Sorry, but you are not part of the small pool of high calibre candidates receiving multiple offers
On one hand, there are redundancies and hiring freezes. On the other, there are 'talent shortages,' multiple offers and buybacks.
The financial services hiring market is splitting into two distinct halves. There are the hot people. And there are the not-so-hot ones.
Banks rumoured (but not confirmed) to have hiring freezes now include: Deutsche, BarCap, UBS and Credit Suisse. In most cases, these freezes apply to front office positions. But even in the front office there is selective, strategic, hiring still happening.
The real action, however, is in the middle and back office. Recruiters specialising in the 'infrastructure space' claim to be inundated requests for the same highly desirable, heavily bid candidates.
"There's a shortage of candidates everywhere in compliance," says Edward Manson at recruitment firm PSD Group. "The problem is that compliance is becoming more and more demanding and the expectations of the hiring managers are becoming more and more specific.
"There is a very small pool of high calibre compliance candidates. And they're getting two or three offers and being counter-offered by their existing employers," Manson adds.
Ben Cowan of Astbury Marsden has seen something very similar. "Now that banks are hiring 1 person instead of 10 they all want the best. We're coming across people who are juggling three or four different opportunities."
The corollary of this would appear to be a parallel universe of people who aren't highly sought after, don't have two or three offers, and can't change jobs or get back into the market no matter how hard they try.
The head of one front office search firm says people in this group should not lose hope. But they do need to brace themselves and lower their expectations. "People need to be patient," he advises. "Hiring has not completely disappeared, it just requires realism and an understanding that you will not get bought out for big numbers any more."
