Rebirth of a salesman
If one species of financial services employee is wanted right now, it is the salesperson.
Whereas structurers and correlation traders were all the rage in 2005 and 2006, client relationships appear to be where it's happening in 2010.
Hence, we have UBS planning to add "a handful of hundreds" to its "sales and distribution force in fixed income and to a lesser degree in equities." We have Credit Suisse planning to add 130 salespeople, and we had Morgan Stanley emphasising its urge to hire salespeople (and traders) during its conference call in January.
BofA Merrill is also said to be keen on adding in sales as part of its FICC build-out. So too are Nomura, RBC, and various boutiques.
Why are salespeople so appealing? Russell Clarke, partner at Figtree Search, points to the mutating client base.
"Hedge funds used to be the sales sweet spot, and while that was the case a lot of firms under-invested in their real money relationships," Clarke says. "They now feel there's an opportunity in the market to sell to real money investors and they're underweight.
"There's a need to hire salespeople who can both build businesses from scratch, and work with existing teams," adds Clarke. "It's not product specific, but across the board."
"Client is king," elaborates the head of another search firm. "Connectivity to the client was important before, but it's now become more important than ever."
