Hiring Trends and Dynamics in a fast-moving market

We have noticed that strong candidates are usually involved in multiple processes (and sometimes have several offers), which is driving many firms to go over budget in order to land talent. It is also a very fast-moving market, with many of our clients now having to be willing to move through an interview process and make an offer quickly, otherwise they risk losing talent to competitors that were able to move more quickly.

This has clearly become a candidate-driven market (at least within macro/credit/rates/fx trading & portfolio management), with a small pool of strong candidates (mostly quanty + strong derivatives knowledge) in high demand, while there is another fairly large pool of candidates out of the market (more senior, less quanty) that have unfortunately been out of work for a while.

While the buy-side and sell-side are actively hiring, there is still a general downward trend in the overall size of research teams due to increased use of quantitative models/frameworks to help drive idea generation and reduce the number of people needed on a team, so net-net, there will be fewer people working in research/strategist roles now than a few years ago, however there is still a lot of hiring for specialist skill-sets in areas that are expanding. The number of PMs/Traders at firms (especially HFs) seems to be trending upwards however, which means there will always be an appetite for strong risk-takers with good track records.

We are always open to hearing alternative perspectives on the hiring market from recruiters, candidates and clients operating in our space, so please feel free to share if you have a different viewpoint.