MBK Search - August Market Note

The "dog days of summer" are here! Hopefully everyone is getting some much needed time away after a crazy few months...scratch that, crazy couple of years. I wanted to share some key trends that we are seeing in the market as well as some updates on where we are as a global business. Enjoy your vacations and see you next month!

- Counter-resistance pressures continue. Retention plays abound as nearly all levels of candidates are receiving compelling counteroffers from their existing employers - even for very junior employees. Hiring teams are also heavily relying on internal company transfers and network referrals to plug imminent talent gaps. 

- ORM and Audit as feeders. Compliance teams are hiring more and more candidates with a "traditional" operational risk and/or internal audit background to meet increasing testing and oversight requirements. 

- Squeeze down under. We are seeing a local shortness in talent within the Australian market as the normal flow of candidates from the UK / EU region drastically slowed during the pandemic and firms are playing a bit of catch up particular in "niche" pockets such as derivatives compliance or quantitative risk.  

- Hiring continues to be strong. We are seeing continued demand in our sectors and the market for risk, audit, and compliance professionals remains tight. Clients are hiring and candidates at all levels are making career moves. Those companies who have streamlined their hiring process are winning the talent battles

- Achieving balance with work-from-home. Companies and employees continue to strive for balance in the great showdown over remote work. As we mentioned previously, remote is top of book for employees and the majority to whom we speak want these arrangements to stay permanent. Ultimately, we feel that the majority will prevail and most companies will be forced to compromise or risk losing excellent employees.

- Inflation concern. Employee benefits are big on everyone's agenda due to the massive increases in cost of living. 

- The "boss loss" floweth. We are seeing more and more senior exits and inflow of executive level candidates exploring career options. 

- Efficiency wins out every single time. Hiring process in terms of speed and efficiency is still the way to win top talent. There is a psychological shift happening in the market and growing uncertainly we can all agree, but efficient hiring processes are critical to securing top talent

MBK News

- Even coverage across our core global markets. Our first half 2022 placements have been fairly evenly distributed with approximately 70% of our placements being in the Compliance, Risk, and Audit career disciplines with the remaining 30% spread across FinOps, Investment/Front Office, IR/Marketing, and Data Science. 

- APAC Quant Trading business expanding. MBK is growing a strong book of hiring quantitative researchers, developers, and trading specialists in the APAC market...Singapore specifically. 

- Our Contracts and Interim Executive assignments have doubled...again. We are rapidly growing our contractor / temp / interim business to meet increased client demand. We specialize in contract talent in risk, audit, legal, finance, compliance, and cybersecurity at all levels and all regions.