eFinancialCareers

The Australian jobs sector is proving busy enough for many recruitment firms: to keep pace they are having to go on their own executive searches.

As jobs demand continues to exceed supply, the need for skilled recruiters is steadily increasing.

But, it seems, recruiters often find it difficult to find the right people with relevant experience in specialist areas of banking and finance.

Yvette Taylor, internal recruitment consultant for Hamilton James Bruce, says the surge in demand across the banking and finance sector has spurred the need to hire additional recruitment resources over time.

“We look for people with strong expertise, who are degree qualified and experienced,” Taylor says. “They are hard to find, the good ones. We’re always looking and are keen on people who have had industry experience. It’s often easy to get people, but without the industry experience.”

Outside of the recruitment firms themselves, even the acquisitive Macquarie Bank is on the prowl for recruiters. The bank’s Banking & Property Group recently advertised for a recruiter to provide broad support, including assisting with the handling of the bank’s graduate applications.

Macquarie was seeking applicants with strong track records in recruitment, particularly with finance, professional services or consulting streams.

Nick Deligiannis, senior regional director for recruitment firm Hays, says there’s been a substantial increase in activity across all specialist recruitment sectors in the last couple of years.

“We’ve added more recruiters over the past six to 12 months and even beyond that … we certainly have increased our specialist banking and finance team as well.”