Career dissatisfaction hits finance execs

A significant portion of senior accounting and finance executives felt they had reached a dead end in their working environment due to tough employment market conditions, a recruitment company research paper showed.

National recruiter axr found 86 per cent of the 250 executives interviewed were unhappy with their career prospects, and blamed it on external factors beyond their control.

The research paper, ‘CFgrOw', found 66 per cent of respondents said the job market was challenging, while 71 per cent said job market conditions were one of the top three hurdles to their success.

Age followed as the second impediment (40 per cent), while lack of network (34 per cent), and recruiters (23 per cent) rounded out the list.

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"Several factors contributed to the disgruntled career views expressed by executives," axr director and paper author, Brad Eisenhuth, said.

"These included the general widespread negative rhetoric about employment market prospects, a lack of direction and clarity in large company environments, poor career planning and an all pervading pessimistic attitude to the job market."

Eisenhuth added that uncertainty has lingered for finance positions since the global financial crisis.

Only 62 per cent saw their team members as high achievers, with 60 per cent of these recruited from internal processes.

A further 80 per cent of respondents were dissatisfied with their company's internal recruitment skills.

"Often internal recruiters are under time pressure and are not specialists in the industry for which they are required to make a selection," Eisenhuth said.

"In some instances they don't fully understand the role they are recruiting for to appropriately market the job."