Management Consultancy Recruitment

Management Consultancy recruitment is a major part of the High Finance Group business. Relevant clients in this area include:

Ernst & Young
Oliver Wyman
PWC
KPMG
Deloitte
Watson Wyatt
Tillinghurst
Financial Services Authority

Relevant Management Consultancy news:

UK financial bonuses, deferrals rise in 09 -survey
Tue Mar 16, 2010 1:02pm GMT
Reporting by Kirstin Ridley, editing by Antonia van de Velde
From the Reuters website

* 47 pct of UK financial staff see 09 bonuses rise - survey
* Over one third see bonus partly deferred in 09/10

* 38 pct see rise in basic salary - Morgan McKinley

LONDON, March 16 (Reuters) - Almost half of UK financial services workers saw bonuses rise in 2009/10, but more than one third had their remuneration partly deferred and the jobs market remains delicate after the recession, according to a survey.

Morgan McKinley, the professional recruitment consultancy which quizzed 180 employees working in financial services in London this month, said on Tuesday almost three times more people had bonuses deferred compared to the previous year.

"It may seem surprising to see bonuses up this year ..., however many institutions performed relatively well in 2009 compared to 2008 and are continuing to reward employees based on the overall performance of the individual, the team and the business," said Andrew Evans, managing director of Morgan McKinley's financial services.

"It is the change in structure of bonuses as well as the overall make up of total reward that is significant," he said.

Along with the Group of 20 leading world economies, the UK's Financial Services Authority (FSA) is trying to stamp out excessive risk-taking by banning guaranteed bonuses of more than one year and is calling for two-thirds of bonuses to be spread over three years to discourage short-term decision-making.

Bonus policies at banks such as Goldman Sachs (GS.N), JPMorgan (JPM.N) of the U.S. and Barclays (BARC.L) and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L) of the UK have been under intense politican and public scrutiny after much of the industry was bailed out with taxpayer cash during the financial crisis.
Morgan McKinley noted that although one quarter of respondents said their bonuses had been cut, this compared to 60 percent in 2008/09. And almost 40 percent said their basic salary had risen -- while almost three quarters said they were satisfied with their salaries.

Evans said he expected to see greater variation in the structure of salaries in the financial sector as institutions, which are expected to continue to use remuneration as a key way to attract and retain talent, seek new ways to reward stars.

The survey showed a continued rise in new financial job vacancies in Feb., which rose by 13 percent month-on-month. Job numbers jumped 67 percent compared with Feb. 2009 -- a similar rise to that seen in Jan. 2010 compared with Jan. 2009.

"The 13 percent rise in available job opportunities in February 2010 is relatively modest as anticipated, underlining that we are likely to see a gradual improvement in the hiring market over the year rather than a strong rebound," said Evans.

"We remain more positive about the outlook for the financial services jobs market compared to a year ago, however the depth of the recession in financial services should not allow for any complacency and the jobs market is still at a delicate stage of growth," he added.

The average financial salary stood at 51,560 pounds ($77,300), a two percent month-on-month increase. ($1=.6670 Pound).

Click here to view the 'UK financial bonuses, deferrals rise in 09 -survey' article on the Reuters website.

Accounting staff shortage a global phenomenon
Mar 6 2006
From eFinancial Careers website

You can tell the global accounting industry is in the midst of a staffing crisis when the UK office of a big four accounting firm looks to Zimbabwe to fill its gaps.

This is precisely what the UK office of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu did last year. Nor does it seem to be alone in adopting such measures: rival firms in other locations are also eyeing accountants overseas. And the staffing crisis, while not quite as acute as in 2005, continues unabated.

"Globally, there is a big shortage of accountants," explains Robert Walters, chief executive of the eponymous international recruiting firm Robert Walters Plc. "All the big accounting firms are desperately short of people."

As at Deloitte, this desperation is prompting the so-called ‘big four' accountants - Deloitte, Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), and KMPG - to redistribute staff internally, or to cast their external hiring nets further afield.

The reasons for this shortage of accountants are manifold. Key among them is the fact that firms didn't train enough accountants during the downturn of 2001, 2002 and 2003. Because accountancy training typically lasts at least two years in each jurisdiction, that failure continues to make itself felt today.

"There's a lack of people with three to five years' experience," says Keith Feinberg, the New York-based director of permanent placement services at recruiter Robert Half International. "It's down to the fall-off in people going into accounting careers three to five years ago."

For example, Walters says PwC has recently undertaken a major recruitment drive in Australia in search of staff for its New York office, and that UK accounting firms have deepened their love affair with accountants in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, where qualifications are similar to the UK's Association of Chartered Accountants (ACA) exams.

Mariano Arcelloni, human resources director at PwC in Milan, says a lack of skilled staff and newly qualified accountants in Italy has encouraged the firm to look in Eastern Europe for recruits for its Italian offices. The policy has not been an unqualified success. "There are two difficulties," he says. "One is the language barrier - not many Eastern Europeans speak fluent Italian. The other is the fact that there is a shortage of accountants everywhere."

The ongoing impact of Sarbox and IFRS

Regulatory changes have added to the burden. For example, the Italian auditing market was given a boost in 2004 by the Vietti Law, requiring that Italian companies looking to raise debt on external capital markets have their accounts prepared by an auditor.

Less locally, the Sarbanes-Oxley governance code came into effect in the U.S. in 2002 and is due to impact non-U.S. companies with U.S. stock market listings this coming July. Recruiters say most companies, even in Europe, have already made the initial adjustments necessary to comply with the new rules. As a result, demand for Sarbox specialist consultants is now waning, but the story doesn't end there.

"Many companies are still hiring accounting and finance professionals in response to Sarbanes-Oxley," says US-based DeLynn Senna, executive director of Robert Half Finance & Accounting. "An example of this is the continued high demand for internal auditors."

Martin Dixon, director of recruitment firm Hays France, reports a similar trend in continental Europe. "There has been a noticeable number of candidates looking for permanent work having completed Sarbanes-Oxley projects, but these candidates are not finding difficulty in securing new roles, be it in audit or financial control. If anything the extra number of skilled candidates that SOX projects has generated has filled a gap in the market."

Alongside Sarbox, demand for accounting professionals has been impacted by the global roll out of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Companies based in the European Union have had to adhere to the new standards since January 1, 2005. "IFRS is absolutely an issue," says Karl-Joachim Brand, a director at Robert Half in Frankfurt. "It's an important topic here: demand for people who are familiar with the new standards is high."

Recruiters report that both IFRS and Sarbox have boosted continental European demand for English-speaking accountants, who are particularly sought after by multi-national companies. "Skilled accountants who speak fluent English and are familiar with US GAAP or IFRS and Sarbanes-Oxley, are in particularly short supply," reflects Federico Fontana at the Milanese office of Michael Page.

Bringing in juniors, and keeping hold of them

Predictably, part of the response to the global shortage of accountants has been the recruitment and training of juniors.

PwC's Arcelloni says graduate recruitment for the Italian audit business has risen from 250 to 450 over the past three years. "We can't recruit any more juniors than that even if we want to," says Arcelloni. "It's a matter of training people - there is a limit to how many we can take."

Stevan Rolls, the UK head of resourcing at Ernst & Young, says better retention of recent graduate recruits has helped alleviate the staffing crisis. "There's still a shortage of newly qualifieds, but we're recruiting slightly fewer experienced people this year than last."

Rolls says Ernst & Young has improved staff retention by changing its corporate culture and introducing things like increased staff mobility internationally. "There isn't the complete sense of panic there was six to eight months ago," he says. "But we're still busy."

Pay up, but not dramatically

In a tight market, global pay for accountants is increasing. DeLynn Senna, executive director of Robert Half Finance & Accounting, predicts starting salaries for US-based internal auditors, who have seen demand boosted by the implementation of the Sarbanes-Oxley, will rise 9% this year. Feinberg at Robert Half International says counteroffers are popular, as accounting firms and corporates seek to retain accountancy staff. A CPA with five years' experience can now earn $85,000 in the New York market, says Feinberg.

Pay in continental Europe is predictably lower. Dixon at Hays France says a French accountant with five years' post qualification experience can command just €75,000 to €90,000.

Brand at Robert Half in Frankfurt says German accountants with five years' experience can expect to earn no more than €60,000.

In Italy, Fontana at Michael Page says pay for accountants has risen between 10% and 20% in the past year. However, he says an Italian accountant with three years' experience can still command only €50,000 max.

Click here to view the 'Accounting staff shortage a global phenomenon' article on the eFinancial Careers website.

High Finance Group is a recruitment and Executive Search company, based in London, working on UK, European and Bermudian jobs.