Are there really ample opportunities for financial services recruiters in the UK?
Contingency recruitment is reliant on volume, so it makes sense that any financial services recruitment consultant worth their salt has been considering a move to where the action is - Asia. However, despite the perception that the market is slowing down, most recruiters in the UK are looking to bolster their headcount.
In percentage terms some of the recruitment agency headcount growth in Asia has been huge. Michael Page, for instance, increased its staff in Asia by 71%, to 691, in 2010 compared to a 16% increase in the UK.
However, the message seems to be that while growth in Asia is astronomical, most large financial services contingency recruitment firms are still expanding in the UK.
Morgan McKinley increased UK headcount by 13% to 245 in the UK last year (although not all of this was financial services related), SThree has increased its UK sales staff by 7% since the beginning of this year, while Robert Walters, Joslin Rowe, Hays Financial Markets and Astbury Marsden all tell us they're planning on expansion here this year.
Gabby Gerra director of recruitment to recruitment firm Orint says most financial sector recruiters are hiring again, with some doing so to replenish their numbers after redundancies and others genuinely expanding. "It's not just the larger players, even new or smaller firms are hiring in good numbers," she says.
Examples of the smaller players expanding include 752 Solutions, which has increased its headcount to 40 over the last two years and is still hiring and Twenty Recruitment, which was established in 2009 and now has around 40 consultants.
Are all the recruiters heading to Asia?
The question is whether firms will struggle to achieve these expansion plans. Gerra says that a lot of firms are finding it hard to source good candidates, while recruitment firms starting in Hong Kong and Singapore are actively targeting London experience, suggests Ben Cowan, associate director at Astbury Marsden.
It's not all one-away traffic, however.
"When we've been recruiting in the UK, we've seen an increasing number of applicants from people looking to move back from places like Asia and the Middle East," says Belinda Walmsley, spokesperson for Joslin Rowe. "Perhaps it's because they've never viewed the move as long term and after spending some time making good money are looking to return home."
Or it could be that it's not as easy to break into the Asian market as many assume, believes Alistair Singleton, managing director of 752 Solutions.
"The days of opportunistically hopping on to the recruitment frenzy in Asia are over," he says. "Medium-sized players which can't make it on to the preferred supplier list of the major banks will find it tough going, as the number of firms failing in the region recently has demonstrated."
