Hawk Search Executive Recruitment

SIGNING OFF FOR THE CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS

We’re coming to the end of another calendar year at Hawk Search.

We shout out a big THANK YOU to those firms who have asked us to work with them over the last twelve months.

We don’t mind sharing that in 2011 we longed to hear talk of double digit growth and aggressive hiring but this year has been the one that saw (to name but a few events) the US downgrade by S&P, the Occupy Movement, the European debt crisis, the demise of MF Global, mass redundancies by global investment banks.

The economic environment has meant having to build a bigger base of business to counter...

Hiring freezes.

Companies taking longer to make hiring decisions.

Firms reluctant to let their top people meaning counter-offers.

Downward pressure on salaries.

Hiring mandates being pulled.

But it really is not all doom and gloom. We recently started writing up People Moves in the Industry News section of our blog. Firms are hiring. There are job opportunities out there.

In the past 12 months we have successfully hired in London, New York and Chicago. We are also working on new mandates for 2012 in London, New York, Paris and Hong Kong (<- this new role will be posted on our blog in the New Year).

For the next few days we’ll be putting our feet up over the Christmas holidays.

Our very best wishes for the holiday season from Áine and Andrew at Hawk Search. We wish you much success in 2012.

We’ll be back blogging again in the New Year.

HAWK SEARCH CELEBRATES ITS SECOND ANNIVERSARY

Today is the first day of our third year of trading at Hawk Search. The first two years have flown by. We continue to enjoy the great (ad)venture, particularly in a(nother) year when those three words - "double dip recession" - have been uttered in every other conversation and the economic climate's been such that job cuts have been more prevalent than new headcount. By the way, that's exactly what we wrote on this blog a year ago and, we hate to say it, but we anticipate more of the same for our third year.

Last year we made many new contacts and made hires in London, New York and Chicago. We have strengthened existing client relationships and, via referrrals, we have established new ones.

We've worked with market data vendors, reference data firms, data divisions of inter-dealer brokers, newswires and an online start-up. Looking ahead to the next few months, we're working with a funds/pensions provider, a ratings agency, an ABS valuations firm, an index business and a market data firm.

We shout out a big THANK YOU to those firms who put their faith in us and asked us to work with them in finding staff. And, we take in a deep breath and remind you that (including today) there are only 82 working days until Christmas..

QUICK SUMMARY OF THE JOB MARKET

Several of our market data contacts in the past few weeks have asked us how we see the hiring market in the vendor space right now given the current economic climate against the backdrop of the US downgrade by ratings agency, S&P and last week’s Bank of England downward revision of growth forecasts and also investment banks announcing thousands of job cuts.

At Hawk Search we work with companies that sell news, data, research, software and technology to banks, investment managers and hedge funds. We’re a small firm managing a small number of search mandates and not a high volume of hires. We will share what we are seeing but, being small, we are careful to point out that this is not extensive research about the whole market data industry. Rather they are a few observations based on anecdotal evidence.

The good news is that there are jobs out there. Finextra is advertising 48 roles, Bobsguide is advertising 56 roles, eFinancialCareers have advertised 37 new roles in their Information section in the past 7 days. August is a slow month in recruitment. This is not because no-one’s hiring but because there’s someone on one side of the negotiation who is on holiday and so decision making is slowed down. It’s fair to say a lot of firms are sitting back and expect to review hiring after the summer recess.

The job losses at the banks will have the largest negative effect on our clients. Reduced headcount at investment banks means fewer buyers of market data solutions. As well as these job cuts, this week Standard Bank announced it will move its international operations back to Johannesburg.

In the past 2 weeks, one firm we are working with has put a new hire for a new data business on hold as they re-evaluate their business needs. Two other firms went back to the drawing board and, having initially said there was a requirement for outside expertise, they have offered positions internally (one was a replacement hire and the other was a new headcount).

We have recently completed offers at market data vendors for an equity database product manager as well as an equity and real-time business head.

These are our current open vacancies...

Global Relationship Manager, Debt Capital Markets in London

Global Business Leader, Commodities, based USA

Business Development Director, Indices, based London

Client Relationship Manager, Equity Capital Markets, based London

We’ll write another summary at the end of the next quarter relating to the job market.

TO SUM UP Q1, 2011: PANCAKES IN LONDON, CRAZY IN HONG KONG AND WILL THEY, WON'T THEY...

It’s the last day of the first quarter in 2011 and here’s a summary of some things we are seeing in the job market. As with our last post in this section of the blog, we reiterate that we’re a small firm with a low volume of hiring mandates which means anything we say is anecdotal and doesn’t constitute a trend across the market data vendor industry.

On Tuesday we spoke with a New York based contact that runs a global team across equity capital markets. He’s hiring in many locations and shared that the job market in Hong Kong “has gone crazy”, giving examples of people leaving his team and receiving job offers with an increase of 50% of basic salaries. He says that in New York the market is steady with less inflated pay increases than in HK but the increases are still good enough to attract candidates. About London, he said it is “as flat as a pancake”.

Our take on London ...It’s far from booming but firms are hiring. We’ve seen/heard of basic salary increases by an average of 20%. Our mandates have been across editorial, research, sales, operational, product and business development across OTC derivative valuations, mutual funds (data and reporting), equity (operational, fundamental and indices) and debt markets. It’s not quite as flat as a pancake. Sure, there’s still downward pressure on salaries and some firms still have hiring freezes. We’ve observed that one firm with a hiring freeze has been counter-offering staff with one-off bonuses and pay increases accompanied by new employment contracts that tie staff in for up to 2 years.

For the next quarter we are working on roles in London (4), Frankfurt (2) and Chicago (3). It is the first time we have more ex-UK mandates than UK ones but there are little Hawks to feeds and (as long as it is challenging) we’re happy to go where the work takes us!

There’s been a lot of will they, won’t they with respect to whether Barclays Capital will move its Headquarters to New York. Michael Bloomberg would love to have them there but it is not certain what will happen. Here's how The Evening Standard represented the story today, under the title, "Keep your hands off our banks, Mr Bloomberg."

And finally, this was the quarter that LinkedIn hit 100 million active users, received a USD3bn valuation and announced it seeks to IPO. Aine was LinkedIn member 272691 and is always grateful to Simon Veingard for the original introduction to the site.

HOW'S THE JOB MARKET FOR US AT THE START OF 2011?

We're a small search firm with a steady flow of open positions. We don't manage a high volume of job mandates so, when we talk about how the job market is looking at the start of 2011, do remember this is not giving you a full overview of The City just some anecdotal evidence from conversations we've had with clients and candidates in the past few weeks.

Well, it's January and that means pay reviews and bonus announcements. From a candidate's perspective, these factors either give him/her the impetus to start a job search or they tie in a candidate to a current employer. Some sales executives we've spoken with are starting job searches as they've just received an increase in year-on-year revenue targets without any accompanying increase in overall year-on-year on-target commissionable earnings. Where candidates are tied in, we've heard of some cases where staggered bonus payouts are being introduced or bonus decisions are being delayed. Also, some employers are offering pay increases and issuing new employment contracts with extended notice periods.

A month ago, City AM ran an article, City hiring on the up despite blip, in which London's financial services firms are still hiring more heavily than a year ago, even though available jobs in November 2010 dipped five per cent from October 2010. Yesterday's Evening Standard ran the Headline, "The City's Still Hiring" and stated that on aggregate the City is still building teams and positioning itself for growth.

Here are the areas where Hawk Search is active...

The European debt crisis has fuelled demand for senior debt reporters/analysts for newswires/research firms. This has been across both corporate and sovereign debt situations. Corporate debt includes coverage of distressed debt situations where journalists are expected to network with CFOs, bondholders, creditors, lawyers to break real-time stories or provide rigorous debt analysis. One firm we work with is keen to hire journalists who develop their own market insights rather than re-write coverage from other news wires.

New financial market regulations require more transparency across middle- and back-office processes. In these areas many firms are hiring in their sales, business analysis, research and customer service departments across reference data, evaluated pricing and OTC derivative valuations. There is demand from our clients to meet candidates with any experience of these areas. In some cases we have seen clients shaping roles around a candidate's skill set. On the sales side our clients are only considering candidates with established customer relationships, a sales track record and direct experience of selling these products. For business analysis good technical and domain knowledge are vital. For research role hiring firms are being very specific about a requirement to have direct experience of pricing financial instruments. And for the client services roles, as always, being passionate about exceeding customer expectations is crucial.

Fund reporting is another area where have been talking to two firms. They both provide bespoke and customised fund reporting solutions for the buy-side from simple print solutions to more elaborate software solutions. The requirement here is for new business sales executives with good contacts and the ability to consistently exceed sales targets.

One of our clients is hiring global leadership roles. These are across managed fund data and equity data. For the managed fund data role, we're networking to source a business leader with strong global commercial experience, excellent operational knowledge (including data quality and customer services) who thinks innovatively about technology. For the sales leadership role, this client is looking for someone who can deliver consistent yearly revenue growth for equity data and software solutions.

We are also working with an exciting US start up and are mandated to help them on the operational side of their UK subsidiary.

So, it's an optimistic start in the job market for us in 2011 with a challenging variety of roles and strong on-going relationships with a range of corporations.

THE HIRING DOESN'T STOP IN THE RUN UP TO CHRISTMAS. SUMMARY OF CURRENT ROLES

There are fourteen working days until Christmas Day. In the run up to Christmas we are working on several mandates on behalf of our clients.

Here is a summary of our current roles:

Senior Sales Executive - Banking Consultancy Services - based London

ETF Analyst - fluent German - based London

Team Leader - Corporate Actions/Data Management - based London

Software Sales Executive - PR/Communications Solutions - based London

Senior Financial Market Reporter - Corporate and Sovereign Debt - based London

ABS Evaluator - based London

Reporters (one Spanish speaker/one German speaker) - Corporate Debt - based London

We are now immersed in the final quarter of our first trading year at Hawk Search. Here is a summary of all our current open opportunities:

Vendor Senior Negotiator - Third Party Content - based London

ETF Analyst - fluent German - based London

New Business Sales - IDB - based London, covering Southern Europe

Outsourced Sales - Capital Markets - based London & New York

Sales Manager (UK territory) - Commodities - based London

New Business Sales (European territory) - Commodities - based London

Expert Network - Practice Leader for Financial Services Sector - based London

We are now immersed in the final quarter of our first trading year at Hawk Search. Here is a summary of all our current open opportunities:

Vendor Senior Negotiator - Third Party Content - based London

ETF Analyst - fluent German - based London

New Business Sales - IDB - based London, covering Southern Europe

Outsourced Sales - Capital Markets - based London & New York

Sales Manager (UK territory) - Commodities - based London

New Business Sales (European territory) - Commodities - based London

Expert Network - Practice Leader for Financial Services Sector - based London

We are now immersed in the final quarter of our first trading year at Hawk Search. Here is a summary of all our current open opportunities:

Vendor Senior Negotiator - Third Party Content - based London

ETF Analyst - fluent German - based London

New Business Sales - IDB - based London, covering Southern Europe

Outsourced Sales - Capital Markets - based London & New York

Sales Manager (UK territory) - Commodities - based London

New Business Sales (European territory) - Commodities - based London

Expert Network - Practice Leader for Financial Services Sector - based London

HAWK SEARCH CELEBRATES ITS FIRST ANNIVERSARY

A year ago Hawk Search Limited opened for business. It seems like only yesterday that we started talking with clients and candidates about the new company. So much has happened in this first year. It's been a great (ad)venture, particularly in a year when those three words - "double dip recession" - have been uttered in every other conversation and the economic climate's been such that job cuts have been more prevalent than new headcount.

We've written 96 blog posts and posted 463 tweets. We've learned about #hashtags and re-tweets. We've read 1000s of words about Search Engine Optimisation. We've actively increased the size of our contact base in the financial market data vendor community and have jumped in and out of various networking groups. We've met many new contacts along the way.

We've worked with exchanges, market data vendors, BRICs economic and political research firms, a proxy governance firm, a sustainable investment trade association, a capital markets outsourcing business and a couple of inter-dealer brokers. With these firms we have hired across FX, equity, fixed income, money markets, commodities, structured finance, OTC derivatives (data and valuations), ETFs and macro-economic research. 

We've had a tremendous amount of support which has come in many shapes and forms; moral support, words of encouragement, great testimonials, business leads, business referrals, web advice, company advice. Thank you everyone.

The biggest thank you goes to those firms who put their faith in us and asked us to work with them in finding staff. We're looking forward to building on these partnerships in the coming years. Of course, we will (as always!) be actively prospecting for new customers too.

FINAL QUARTER OF OUR FIRST TRADING YEAR AT HAWK SEARCH

We are now immersed in the final quarter of our first trading year at Hawk Search. Here is a summary of all our current open opportunities:

Vendor Senior Negotiator - Third Party Content - based London

ETF Analyst - fluent German - based London

New Business Sales - IDB - based London, covering Southern Europe

Outsourced Sales - Capital Markets - based London & New York

Sales Manager (UK territory) - Commodities - based London

New Business Sales (European territory) - Commodities - based London

Expert Network - Practice Leader for Financial Services Sector - based London

We are now immersed in the final quarter of our first trading year at Hawk Search. Here is a summary of all our current open opportunities:

Vendor Senior Negotiator - Third Party Content - based London

ETF Analyst - fluent German - based London

New Business Sales - IDB - based London, covering Southern Europe

Outsourced Sales - Capital Markets - based London & New York

Sales Manager (UK territory) - Commodities - based London

New Business Sales (European territory) - Commodities - based London

Expert Network - Practice Leader for Financial Services Sector - based London

FIND US ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER TO DISCOVER MORE ABOUT HAWK SEARCH

Hawk Search recently set up a fan page on Facebook.

We are using this page to highlight job opportunities, industry views as well as company news.

To find us on Facebook and discover more about Hawk Search, click here. Become a fan!

We are also listing all open vacancies on Twitter. Click here to follow our tweets.

HAWK SEARCH UPDATE MARCH 2010

To kick off our third quarter at Hawk Search, here is a list of all our current open opportunities:

Equity Content Leader - pan-European remit - based London

ETF Analyst - fluent French or German - based London

Senior Reporter - Financial Institutions - based London

New Business Sales - Emerging Markets Macro Research - based London

Business Development Manager - ECM - based London

Business Development Manager - M&A - based London

Fixed Income Evaluator - Italian Markets - based London

Sales Director - US Research Start-up - based London

Sales Manager (UK territory) - Commodities - based London

Data Manager - Fixed Income - based Hong Kong

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM HAWK SEARCH

We are back from the Christmas holidays and wish all our readers, clients and candidates a very Happy New Year and much success in 2010.

On the first working day of the new decade, we are wondering what 2010 will hold in store...

The eFinancialCareers web site makes tentative predictions for the year ahead. They believe increased M&A activity will increase headcount in the banks. They see an unleashing of pent up demand in ECM as well as hiring across government bond desks. There will be an increased diversification in electronic trading of credit derivatives across exchanges and dark pools. There'll be bank hiring across commodities. And finally, hiring across post-trade processing services will increase.

Our clients sell news, data, research, software and technology to banks, investment managers and hedge funds. If the banks are hiring then there is more demand for our clients' services, albeit there's generally a delay between the banks hiring and their suppliers beefing up their teams. The first quarter of trading (Q4, 2009) was positive for Hawk Search with a good flow of hiring mandates, however, we are not overly bullish about 2010. There are no underlying macro-economic factors to suggest we have moved into recovery. There will be hiring and, if the eFinancialCareers predictions come true, our clients will have more people to sell to in 2010. This may support sign-off for new headcount.

DIVING INTO OUR SECOND QUARTER AT HAWK SEARCH

We have just closed our first full three months of trading and are looking forward to the next quarter. Our first quarter has been busy, mostly generating new business opportunities, completing some hires and actively networking in the areas where we have won mandates. We have had many meetings with corporations explaining our search approach. We have also been cold calling and making ourselves known to new firms.

We see optimistic hiring talk in our small area of the financial markets. (We work with data, research, news, software, technology companies who sell their products to buy-side and sell-side firms). However, we cannot pin-point where that optimism is coming from, given there are no strong economic figures indicating we have recovered from events pre- and post-Lehman. We have observed some firms have had headcount signed off. In some cases this was headcount that was originally requested at the start of this year but hiring was put on hold due to market conditions. Other firms are completing cost cutting and some have indicated they'll have new budgets in January. In addition, we have been speaking with 2 US firms, who are expanding in European. Perhaps the favourable exchange rate is influencing some of these decisions. 

Our next quarter will see us working across fixed income valuations, investor relations, fund research, macro research, commodities research/data and equity market data. We will be expanding our network in these areas as we solicit recommendations for top performers.

OUR FIRST MONTH AT HAWK SEARCH

Today, we come up for air and reflect on our first month of Hawk Search. We have had a very positive and encouraging start. We thank everyone who has taken the time to offer us their support and votes of confidence.

We have been busy and it has not been without a few blips. We couldn’t have anticipated that on the day we start promoting our Hawk Search gmail address that Google Mail would have a major outage.

In our first month we have kicked off our website/blog which will gradually build a picture of the markets and types of clients we work with. We have also been contacting new companies and putting in place agreements to work together. In the coming months we will be adding more company links to our web site and hope our Current Vacancies tab will be more extensive.

In the past few weeks we have been speaking with corporations with a variety of different products and candidate requirements. These firms include a fund research business, an exchange, a provider of independent investment research, a knowledge processing outsourcing business, a trade matching organisation, a corporate governance firm, a news wire and a reference data business.

We see optimism in the market although we do not hear too many people being overly bullish. Some firms who have held off hiring are starting to get head count approved. Other firms are re-structuring internally to find a different way to fill the gaps.

WEEK AHEAD FOR HAWK SEARCH

We are pleased to have received so many good wishes last week (thank you everyone) and to start getting processes in place for Hawk Search.

To start the week we are preparing two shortlists for clients as well as sourcing new business opportunities. We are also talking with a New York firm who are looking to set up in the UK later in the year. We are having further conversations with them later in the week. Less enjoyably, we are getting to grips with new systems and procedures.

We'll be adding an industry news section to the web site as well as industry blog links. These should be updated by the end of this week.

WELCOME TO HAWK SEARCH EXECUTIVE RECRUITMENT

Welcome to Hawk Search Limited. We are a UK-based Executive Search firm working with companies that sell pricing, data, news, software and technology products to investment banks, investment managers, hedge funds and wealth managers. We help find analysts, reporters, sales, marketing, product and client service staff for our clients. Firms who use us include market data vendors, news wires, exchanges, economic and political research firms, technology vendors, inter-dealer brokers and rating agencies.

We are a client-led business. Our clients use Hawk Search when they require a collaborative and dedicated search to ensure they find the right person for the job. Our approach is structured and our search cycle includes business development, understanding the client brief, market research, candidate recommendations, presentation of long list, agreement of candidate short list, candidate approaches, managing interview logistics and, finally, contract negotiation.

We communicate very well and are always careful to set clear expectations. We work very hard because we really enjoy what we do. We are proud that a range of firms, from well-established companies to start-ups, choose us to represent them.

Our web site gives a good overview of the industry we represent. As well as our current mandates, we also provide industry news updates. We are always keen to speak to firms who are building a business around the right people and the most appropriate skill set.