The Hiring Ides of March

March is peak hiring month for many in the fund finance industry, which raises some interesting considerations when it comes to the timing of your approach to the market for the talent and experience that will add value to your output.

First, Q1 is always a busy hiring period, and this year is proving to be exceptional thus far. Fund finance is in healthy growth mode with great optimism for the long awaited post-COVID bounceback, and Brickfield is experiencing unprecedented numbers of new enquiries, but we expect that in the three months from March we will see even greater numbers of banks and law firms heading to the market, especially once banks and law firms lift headcount restrictions.

Fund finance teams will be among the first within banks and law firms to secure their headcount needs due to continued profitability and high transaction levels throughout 2020 despite COVID-19. Our message here to hiring managers is simple: Know exactly what you want, act decisively, and avoid being stuck with the leftovers.

March is also bonus season for much of the fund finance industry and represents another reason for the rise in hiring. Bringing on new talent at the beginning of their bonus cycle is very often a no-brainer, but we are sometimes still seeing our clients having to pay out considerably large signing bonuses in order to make whole new hires who are leaving behind significant amounts of deferred compensation.

There are reasons for this of course – unplanned departures, unseen shifts in business conditions, corporate policy and other forces can also create a need for undesirably speedy hiring processes, but in many instances we find that it is down to a lack of appreciation for the idiosyncrasies of the fund finance market.

Onboarding is not an overnight process either. Some of our clients can turn it all around in a week, others take months. Often, heads of the department are unfamiliar with the onboarding process and the potential roadblocks they will face, all of which can slow down the process – and therefore reduce the chances of landing the best talent available.

Our next article will continue our examination of the onboarding process, and how Brickfield works with hiring managers and HR departments to develop processes and relationships that leverage the respective strengths of all parties as effectively as possible.

Brickfield is the only international talent acquisition specialist dedicated to fund finance. If you are seeking to grow your fund finance team, or if you are looking to move to a new position in the space, contact Rory Smith at Brickfield Recruitment by email at [email protected] or by telephone on +44 7800 963 594.