO), an organisation formed by 18 leading Scottish financial services employers to promote investment operations careers and widen the recruitment pool, says companies are trying to counter the shortage of experienced staff by training inexperienced ones.

HSBC Securities, Baillie Gifford and Franklin Templeton Investments run graduate recruitment schemes. SIO itself runs a seven day training programme for graduates, school leavers and the unemployed, which is sponsored by the Stuart Ivory Foundation.

Houston says over 80 people have taken the course so far: "There are not enough experienced people to go around, so companies will take people who have been through our introductory course, which gives them a grounding in the industry."