Everything you've always wanted to know about the hiring intentions of Numis Securities
Last week, in the wake of Numis's surprisingly good results and declared intention to focus on organic growth, we put some questions to Martine Skinner, the company's head of HR.
What follows are entirely Martine's words, hence the occasional 'indirectness' of the answers.
1) What's Numis's current headcount? How much has this grown over
the past year? How much do you anticipate it growing by in the year to come?
MS: Numis has 180 people in London and 12 people in New York. In people terms, we have grown by about 5% over the past 12 months and we anticipate expanding the business further through a combination of attracting experienced and proven individuals combined with our newly formed annual graduate programme.
2) When Numis says it's planning 'organic growth', does this imply
hiring?
MS: Yes it does.
3) Which are the key hiring areas for 2010?
MS: We are always looking at ways in which we can develop and grow our business, whether it be from new business areas or developing our existing business further. We have amazing people at Numis, people of exceptional ability who have been a key part of the success in the business to date. When we perceive that there are new business opportunities, we would look at hiring at a senior level to fulfil that gap if we don't have the capability in house. One of our current areas of focus is to build a debt capital markets capability.
4) Is Numis targeting experienced hires, or is it planning to develop graduate talent in-house?
MS: Very definitely both. We have a very high retention rate of 85% which has been stable for the past four years and is much higher than the industry average. This is because we are careful with our recruitment and we believe in hiring talented individuals and putting in all the support necessary to enable them to succeed.
We have just started an annual graduate programme and in January this year had our first intake. Although we have always had a policy of hiring exceptional graduates, this is the first time we have hired as a group. We see our graduates becoming the future of the business. The programme lasts for 11 months and we will develop and manage their progress through the organisation to enable them to make a strong contribution to the future success of the business.
5) Does Numis anticipate hiring from other smaller brokerage houses, or from larger investment banks?
Numis is all about the individual so it doesn't matter where they come from. We focus on their ability to make a difference to Numis and the ability Numis has to enable the individual to succeed.
