Planners with overseas experience highly desired
Australian financial planners returning from overseas are in demand, recruitment firm, Robert Walters reports.
Speaking at the launch of the Robert Walters Salary Survey, the firm's associate director, financial services and legal, Henry Smith, said planning businesses were keen to recruit candidates with experience working under foreign regulators.
"One thing our clients are looking for and what they're focusing on at the moment is people with experience of working in foreign jurisdictions," he said.
"Because regulators now collaborate globally returning Australians with maybe two or three years' experience working in London are highly in demand."
While planning practices may be keen to hire Australian planners who have worked in the UK, Hong Kong, the US or Singapore, Smith warned that the strength of the dollar was making it harder to lure them home.
"It's become tougher with the exchange rate to attract people back with salaries, but Australians coming back into the Sydney market certainly aren't struggling for work when they work in risk and compliance," he said.
Added to the demand for planners with overseas experience, Smith said financial institutions were feeling the impact of their decisions to cut back on graduate recruitment during the Global Financial Crisis.
"The talent shortage is really at that five to eight-year mark," he said.
"That's a reflection of the reduction in graduate hiring from 2008 to 2011 coming through now.
"With most of our clients that level, that manager level, there is a real shortage of supply and it's probably the hardest area to recruit into.
"What we're seeing as a result of that is businesses are looking to up-skill their more junior staff quite quickly, so they'll all come from training, development, and putting them through courses to get them up to speed so they can operate at that manager level quicker."
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