Pity the underpaid in-house recruiter
Remember those people in HR? The ones who held your hand when you first joined and made sure you filled out all the forms right? How much do you think they were paid? That's right, not much. But this could all be about to change.
According to Robert Walters' most recent salary survey, the average 'recruitment officer/advisor' working for a financial services firm was on a salary of 28-35k last year; the average recruitment manager was on 45-75k; and the average head of recruitment was on 70-100k.
Even when bonuses of 10-20% are added, this compares poorly with recruiters working for consultancies, search firms, and onsite recruitment operations like Alexander Mann and Resource Solutions. Not only are salaries higher elsewhere, but they tend to be supplemented by commission (or quarterly bonuses in the case of onsite recruiters).
"In-house recruiters are absolutely paid a lot less than everyone else," says Nicole Brooke, human resources practice head at Pemberton Search. "This is becoming an issue."
Most in-house recruitment teams were decimated two years ago, and unsurprisingly banks now want to rebuild them. BofA Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, Citigroup, Barclays and Wachovia are all said to be hiring.
"There's definitely been an upturn in demand," confirms Ciara Clarke, an HR recruiter at Huxley. "The sector was very hard hit with redundancies in 2008 and there were very few roles available in 2009, but now we're starting to see a lot more internal recruitment positions available."
Will banks need to pay up in order to lure in-house recruiters back from agencies and elsewhere? Brooke thinks they will, and says it's already happening.
However, Clarke says there's been a lot of downward pressure on pay from redundant recruiters willing to accept big cuts to get a new job. This may well continue in 2010.
It doesn't help that in-house recruiters are seen as lower calibre than their agency rivals. "A lot of them are failed recruitment consultants who couldn't sell anything. Only about 10% are any good," claims one recruiter of recruiters.
