The Recruiter - Friend or Foe?

The Recruiter in financial services is a much maligned and often misunderstood role. Financial adviser candidates who have placed their cv's on job boards, due to current economic conditions, are saturated with calls from financial services headhunters hawking their positions, candidates that have been actively headhunted regard the financial services recruiter as a nuisance, a conversation that is best avoided, potential employers regard the rectuiter, again as a pest, a necessary evil when there is a lack of quality financial adviser candidates in the market but one to be tolerated and kept at arms length for most of the time.

The financial services recruiter plays an important part in the employment market and takes a lot of the strain from employers and employees alike. Yes they have to actively headhunt potential candidates for clients that want succesful people - who by the way tend to be entirely happy in the job they are already doing - and yes they do approach the potential employer with a view to exposing them to the usually pre qualified candidates on their books. Thats what a financial services recruiter does - proactively matches candidate to job and employer to potential employee.

If there weren't any recruiters where would companies such as Lloyds bank, HSBC and Wesleyan be? The likelihood of them finding the right number and calibre of financial adviser or IFA from the local newspaper is minute, the adverts just wouldn't get the exposure. The larger blue chip financial services employers make easy bedfellows for the financial services recruiter - they are highly aware of the value of a good recruiter and will strive to offer enhanced opportunity to those financial services recruiters they trust, hence the existence of the Preferred Supplier List or PSL which gives the recruiters who provide the best results, the opportunity to work on jobs exclusively.

It most defintely tends to be the smaller companies that have an issue with the use of a financial services recruiter. For some it will be purely monetary concerns - a good recruiter can charge up to £10,000 for a highly qualified financial adviser or IFA - and for some it will simply be the principle - why should they use a financial services recruiter when they can do the job themselves?

Lately, we have seen a number of the smaller IFA organisations, accountancy practices and generally smaller concerns realising that the financial services recruiter is perhaps of more value than at firdst thought. Companies that have been historically loathe to use a financial services recruiter, are now understanding that most offer a cost effective, professional service that will often match an employer with the right candidate within one or two potential candidates, saving man hours, advertising budget, time and money.

So the Recruiter, is he friend or foe? looking at what the good financial services recruiter can offer, I would be inclined to say friend but then of course I would say that - I am one!