Understanding Market Trends to Fill the Need

Often, the key to being hired means finding the need when you can and then filling it. According to Kathy Kehoe, managing director of CMF Associates’ search and recruitment practice, those with a strong analytics background, a functional talent and the ability to number crunch are consistently getting interviews.

Think Analytics

Risk, pricing and portfolio analytics positions are picking up. Risk and pricing analytics jobs are particularly strong in quant groups, with analytics personnel working closely with research and product control staff on a variety of products, including fixed income, equity, commodity, FX and credit derivatives.

Portfolio analytics personnel work closely with institutional investors, often to create custom analytics solutions. They routinely handle institutional investor queries about portfolio performance, and analytic personnel deal with company executives to delve into overall portfolio performance and allocation.

In an interview with eFinancialCareers, Kehoe noted that the “ability to handle systems and tools used for analyzing data and organizing it in a way that makes sense in a variety of business scenarios” is never going to go out of style. Whether it’s decision support or financial analysis, the demand for people to assume analytics roles remains strong, no matter the specialty within financial services.

Stay Focused on Functional Expertise, But Be Flexible

And when it comes to recruiters, Kehoe says that most are looking for people who are very strong and focused on an in-demand functional expertise. She notes, “We look for a very specific type of person—someone who has that functional expertise, but who is also prepared to do a number of different things.” The advice is to specialize, but prepare to be flexible too. Employers are particularly keen on people who are experts, but those who can also readily and handily take on a variety of assorted tasks without complaint.

Numbers People Needed in PE

CFOs, controllers, treasurers and heads of financial planning are consistently in demand. And, Kehoe notes that middle market private equity firms are specifically scouring for people to fill the roles. The searches also expand to the leadership team of their portfolio companies and lenders catering to PE. “What we are seeing, unlike a couple of years ago, is that there are people involved in multiple searches, and we are competing with other recruiters. We’re not back to 2006, when candidates were asking ‘how much more will you pay me,’ but the right people are looking at multiple opportunities and, in some cases, entertaining multiple offers.”