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Financial Services Comment

Market comment – Hopes for IFA jobs in 2010

2009 has been a year of frustration; for consultants looking for an IFA job, for technical support staff looking for admin jobs or paraplanning jobs, for those looking for sales management jobs, compliance jobs... ad infinitum. With recruitment being somewhat of a dirty word with a wide array of companies for much of the year there has at times been little to be positive about.

Are we brave enough to call the bottom of the recruitment market? Absolutely not! There have been cleverer people than us who have had their fingers burned by unexpected events over the last 18 months to know better than that, although there should be some cause for optimism.

The media have loved telling us that we are technically in a recession, so it was nice to hear news in June that technically we are no longer. What this means in reality is difficult to decipher at such an early stage but it is vital for those looking for financial services jobs to see an improvement in sentiment before we are likely to see a flood of new vacancies in the industry. People are human beings, not machines, with us all being susceptible to being swept along with the tide whether that be thinking that next year England will win the World Cup or talking ourselves deeper and deeper into a credit crunch mire. Before we can hope to see signs of a recovery we needed to start thinking that there was going to be one.

We are now entering the final quarter of 2009 and there have been some good early signs. An increased amount of paraplanning jobs and admin jobs has been one, with such positions the first under threat of redundancy when times became difficult. Such an emphasis on the back office should see compliance positions become more prevalent in particular, along with training / T&C vacancies as the industry looks to increase standards ahead of RDR implementation in 2012.

As for financial advisers we may have to wait a little longer for a bountiful supply of IFA jobs. Whilst some companies have continued to recruit those asking for a transferable client base has, for obvious reasons, increased significantly. Firms offering client generation in an employed capacity have been at a premium and there is still a high number of out of work financial consultants to get fixed up before competition for each role lessens somewhat.

With this in mind the improved feeling around financial services will have to continue for a while yet before clients start wanting to invest their cash again and before more vacancies appear. However we do look like, at long last, we are on the road to recovery.

For more information on IFA jobs, admin jobs, paraplanning jobs, compliance jobs or any other consultancy/support vacancy please do not hesitate to call us at Exchange Street or visit the rest of the site.

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