Graduate Recruitment statistics from the AGR

During January I attended the AGR’s AGM.  We’ve worked with them in the last couple of years to provide surveys on graduate recruitment professionals salaries and aspirations but the data presented at the AGM will be of more interest to you and your graduate recruitment campaigns.  Twice yearly the AGR with their Research Partner CRE survey over 200 companies on their graduate recruitment campaigns, below are some key stats I picked up with due deference to the AGR and CRE for providing them!

• There was an 8.9% rise in graduate vacancies in 2010 – bucking the predicted half year forecast
• Predicted growth in graduate recruitment of 3.8% in 2011
• Consulting is driving growth predicting 89% growth this year in graduate recruiting
• London still accounts for 42% of all graduate hiring
• The average graduate scheme base salary is £25,000 remaining static for the third year, the big payers being Investment Banking (£38,250) and Law £37,000)
• Only FMCG firms expect to increase graduate salaries above inflation this year
• The average total marketing spend on graduate recruitment for a company is £20,000
• Graduate recruitment is going retro with a return to favour for face to face contact and marketing spend on recruitment fairs
• For every 100 male graduates hired 63 females are hired

February 16, 2011 at 10:50 am | Candidate, Clients, Front Line, Graduate Recruitment, Hiring, In-house, January 2011, Monitor, Napier Wolf News | No comment

Front line trends

In this section some statistics that we’ve picked up from elsewhere or anecdotes about recruitment trends that in-house recruiters have mentioned to us are put forward.  These are not necessarily trends for recruitment function roles but the day to day issues facing recruitment professionals whatever they recruit.

We keep offering what they want but they won’t join or they’re trying to negotiate

• This is something happening across sector and I’m going to explore the risks of this in a longer blog piece later this week
• Many in-house recruiters are reporting that where candidates, particularly ones they have approached, have been interviewed directly they are often rejecting offers or expressing dissatisfaction with the base salary offer made even if it meets with the initial indicated expectation of the candidate earlier in the process
• Buy backs are back – while companies are not willing to stretch in traditional pay reviews there is a clear trend to try and keep talent if they try to leave with significant counter offers.  Some are reporting these in apologetic terms; ‘we wanted to give you this anyway but corporately we just couldn’t until you tried to leave’
• Hints of candidate apathy – After a period when candidates in all sectors were less in demand that has changed in the last few months, with agencies in all sectors increasingly competing with businesses directly recruiting a candidate pool that has never been more readily accessible particularly through Linkedin there are some indications that candidates are getting bored of being approached – again I plan to expand on this theme in a blog posting in the coming weeks dealing with the ramifications for branding and basic ability to attract talent to an interview

February 16, 2011 at 10:48 am | Front Line, Hiring, In-house, January 2011, Monitor, Napier Wolf News | No comment

Client hiring trends

Salaries

• Most clients and businesses now have a very clear idea of how recruitment fits into their organisation, as a result jobs are defined and typically so are salaries in the market at the moment; there is little flexibility at offer stage on pre-approved salary levels and typically little reason for them to be to make a successful hire albeit there is less comfort this year than last amongst candidates with the salaries being signed off
• Paid on results?  For the first time in several years I am speaking with businesses and recruiters who are looking to pay ‘commissions’ to recruiters directly based on performance.  This agency style model sees tiers of flat bonuses paid per recruit made based on direct sourcing and time to hire.  While still quite rare it’s a trend to watch in 2011 particularly in businesses where recruitment is lead from the US

Skills & Attributes

• The expectation of hiring managers for in-house recruiters is still very high and can make for a frustrating market for the more active candidate – many candidates are finding that because they have not worked in exactly the same market as the hiring firm they cannot get an interview
• The rise of the researcher; taking direct sourcing to the next level many businesses are going back to where they were looking in 2007/8 and seeking real executive search skills for their businesses bringing in researchers from headhunting firms who can map competitors accurately and provide a bespoke approach for specific roles this is particularly prevalent in professional services, energy, and TMT businesses

February 16, 2011 at 10:45 am | Clients, Hiring, In-house, January 2011, Monitor, Napier Wolf News, Salary trends, Skills | No comment

Candidates – other trends

Reasons for moving – non-financial

• No to RPO – In January as with any typical month part of our registering group of candidates came from RPO firms; nothing unusual and they came with some of the usual concerns about the conflict between the interests of their employer and the demands of line management

o   The big difference in January was that every candidate registering from an RPO stated one of their main reasons for moving was to get client side and no longer be employed by the RPO

o   This was prevalent in the banking sector particularly where businesses employ directly recruiters to manage senior relationships and can then prevent the RPO recruiter in the same product area from accessing senior management – the more open the structure the happier the recruiter

• Time served verses Going Perm – many recruiters feel the market over the last three years has driven them to a critical point in their career and for businesses who are serious about recruitment this presents an opportunity to get great talent to commit long-term for one of two reason:

o   Many recruiters have seen out the recession in one place but have done so by staying longer in one role than they might have planned; talented recruiters who are risk averse with very stable CVs are considering critical career moves for the first time in a long time

o   Conversely many great recruiters due to the market were forced to contract or found themselves taking on several roles in a short space of time.  Looking to build a permanent career again this group is looking to commit to permanent opportunities but finding a natural hostility from a concerned hiring manager population fearing their capacity to see a job through; tough on the candidate but as the market continues to tighten for talent surely a great opportunity for a hiring company to find a recruiter who knows they will need to be loyal in the long-term

• Career transition – While this does not need great explanation we have seen a surge of interest from agency and executive search recruitment professionals looking to move in-house this year for career reasons.  This is worth noting for two key reasons:

o   The old adage of the failed recruiter moving in-house was always a misnomer but the fact that the average base salary of a registered candidate from this background is over £40,000 demonstrates that those looking to transition are clearly successful, earning above average in what they do and having built a career in that field before transitioning, is there now a more commercial and talented external pool available?  I think so

o   Historically when expressing interest in moving in-house this group tended to want to do so for a number of misplaced reasons; better work-life balance, higher basic salary, easier job.  It is striking in 2011 that the vast majority of this group are registering because they see their own sector squeezed by in-house direct recruiting and expect the shift in power to continue to move in-house over time so take the view that this is a critical career move

February 16, 2011 at 10:43 am | Candidate, In-house, January 2011, Monitor, Napier Wolf News | No comment

Candidates – Salary trends

Permanent & FTC experienced in-house recruiters

• The average current salary of this group in January was £41,000
• The average target salary for the group was £47,000 so recruiters in general are expecting a £6,000 base salary rise to move

o   There were typically two main reasons for this expectation of a near 15% rise in salary; failure of current employer in the recruiter’s eyes to pay them the going rate or give an increase in salary for the last two years (often off-set by new joiners coming in at higher levels), and an expectation that this year’s review would give a significant increase so to merit a move a new employer would need to ‘buy them’

• Bonuses ranged from 0-30% of salary as an OTE and attainment of these in 2010 varied considerably; few received 100% of bonus for 2010

o   As a result of the mixed levels of bonus payments recruiters are emphasising the value of their base salary due to failure of current employers to meet expectations in the last couple of years whether reasonable or not in the climate!  Companies emphasising bonus in their package need to demonstrate that it has been paid out to prove value in many cases

Day rate recruiters & contractors

• The average day rate of recruiters registering in January was £320
• Half of those registering with us or speaking to us were looking to move into a permanent role (as the majority of our roles are permanent and those roles we advertised were permanent this could be expected)
• Day rate recruiters looking for new opportunities were looking to match their current rate or were willing to take a cut in general of up to £30 per day

Recruitment agents and executive search professionals seeking an in-house move

• The average base salary of this group was £44,000
• The average target base salary of this group was £45,000
• To make the transition to in-house recruitment this group were willing to forgo between £10,000 & £20,000 in bonuses and commissions that they currently earn per year.  They expect improved benefits usually having none bar a basic pension scheme and far lower OTE

February 16, 2011 at 10:41 am | Candidate, In-house, January 2011, Monitor, Napier Wolf News, Salary trends | No comment

We’re delighted to have our new website live and hope you take the opportunity while you’re here to look at our services across Search to Search, In-house Recruitment, Recruitment to Recruitment and Outsourced Research while you’re online.

Should you have any comments about the website feel free to send an e-mail to one of our founding partners or the most appropriate member of the team when you find them on the site.

Over the coming weeks this blog will become the place to keep in touch on trends in the profession; we’ll regularly announce details of the monthly “In-House Recruiter Index” (formerly known as the Aspen Index) which shows the key trends on jobs available in HR and in-house recruitment in the UK, we’ll let you know what we’re working on right now that might be relevant to you, as well as a range of announcements and updates from across our businesses.

 If you’re interested in working internationally we’ll be profiling the working conditions of the major recruitment centres of the world and some of those locations that will challenge for talent in the coming year.  The first of these will come from our own Daniel Bennett who’s recently moved with us to Hong Kong having covered the Asia Pacific region from our London office for several years.

If you’re an in-house recruitment professional used to all the news that Aspen Partners brought you on a regular basis, worry not – you’ll still get the same from Napier Wolf In-house while recruitment consultants and executive search professionals can expect an enhanced product from us as well. 

And finally, keep an eye on our new product – Napier Wolf Research – for development details in the coming months.

Stay in touch and don’t forget to tell us what you think.

April 13, 2010 at 9:00 pm | Napier Wolf News | No comment