Napier Wolf's blog
Salaries
- With many businesses not having had to recruit recruiters for some time and finance/procurement putting pressure on the department to keep costs low in February a major trend was clients seeking to find candidates at an initial pay grade and then having to increase the salary range available during the recruitment process to attract the right talent
- Note. This was not always upwards, some businesses bought into the commerciality aspect of the sourcing skills of the recruitment consultant over the in-house professional and downgraded the salary and role to bring in external recruiters
- Many of the businesses hiring in February were US owned companies, these businesses still operating in a candidate rich market in the States have put tremendous pressure on EMEA counterparts to hire within the salary range where possible and have often missed out on preferred candidates by being extremely aggressive during salary negotiation
- The noted trend of “paid on results” for in-house recruiters receiving specific placement bonuses for directly sourced candidates has continued in February; while it is still rare there have been stand out opportunities where clients are keen to reward almost as an external recruiter with a percentage of salary or flat bonus
Skills & Attributes
In February there have been two very different drivers for clients when recruiting; relationships and delivery.
- As it becomes increasingly difficult to hire for all functions there has been an emphasis on seeking to find very strong relationship managers those who can manage expectation at line and ensure that candidates are offered who should be rather than the hiring manager holding out to see “just one more”
- Equally relationship management is becoming a critical part of the relationship with the candidate community. As social media continues to broaden people’s exposure to potential employers and brands there is an increased emphasis on ensuring rejected as well as successful candidates walk away with appropriate feedback and still seeing a hiring company as a potential employer; the risk of the rejected candidate relaying a poor interview experience are now much higher and as such experience of managing this is in high demand
- DELIVERY – This is still a major focus, hiring managers are still extremely focused on bringing in people they feel they can entrust a hiring target to and see it delivered to time and to budget. While many candidates are keen to talk strategy, marketing, routes to market, and about the impact of social media and their role in these areas time and again the client response is “that’s great but I just want someone who will deliver”
- Proper research and headhunting skills remain of great importance to hiring businesses. Many see this next stage evolution of their recruiting function to improve direct access to potential senior hires as a critical cost save and engagement improvement opportunity for 2011 but (SALARY WARNING) the pay rates are not what you would get in search firms and this does put some candidates off when the role is similar and there’s little internal exposure to hiring managers
March 15, 2011 at 11:12 am | Clients, February 2011, Hiring, In-house, Monitor, Salary trends, Skills | No comment
Permanent & FTC experienced in-house recruiters
- The average salary of this group in February was £47,400
- This is £6,000 higher than the average recruiter spoken to in January and represents a market trend for experienced in-house recruiters currently looking for a new opportunity
- This group are typically at the very top of the “recruiter” roles with no reports or potentially some administrative support but carrying out full life cycle of the recruiter role
- The average target salary for the group was £53,000 representing an expected salary rise of £5,600 to move, only slightly lower than January’s expectation at £6,000
- Bonuses ranged from 0-45% of base salary
- On average most recruiters were receiving a bonus of c.20% of base salary
- At the time of year when many recruiters are receiving their bonus or being advised recruiters we spoke to were broadly happy with their 2010 pay-out stating bonus was in line or slightly above expectation (albeit most had low expectations!)
Day rate recruiters & contractors
Due to our own focus on permanent and Fixed Term contract roles in February we did not have a large enough pool of day rate contractors to analyse and give fair results in February. As a trend it appeared in February that many contractors had recently taken up roles. March is already shaping up to be a “contractor” month with high client demand to deliver on post-bonus capacity in the city and candidates completing long standing contracts… Watch this space…
Recruitment agents and executive search professionals seeking an in-house move
- The average base salary of this group was £48,000
- The average target base salary of this group was £46,500
- So where this group in January were looking to break even on the transition in-house there is now not only a willingness to forgo bonus and commission they will now take a lower base salary to complete a career move
March 15, 2011 at 11:03 am | Candidate, February 2011, Hiring, In-house, Monitor, News, Salary trends | 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 – 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