These are the candidates T. Rowe Price wants to hire in 2017

Asset management giant T. Rowe Price had exactly 5,999 employees worldwide at the end of last year, but headcount has since surged past to reach 6,239 as of September 30 this year, the majority in the fund firm’s downtown Baltimore headquarters and office in Owings Mills, Md., a suburb of Baltimore. In addition to outposts in Europe and Asia, T. Rowe has offices in Colorado Springs, Tampa, Fla., and San Francisco, and it is looking to add headcount next year globally.

Beth Norton, vice president and the head of talent acquisition at T. Rowe Price, notes that there has been a hiring increase across the industry in general, which is creating a candidate-driven market.

“I’ve seen an increase in hiring in the corporate areas, as well as investments and distributions, especially for T. Rowe but across the financial services industry as well,” Norton said. “We are planning to increase hiring in 2017 – we’re always judicious in adding to our headcount, but we will be hiring in support of the firm’s business strategy and to position the business for the future growth.

“We focus on positions that will support our strategic priorities and meet our client needs,” she said. “We currently have several hundred new or currently open positions globally that we are looking to hire in 2017, mostly in Maryland but also other areas in the U.S. and globally.

“There are opportunities across all business areas – corporate, distribution, as well as investments.”

What skills is the firm seeking in new recruits? And how do recruiters gauge whether or not a candidate is a good fit?

“We’re looking for quantitative capabilities to help build our bench and depth in our investment areas, and of course digital skills, as well as candidates with experience in sales and client service, technology, data analytics, risk and compliance,” Norton said. “Those are the most key areas, and we continue to look to add to our leadership bench, and we also hire for leadership potential.

“In addition to skills and experience, it remains very important that we assess for success in our culture,” she said. “Throughout our interview process, we are assessing candidates against our values, as well as leadership and associate expectations, looking for behaviors that align with our corporate values.”

Example interview questions that T. Rowe recruiters may use to assess success how well a candidate fits in the firm’s culture:

• Tell me about a time you created a new service, process, or product based on client feedback.
• Give me an example of when you needed to manage expectations of stakeholders whose views were different from your own.

Growing teams across the firm

The volume of candidates with certain hot skills, such as digital, data analytics and risk, isn’t what you would like sometimes, Norton said.

“Technology is an area where we have the most open positions on the corporate side, especially candidates with digital, architecture, the cloud, cybersecurity and data analytics experience,” she said. “Operations, sales, and client service are among the other key areas where we are hiring.

“Other areas with job openings include marketing and communications, legal, human resources, finance and administrative services.”

One other area that is seeing growth is T. Rowe’s asset allocation team in its investments division. As of September 30, 2016, the firm had 508 global investment professionals, and that number will increase next year.

“That’s where we’re hiring candidates with quantitative capabilities and more analysts,” Norton said.

Campus recruitment

T. Rowe does campus recruitment at both the undergraduate and M.B.A. levels. The firm has a relationship with Johns Hopkins specifically to pipeline talent into a Fellowship Program, as well as a relationship with Stevenson University for interns in technology.

Schools from which T. Rowe recruits undergraduates for full-time and internship opportunities include:

• Towson University
• University of Maryland, College Park
• University of Maryland, Baltimore County
• Morgan State University
• University of South Florida
• University of Colorado, Colorado Springs
• University of Wyoming
• Colorado State University at Fort Collins

Target schools for T. Rowe’s investment organization M.B.A. recruitment include:

• University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business
• Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business
• University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business
• Columbia
• Duke
• Harvard
• University of North Carolina
• University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business

“We have developed strong partnerships with several key schools at both levels,” Norton said. “We continuously have a presence on campus, hosting student events and doing on-campus interviewing and supporting the Management Leadership for Tomorrow organization.”

T. Rowe typically hires between 75 and 100 interns every summer.

“We have a strong conversion rate of those students to whom we offer full-time positions,” Norton said.

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