The Current State of the Treasury Recruitment Market

Foreign.

Welcome to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast, where I interview treasury professionals about their treasury careers. Each and every week I talk to them about how they've built their careers, where they are now, where they see both themselves and the treasury profession going to next. Let's get on with the show. In this week's show, I'm Jordan, joined by. Oh, hang on, it's a little bit different. It's a special edition, a feature show, if you will. So I'm joined by the lovely Joe Fawcett from the Treasury Recruitment Company, the equally lovely Craig Perkins and Katie Hardy from the Treasury Recruitment Company. Yes, it's a me as well. Mike Richards. What we're going to do today, it was a suggestion, actually, that, not to be left out, Carly Larkin burks that we do a bit of a sort of a market update, quarterly review, if you like. Because as we approach quarter four of 2021, we're past pandemic, we're coming out of it, we're starting to see recovery in all markets and everything else. But it was focusing on then, well, what are the markets we cover? Some of our clients say, oh, we don't know. You do junior guys and stuff like that? Yes, we do. Oh, do you do senior treasurers? Yes, we do. And so we thought, do you know what, we should give this back to you guys that listen to the podcast each and every week. Just a bit of a review. It's not going to be sell, sell, sell. It's just going to be present, present, present, tell you about what's happening in the market. We're going to focus on the main markets that we cover, so the uk, Europe, the US and, you know, particularly some of the senior markets as well. As we start to see those recover. In addition to that, we're going to do the sort of triangle, if you like. Now, that's, you know, the typical questions we get asked as recruiters are, what's the market like? What are salaries doing? And how do I make myself either as a candidate, the most attractive candidate out there, or as a client, how do we make ourselves the most attractive so we can attract people? So it's that sort of triangle, if you like, of. And that's what I'm going to talk to the team about today. Going to kick it off with the lovely Joe Fawcett. Not many people say that, but you can't know everything, Mr. Fawcett. Joe, so you joined the company a year or so ago throughout a pandemic. You lucky man. You've grown into Your role done extremely well. But as we look to the future and the recovery of the UK market in particular, which you focus on on the junior side, what's it been like? And, you know, how does it go now? And then we're going to come on to graduate and evolve into salary.

So.

Over to you, sir.

Yes, okay. Well, like you say, Mike, you know, I've been here for sort of about a year now. Kind of very weird sort of initial stint in recruitment and treasury recruitment as a whole. In short, the market has kind of showed this sort of constant, gradual, slow progression since September last year. I mean, initially when I first joined, it was dead as a dodo, nothing going on. It was very much, very, very kind of cutthroat, as it were, and kind of clawing your way to the top, trying to get jobs on. But now it's a case of actually kind of the opposite. And we're seeing, it's, like I said, very much back on its feet now. And we've actually just come out of what I understand is my first August here, but an exceptionally, uncharacteristically busy August. And especially if, yes, from a company point of view and from a market view as a WHO role, it's been exceptionally busy and it's kind of clearly returning to somewhat, constantly, we can call vaguely normal.

When you say busy, obviously, a lot of the time, operational roles, you know, people are moving around early stages their careers, they're making that move. Coming straight into the sort of salary question, if you like. How has that started to come through? Because I know that you've recently gone, started to go through a couple of offer processes and things like that, but someone will sometimes accidentally come into treasury, they do their two years as a Treasury assistant, maybe an analyst, they start to grow their careers. Are you starting to see that reflected in salaries when you're talking to people? Because you've got that knowledge, you're talking to candidates and they're saying, oh, I'm not being paid enough, or are they, you know, is it studying or things like that? What are the general things you're seeing from salaries?

I mean, I'm not sure if you're probably aware, Mike, but, you know, we obviously are running our global salary survey and, you know, just looking at some of the results from that, especially at the junior, junior sort of level, something I do see, if you were to sort of looking for that next step, looking for that sort of pay rise and looking to progress as treasury professionals, there are absolutely things that companies have taken, you know, really Take a look at and prioritize very much. For instance, you know, Qualifications act examinations I think are, you know, invaluable. I always encourage candidates to do it. It's a brilliant kind of concrete something that you can have on your cv. Like I say, it just really shows that you know, you are qualified, you do know what you're talking about and you know it will make you more employ. Frankly, it means you can charge people a little bit more for your services. So, you know, as far as I'm concerned, it's a win, win. Now, I do appreciate in a lot of cases these exams are quite expensive to take. I believe companies do offer subsidiaries for this and, you know, allowing people to take the exams on the company's behalf, which is really good. And I definitely encourage companies to add that to packages, especially at a junior level. The idea of sort of study support is absolutely huge and very valued in the market at a junior level at the moment.

And I agree and I've seen that a number of times. One of the things I'd add to that as well, and we've spoken about this just mainly, obviously early stage of career might be where candidates you're dealing with, Joe and Craig will come into in a minute. But a lot of the guys listening today will maybe early stages of career, they'll get that exactly as you say, that sort of study support. But sometimes what I'm seeing as well is that, and I've seen throughout my career is that people write, great, get your ACT exams, we'll pay for them for you. And they're quite costly nowadays and people are, oh yeah, great, get it. But what employers don't realize is it's two year study. You get through it, you get a much better qualified treasury person and everything else. And they've gone through that. I know that you suffer from it as well. When you talk towards on the counters, they then knock at the door and say, oh, I've a qualified treasury person now, can I have a pay rise, please? And you know, mid pandemic they were like, no, you're lucky to have a job. Are you seeing that as well?

Yeah, you know, absolutely. And that has been kind of a bit of a bit of a problem, especially sort of over the course of the pandemic. But I think, you know, I think that's fairly common, you know, I mean, who hasn't suffered throughout the course of the pandemic? I think it's been fairly universal for most that it has been hard. And I do appreciate, especially at this sort of Junior level, it is very difficult to find work. You don't have the sort of years of experience that maybe some of the more senior treasury professionals have. You kind of feel the need to sort of beef out your cv, but you don't know how to do it. And I can completely appreciate that, which is why I say exams, as a start, are always an absolutely fantastic one to just sort of have on there and make you look that much more employable. But also, yeah, I think it's really important to sort of include all sorts, you know, you know, roles that you, maybe you've done at university, you know, especially if you have had the sort of fortune, especially in the last couple of years, to take on a. Maybe a Treasury assistant role somewhere, you know, over the course of the pandemic, sort of making that sort of segue into Treasury. It's absolutely brilliant that you have that past experience or. Yeah, like I say, you know, even if you've been a team captain at university or something like that, just a bit of. Bit of leadership experience, a bit of something that could sort of set you apart from the crowd. All sort of absolutely invaluable when it comes to. When it comes to sort of progressing in the treasury industry.

Did you say, Joe, you're talking there about sort of beefing out your CV or resume and explain some of the stuff you've maybe, as you say, college, university and things like that. One of the points that we then discussed, actually, was sort of a bit of a chat around. I've talked to Katie about this in the past as well. Do you have, you know, your interest on your cv? So, myself, we actually had this discussion in the office recently that I like having interests on your cv. I myself suffered from this at one of my first jobs when I was getting into treasury recruitment. One of my ex colleagues, he said, I saw in your CV interest Tom Clancy novels and he said, you know, I hated them and I nearly threw your CV away because of that, so you need to be careful. And Craig, you talked about this as well, didn't you, about, you know, having your football team or avidly supporting someone, you know, you've got. What are your thoughts about having interests on your CV and stuff?

That in itself is a. In particular, a good point, especially when it comes, and we have seen it, where people put on a strong affiliation with such and such football team and I mean, that could work into your favor. But more often than not, probably not, I think, especially as we move more into this kind of, you know, the part of the market either look at within that like kind of mid level within the uk I guess it really just. It does depend and it's quite situational depending on the overall kind of content within the profile. I would say how many years of experience you've got that kind of tenure in the market. So whether or not it's worth, you know, it is worth putting on there. I think you might be, you know, as we move into this kind of sector you may be better off putting information on there around maybe some volunteering work that you do or you've done or bits around charity or stuff like that potentially. It just depends. It's quite situational when it's saying that we. I should discuss on a one to one basis with. With the candidates when we're going through a process effectively.

Well, I love that word affiliation. It's like if you're showing a strong affiliation you can get move into this as we call it recruitment. This horns and halo effect. Horns effect. You like the devil. They say no. Really hate them or I hate that rugby team, I hate them, blah blah blah or halo. Oh I love them, you know. But are you gonna just like with personal statements on your CVs which I hate and the guys know this. You see numerous videos about it. Why flip a coin? You know, why do a 5050 and go oh they're gonna hate that. So if in doubt leave it off. You know, don't, don't include it if it's something as a good talking point as well. Particularly in the early stages of career that you know, I think going back to Joe and we'll continue just about those sort of just the junior guys to wrap up with Joe. What tips would you give to the interests for the junior guys and stuff like that. So you're coaching some of those junior guys coming in. They're listening today. Some of them. What are the things that you would when you're talking to them? You see a CV comes in. Oh, this is a really good standout one. Or this is one. Whoa. This needs work. This needs some good Joe advice. You know you try and do it gently but sometimes you do have to deal with a heavy hand sort of thing or big stick. What sort of have you seen?

If you like there's all sorts of kind of issues when it comes to kind of CVs. I mean obviously appreciate the senior level. You guys will deal more with, you know, people maybe putting too much on their cvs. You know, you're talking four, five, six pages long and you know to that you say kind of take out everything from the last sort of. Sort of 10 years or so. But obviously from a junior point of view, the actual fact is it's very much the opposite. You know, they are looking for ways to beef out their CV and they're almost thinking, oh, God, I obviously include your A levels, you include your GCSEs, include what college you went to, universities, degrees, all things like that, you know, you could think of that you can possibly add. And I do appreciate it is difficult, especially if you haven't maybe haven't had a Treasury role yet, or maybe you've just done a sort of treasury internship or even just on a year as a Treasury assistant somewhere and sort of just fell into it. I think a huge part of it is the qualification side of things. You know, I hate to kind of babble on about it, but seriously, you know, it is something that employers look at. It is something that, you know, is so sort of. It is what it is. You know, there's. There's no. It can't be anything else. It's got an ACT qualification. You know, it's very well respected and, you know, I absolutely, like I say, always encourage. Encourage candidates to do that. But there is also the, you know, the idea of kind of. That's obviously, that's, that's very standard and that seems sort of obvious in many ways, you know, trying to get into treasury, get a Treasury qualification. But there is also this idea of, yeah, you know, when you're at university, did you do anything that might be seen as being a bit more sort of, Bit more interesting in that respect. Respect, and could kind of set you apart from the crowd? Yeah. Were you a captain of a football team? Did you sort of manage a team sport of some kind? You know, I appreciate, in your case, Mike, I do feel it's a bit bad, maybe a bit harsh, that you were nearly thrown out the door just for liking Tom Clancy. And I necessarily wouldn't take such a strong standpoint on that. I don't think if they say, oh, I like reading, I like football, I don't think it's necessarily make or break, but in many ways you've got to ask, does this add anything to my cv? Oh, I like reading in many ways. It's not necessarily going to sort of count you in necessarily particularly good stead, just because you like reading. So, yeah, you know, it's a key thing about, you know, it's got to be relevant. What are these transferable skills that you've learned through university, through life, that you can actually then bring into. Bring into Treasury.

Joe's touched on the word there that I was, you know, and it's great, actually. Relevance. I think that's the key thing, is that when I put our heads together and I've sort of given you advice about what should we do about this cv, it's about what's relevant. You know, that. That interest level wasn't really relevant. You know, actually there's some things that were relevant playing rugby and, you know, team sports and that shows you things. Also we. You've talked there, Joe, about Treasury qualifications. Brilliant. Yeah, great. But also there's accountancy qualifications and accountancy degrees and things those are relevant to the reader. Again, thinking about your audience, that's the key thing that we've. We've both gone about. It's lovely talking to you, Joe, and we could talk to you all day, but no, let's move on.

The pleasure as always, Mike. I shall. I shall leave you to the. To the rest of the staff. It was. Won't be as interesting as me, but I'm sure you'll enjoy it nonetheless.

So, Craig, the beefcake personal trainer as well. Yeah, so that's right. You guys might want to connect to him. Greg joined me back this past year doing extremely well. Experienced recruiter, so apparently knows his stuff and he's showing up rare. The. Well, I would say as the market has started to get back on its feet, Craig, you're starting to see a return to life. Talk us through how are you seeing your side of the market and then we'll come on to, you know, we'll talk through salaries and things like that and then we'll talk about your. Your specialist subject or, you know, the one we've chosen for today. So. So Craig, what's. What's it like out there?

Yeah, no, thanks, Mike. It's been quite an adventure, to be.

Fair, since I'll start.

I came on board, I think it was around the beginning of May, sorry if I remember correctly, and in terms of how I've, you know, seen the market, you know, going through, as you described as to be fair, anyone who works in this, in recruitment industry across any sector, typically August is a. Is a quieter time in the market, you know, man, just kind of going holiday. I think the thing is, and what it's come down to, with what I would call, let's call it the COVID catalyst and everything that's kind of gone on around that, it's certainly changed things more dynamically in the market. And even though I typically came from more of a project management kind of business analysis kind of background in my former life, what I can pretty much say that this has been the biggest of the busiest August I remember overall in terms of kind of the amount of opportunities that have been out there, but even more so the amount of candidates who have actually been making openings inquiries who to be honest, aren't actively looking. But there's so much speculation in the market at the moment on a Treasury basis in what I almost term the kind of the musical chairs effect, where you have got candidates who are prospecting different kind of opportunities they wouldn't have otherwise. They wouldn't have otherwise done. And this will, this will tie into kind of points you want to make a little bit later on around kind of the work from home kind of situation. You know, you've had a lot of people who have been sat at home for the last 17, 18 months, pretty much exclusively 100%. And a lot of companies have, are now looking at, you know, end of October, beginning of November, want to get people back in. And that is spurring a lot of people to see what's out there and have an inquire. And that's. And that has had a big knock on effect in terms of the way things are and that's why we've had a lot of. There's a lot of holes have opened up in teams, a lot of restructuring that's happened with these transitions back into offices, which is absolutely happening right now. And that's just caused, you know, quite a dynamic effect in terms of where things. It's certainly been busy from my end as kind of mid level senior treasury analyst, treasury managers.

It's assistant treasurers, which you've been doing, doing and some treasurers as well. You've sort of absolutely on their level sort of thing. Just one of the things there. And actually I think it's worthy of mention. You talk about this and. And Katie, cover a bit more later about working from home and that sort of newness of it. You know, we relaunched our salary survey. Joe touched on everything. We'll talk about it as well. Go to treasurysalary.com take part. We're approaching the 500 people mark, but it's a constant, you know, survey pick. Someone said, oh, when does it close? It never closes. But the good thing is only the people that take part get the full results. Now, as I restructured this and relaunched it earlier this year, Craig perked up and sort of put in, I said, can we just ask in there about the three working from home Questions I was like, really? You know, because three, four years ago, you know, the two questions, right, what's the job, what's the salary and where is it? Because you knew you would be based there five days a week and tiny bit of flexible working. Now it's question number three. How often and how flexible am I going to be in the office? Not from home, in the office. And Craig, actually, you. You helped me by pitching him with. And now we ask a question. There's just quick questions at the end. How many days are you currently working? Post pandemic, as we come out of it in the office, how many days is your employer asking you? But how many days do you want to do? I mean, you know, there's been a, obviously that rise in number of people saying about remote working and things like that. So you've asked about that, Craig, but, you know, what are you seeing in terms of. You start to see some of the salary results and things like that, but are you starting to see upward pressure on salaries at your level in the market as well?

Well, it's a really interesting point, actually.

You make around that kind of work from home flexibility, because ultimately, yes, you have got quite a few companies, companies that we've been supporting recently, who have been more open to, you know, come in office less than half the week, you know, two days a week in office, or let's say, like on a Monday and a Tuesday and the rest of the week from home. And what you're actually seeing is, even though, you know, in the past, you'd have probably seen if a company was offering some kind of remote flexibility, especially if someone was starting a new job that would be factored into the overall kind of salary that they would be offered and the overall package. Whereas now, you know, we're looking at. We take treasury managers as a threshold, depending on where people are based in the uk, and we've seen in the salary results, as we've got at the moment, that can range from your low 50s, 50k end, all the way up to a senior treasury manager, up to potentially over 90. Although in some companies, we look at that as a head of treasury kind of level. I think, think ultimately it's no longer a factor of, oh, you're working from home. So the salary we'd offer off the bat would be reduced because, you know, we're factoring in, we're not going to have to. This will be less travel time, you're not going to be spending money on petrol.

The thing is, a 60k job, I.

Imagine, in a couple of years back to what it is now is still the same despite the fact that you're not having to travel in.

So really if you look at it.

That way, there is that, there is that benefit and companies are going to request that people are on site or would like people on site five days a week unless it's, you know, you live in London and it's, and it's, you know, jumping on a couple tube stations. The thing, it's still at that, it's still at that value. You know, you're not going to be undercut because of the fact you're going to be working remotely. So I think in that regard, yeah, there's definitely been an increase indirectly because of that.

It's very competitive, you know, because that's standard. It's no longer almost a benefit to go, you can work two days from home anymore because it's almost expected.

And I think that's, that's, that's the significant difference in terms of that and.

How that affects the salaries which like I say, haven't they moved up slightly in terms of where they're at, but ultimately they haven't gone down at all given the fact that people can work from home to free four days a week.

And that's also reflected, Neely, on the interview process, isn't it? Because obviously everything throughout Pandemic with zoom zoom, virtual, virtual the law now people are starting to do that new thing called meeting people having a face to face interview. How is that seeing that starting to come back? We've done videos about this. We try and give coaching about what to do on a virtual interview because it's the same as you're still being judged. But whether it's a virtual interview, real face to face, you're being judged all the time. So you need to think about that. But what's the knock on effect you've seen when you know you've been recruiting and coaching candidates? Greg?

Yeah, well, it's a great question and actually I think where this also starts.

And we're going to talk about that face to face because that has absolutely been on. We've been kicking off face to face interviews over the last month now and I guess part of those five stages of the interview process, that second potential third stage is certainly almost expected I guess again now. And it's probably better I think in all angles, not both from the, from the potential employer but certainly from that candidate looking to actually be able to go in and physically see, see the office. I mean, I mean we're you know, we're hoping to be able to get back out there very soon and be on site with some of our clients again and see those premises. It's a lot nicer from our perspective to be able to tell a candidate off the bat what it's like there as well. You know, we've been there in person, so we'll be able to kind of get back to that soon as well. But certainly, and this is quite relevant, we've actually gone from a situation or certainly from, from my background and from what I'm used to of first stage interviews. Think about it, a lot of the time have been quick telephone calls, 30, maybe 45 minutes. The actual standard first stage interview has been for the last 18 months has been over video. I know a lot of times I have that initial kind of screening call, but the initial screening call now you are, although not in person, you're seeing that person over video. I've always known for the most part from my background, the initial, initial conversations usually were shorter. They were, they were telephone. So even the initial stages, people have become accustomed to the fact that has been over video. But certainly we are seeing that transition back in a face to face. And it's the logistical side you people forget about. Oh, okay. Because you know you're going to have to make sure you're not wearing your pajamas. Like, you know, a lot of people will stay in or you've got to make sure you remember you put your trousers on Tom, or whatever that looks like. But I think, I think the, the interesting part about it is that, that dynamic and that shift back because also where we're coming out now from that, that Kona Covid catalyst I mentioned earlier, people are going back into the office now. So it's not actually as easy to go, oh, you know, I'm working from home, I can slot something in my diary and I can travel half an hour interview, travel half an hour back. Got to take two and a half hours out of my day. The thing is now, because there's a lot of transition back into the office, people have got a plan around that as well. So depending on where their companies are currently working or at in that process, they've also logistically got to factor the fact they need more time. Most people, to be fair, can jump on a video call almost the next day as long as they feel prepared for it and we put them in the best position to do that. One thing I would say when it comes to the face to face and one thing we absolutely do and I think Everyone should do in our position is making sure that we're jumping on video calls with, with with all people going roles who are going for anything face to face to talk over any, any kind of concerns how people are feeling about that and just making sure in every party is happy in that regard. But we're seeing a lot more requests for face to face interviews again now, which I think is great. It's much better, much better for the companies. Absolutely. You get a much better feel for the culture as well when you, when hopefully when you're there as well.

Well, I'll get quizzed a little bit later by Craig and he gets his own back in a little bit but. Well, I get my own back and get to work. Move across to the lovely Katie Hardy. Katie focuses on, well, leads are global efforts if you like, supporting me. But originally and as focused and we've been prior to pandemic going to things like call conferences in Europe all those days. So focuses on Europe and also as our US business is rapidly growing and developing right the way across from east to west coast, she's been supporting me on that. So Katie, European markets just come out of the, the summer which is obviously closed down for lots of places. You know, whether now you're working Remot or not. What's it been like for you? What's, what's the state of the markets out there?

I think Europe, what we found at the beginning of this year, it was sort of more on the back foot in terms of a market recovering from COVID A lot of that was to do with the whole vaccination side of things. So it's taken a while for Europe, if you like, to catch up. And I think then it started to pick up again in April and we had a couple of months where positions were coming through. But then obviously, as you've just mentioned, summer hit and I think this year, particularly where people haven't had the chance to go away, they've suddenly it's been a priority. So it's completely closed down the whole of August. What we've now seen coming into September and you know, it's definitely suddenly accelerated. So there's a lot of everybody seems to be refreshed. Everybody seems to have looked at, you know, what their plans are for the next 12 months. A lot of clients are looking at sort of restruct a lot of the transactional side of treasury out and recreating treasury teams that are more strategic. That's their focus. I think also they're looking very much around the future growth of the business and the best sort of structure to be able to support that growth. So it's definitely picked up, but it's taken a little bit longer than when we looked at obviously the UK and the US market.

I want to give a practical example and come back to Katie. She doesn't spotlight some of her brilliance, but what I mean by that is throughout this summer you actually executed one of our. You were contacted by a US client who wanted someone to be remote working but a German based candidate for filtration group and say that now because we placed the job and everything else because also I think that impacted on salary as well, you know, because it didn't negatively, you know, this lady in America needed our support. Can you just outline a little bit, you know, without being too much about the company and stuff. But, but you can actually explain to some of the listeners because a practical example of what you started to see happening as the market recovers. A proper job, properly recruited during a summer period. Bit strange for both of us, but talk us through that.

Yeah, the situation was very much that filtration group are part of a massive corporation and they've got a huge amount of entities but they don't have a centralized team to look after recruitment. So you know, we were approached about that and actually I have to say it was probably one of the most refreshing processes that I've worked on. It was very straightforward, there was a lot of advice and really close partnering with the business. But actually what we found, and actually it touches back on what Craig's talked about is actually the process was all remote so it was virtual interviews and things like that. But what I found was whilst the majority of the candidates that I spoke to were actually on holiday themselves, they were able to work around their holiday to have a virtual interview with the client. So, you know, one of my candidates actually said, oh, you know, I'm going to have to take time off the beach to be able to have that interview. But it happened and it, and it works and you know, it meant that we didn't lose any time, which was really. Well, we had time, yeah, we had time constraints. So actually the process worked really well and you know, there was, was three stages and I personally was on holiday as well, not on a beach but you fit it in and it made it so much easier than having to try and set up somebody flying somewhere to go for an interview face to face.

And then salaries wise, have you started to see some movement around that? Are they starting to hang bonuses or salaries? You're starting to see, you know, you're getting a lot of responses from the salary survey, people are doing it and then reaching out to you saying, yeah, I'm interested in new reactions role and touches a bit on what Craig talked about there. You know, there's this passive candidate market and I've said this to people in the past that they say to me, you talk to an audience and say, who's actively looking for a job? And five hands go up out of a hundred. What does that mean? The 95 aren't looking for a job, you know, say, well, how many, if I came to you, perfect role, how many of you would go for that? And actually everyone's hand in the room go up, bar five hands, because everybody's interested in a move. A lot of people I've noticed, and they're sort of latent job seekers that, you know, they're not actively out there, they're not doing their CV resume, they're not, but they are interested in the next, next shift. What are you seeing sort of thing.

I'm actually seeing an increase in passive candidates and people reaching out to me about it. And actually what's become apparent, and it started before we launched the salary survey, is that there are a lot of pockets around Europe where salary is super, super light for the length of experience and the job role. And what I' of found this year is that obviously last year with COVID there wasn't any movement in salaries. And you know, we've touched on the fact that you're lucky to have a job. But actually I would say that pretty much all of the roles that I've had on this year, the salary has been a talking point and one where we've had to give advice. And actually that's why it's great we've got the salary survey because then we've got some raw data that actually backs up what we're advising our clients. But what I found is at sort of the analyst, senior analyst and manager level, the years of experience that people are looking for versus the salary that they're offering, it just pulls apart and actually it's become quite a talking point with clients. So I think there's a lot of focus and work that needs to be done on that. So we, you know, we've given advice to a couple of clients who have then sort of that's kind of prompted whole department's view on what salary should be.

I'll just jump in there because actually there's. If I'm a listener today and I sometimes put myself in the listener's seat, if you like. And I try and do that when I do the weekly interviews with the treasurers and senior treasury professionals. I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, yeah, yeah, you, you recruitment company, you're doing this as a sales pitch and blah, blah, blah. And we're not. We're advisors. That's one of the key things with consultants and the, the practical example, I want you as a listener sitting there going, all right, okay. All right, Richard. Well, the. Craig and I were on a call with one of our clients last night. The HR guys had apparently benchmarked their salary for this role. And they said, it's a 52k or 52k role. And that was it, that was why. And we looked at ours and we had this, and there was a Treasury manager role. And this is the location, this is the details. And the fact was we were then able to say, right, there is one person in our survey on 52k, and this is actually 50, funny enough, one treasury manager on slightly below that. And there are 18 treasury managers above 52k in our region that match this. It's like 18 of them. So you're not paying market rate. You're paying second from bottom if you're going at 52. And it was like, oh, okay. And. And the treasurer was convinced, but actually someone, somewhere, we don't know who or where they got the benchmarking, I. E. You know, sometimes we know some of our rivals surveys are made up. You know, there's a big bug from there for me, guys, sorry, I'm gonna go off my high horse. I might fall off of it and hurt myself. But the fact is, ours is real data and we can actually really prove it. And then people say, oh, well, where are you drawing? And this person, you know, for instance, who, what? The guy who was on 52K. Well, where are they? Northern Scotland. Yeah, they're not really comparable to your London salary. And it just. I just try and. Just breathe. Sorry, Just breathe. Anyway, so what I'm saying, what would you say? Katie, you talked earlier about the sort of balance with this sort of remote working, working from home, this, this new world, you know, for you and, and Europe and the U.S. you know, because we'll segue into that in a minute, which I'm saying, what are your thoughts?

We've kind of spoken about it and discussed it, where the common questions prior to Covid was what's the role and what's the salary? And while salary, especially in Europe, still remains quite a focal Point one of the main questions I get is what's the company's policy Post Covid on remote working. And again I've had to advise clients that, you know, it does actually heavily weigh on candidates decisions about whether or not they're going to pursue that job opportunity. Sometimes I'm finding above what the salary is. And I think, I suppose the buzzwords at the moment is that people, people, people are expecting companies to have a hybrid solution. So you know, they want, candidates want to have that blend of office and home based working. And I think the challenges that businesses are having this year and I think will continue into next year is whether or not they offer that freedom. And I think it's very difficult because when you've got Gen Z, if we can talk about that, that workforce population, so more at the sort of treasury analyst level have found working from home difficult because they like that social interaction, it's finding that balance. Whereas people that have got families and things like that have enjoyed having the working from home element. So I think I did quite a bit of research about it and it and it's been revealed that 30% of the global workforce will be working from home on multiple days by the end of this year and that will increase over the next sort of three years to 70%. So my advice to any business is that they've got to embrace, embrace this new trend of hybrid working because failure to do it can predict unwanted challenges.

In recruitment, affect your results as a company overall. So I think because yeah, if you don't, you're going to lose the talent and that's fine. And it's just like, well, you just won't recruit the people that won't be there to execute the work something.

And I have had one client that said, you know, our policy is 100% working from the office is office based. And actually I really struggled to find people that would accept that.

Well, crazy Craig was going to then pitch in, you guys get, you know, because everyone's just bored of hearing me. Although it is my podcast. Right. So you do get to hear me every week, although usually get to hear the podcast guest because I've got better at it over 170plus episodes of asking a question and shutting up. But now it's weird because it's you guys asking me, Craig, you wanted to kick off things or get your own back?

Absolutely, absolutely. I thought I'd ask a question that.

Kind of impacts across different kind of.

Industries within the treasury space because we've seen, seen, you know, over the last 1819 months. You know, give, giving examples here where you've had, you know, aerospace, for example travel companies where a lot of their treasury talent has be, has been pulled or stripped away to, towards other companies such as pharmaceuticals or fast moving consumer goods companies. Obviously, you know, have had a bit.

Of a knock on, benefit from, from.

All of the, from the COVID situation. How do you envisage things are gonna, you know, gonna swing around now? You know, given the fact that you know now most countries, you know, across Europe and in the world lighted actually there's quite a surge in the amount of people going away at the moment in terms of how do you envisage over the next year that's going to have a big swing around from a Treasury Department perspective across the industries?

Well, there's one bit we'll get to go to conferences and we'll get to see people. I'm speaking at two conferences later this year. I was hopeful of actually going to see people. Treasury by its very nature is very networking orientated, is sharing ideas. I was talking to a client just yesterday and he talks to his competitors all the time. But the fact is because they're in treasury, they're not direct competitors. They're talking about treasury and finance and they were talking then about sharing ideas about straight through processing and not crossing borders about banking. But actually that's one of the key things. It's actually treasury folks are very collaborative in their outlook and that's one of the things that I am seeing going to come come back. Collaboration and working together and things like that. One of the other parts for me to chip in with there is, is, you know, what has it been like? You know Craig, you mentioned we've gone through this sort of the, the dip if you like. And coming out of it a number of people, you know, suddenly say for the senior, I get asked about the senior UK market, let's just do that. And they're saying well what's that been like? It was horrible. Basically there were a number of conversations going about pre Covid back in the sort of Jan. Feb. March, March. Everything got then put on hold but a lot of people postponed their retirement plans. You know that had been on the cards for six to 12 months and then it was like oh actually I'm going to postpone for another 12 to 18 months. Great treasury professionals in there. But actually there was this nice planned succession plan and everything else. Now actually we're 18 months nearly two years later. Some of those people have just left. You know that were the people that were meant to succeed. And so they're like, oh, actually, which is great. We're getting the calls and things like that. We're also getting a number of those guys are doing this orderly transition out of it because they said, look throughout Covid, I don't want to just be sitting at home and not allowed to go out anywhere, not allowed to make the most of my retirement or semi retirement. So now we're starting to see a lot more movement. It's slow and it's planned and it's progression and that's happening. The key thing as well I was going to reflect on as well was a bit more about the US Market. I know that Katie's been supporting me on that. We've. That started to really come back. You know, we've got recent placements in Texas. We're working with a couple of companies in the sort of Midwest. We've got a couple of companies around the west coast which are starting to eat into our, our evening hours and things like that. But it's actually. And we've got a lovely Ernie who's supporting us across the US and actually he's got this great reputation with people. So we're starting to get lots more inbound work there. I don't know if that really sort of answered all of Craig's question there, but it's definitely a recovering market sort of thing. Katie, you were going to chip in or build on Craig's question?

Yeah, I mean, I was going to sort of speak to you about what's happening in the US market and the senior market overall. But I know that we have seen it moving a lot quicker than perhaps we thought it would. And I think people are realizing, realizing that we do actually cover that area. And I think with Ernie being on board, that's kind of helped as well.

It has. I think also one of the other bits, there's a real differential in some US corporates. And what I mean by that is there are some that have got, you know, like Craig reflected on there about this sort of this new world order, if you like, in a positive way of working from home, flexible working. Katie, you've alluded 30 to 70 and stuff, stuff like that. One of my clients up in the top Northwest of America, I won't explain too much who they are, but basically prior to pandemic, 100% working in the office, very difficult location to get to. So you had to move there to work there and everything else started to deal with them. During the Pandemic said all 100% working from home. All right, okay. How's that affected your productivity? Do you know what? We've been surprised, Mike, actually. It's gone up and there's much better balance. You know, we're really pleased and, you know, tick, tick, tick. I was like, wow, brilliant. So when you're going to re. Recruit this role and very difficult to get to, what are you going to do afterwards? Oh, 100% back in the office. I'm like, right, what? So your productivity went up when you didn't work in the office or when there was semi flexible working? Yeah, but you're going to. Oh, yeah, I've seen it. We were 100% back in the office. I was like, why? And it just. There is, I still think, a lingering, you know, depending on some senior management, they've got to get their heads around it because unless you evolve businesses, your businesses will suffer in these human terms. I think that's one of the bloody frustrations that I find that, you know, we try and give this advice to clients and if they won't listen to us, that's fine, don't listen to us, you know, but. But then we can't recruit for you or Craig. You know, I've been talking to a couple of clients and they've started to say, oh, no, we only want to pay these rates and stuff. Well, look, we can't support you. We don't mind, you know, trying to be flexible when we can be if there's a commitment from both sides. But the fact is, if there's zero commitment and, you know, we're like the fourth choice. You've used LinkedIn three months, you'd use three other recruiters, and then you come to us. Oh, and I want to deal on the fee. Like, why our job's 10 times harder and it's still a challenging, you know, market, and yet you. Yeah, we want that. No, we want to work in partnership with our clients, not, you know, against.

Our clients in a way, touching on us market. I know when I started supporting you, Mike, you kind of have to remember that, as in America, you can't ask people what their salary is. And so it's very hard to then be able to really advise clients on what they should be paying, which, again, you know, I know we've talked about our salary survey a lot, but it kind of just shows the value of it, that actually now we're in a position, as the raw data is coming through, that we can actually advise our clients in the States around what they should be paying.

And also it's Sort of. We understand why they're trying to redress the gender imbalance, which is why you can't ask people, people outright their salaries. You can ask their expectation but not their salaries. However, there can be a breakdown in communication. I recently, you know, had a candidate earlier in the year who I knew wasn't as experienced but was saying, I want 130. And I'm like, well, you're not going to get it, you know, because he was not that level. But I wasn't allowed to ask him his salary. Later on he did take part in our salary survey and he was on 85. And I thought. And then at a later stage when he reject, they rejected him, said, too junior for this role, blah, blah, blah. Lord, accept 100, 110. And I'm like, right, you, you know, that's a whole different person. I'm like, right, so that's not our intention, what our intention is. And I refer to this on a, a webinar that is available on treasurytv.com Go and have a look. Ernie the mad at Ernie and I discussing and we talked about the salary 7 it'd be giving us this superpower, if you like, that when a client comes to us, whoever it might be in the US and they say, can you target these right candidates? We know exactly the right, the right people to target. I don't care whether men, women, what their gender, what their race is and things like that. I'm going to go for the best treasury professionals. But we know which pool of people to approach and to talk to about this role. I'm not going to limit it. You know, we'll still go out to other people, but, you know, we know a targeted approach and that's our superpower and that's why I talked about it. And that gives us this strength. So if you are a US client, you're listening. Or a candidate. Oh yeah, take part in the survey because then you know that the company representing you US not only have your back, but we're also, we're going to come to you with the right level of jobs. You know, we're not going to waste your time if you're a client in recruiting, you know, we'll come with the right people with the right approximate level of experience. You know, that's what we're going to look at and we'll be wide open about it because you as a client, we can't share necessarily that data. You know what we can share, you know, we'll put forward the best candidates, but we'll look at a wider range and perhaps you might or might always look at. But we're going to have the right people for you and I think that's a key thing as well. I'm going to ask each of the team just for sort of their advice. We do each week, we'll put the LinkedIn details for everybody in the show notes so you can reach out, connect to us. If you haven't already. Please do. What I would say is in there is, you know, what. What advice would you give to people now? It can be, Joe, you know, you're going to look, you know, you focus predominantly on the UK market, but that can be more global. What people need to think about. Again, across to Craig and then Katie and then I need to think about my bit, actually. I've got one bit which luckily I had some notes from before, so going around the circle. Joe, first of all with you, what. What piece of advice would you give to people today?

Listening, I'd say. Well, I mean, for start. I mean, I think I definitely would target my advice, you know, mainly the junior candidates. So if you are listening people at a junior level, one thing I would say is that definitely do not be disheartened if your CV comes across a little bit on the shorter side. It's to be expected and I would absolutely encourage, if are looking to sort of beef that up and to sort of progress generally as a Treasury professional. It's a huge thing of doing exams, looking at your past, your history or university, anything you've done in the last few years, even past roles that maybe haven't been in treasury, but just have those transferable skills and make sure you target them, make sure you're getting those relevant information on the cv. You know, it can be short, but if it's concise to the point and the information on there is relevant, then yeah, absolutely.

Nice and concise from Joe. That's it.

Before.

He keeps going, because he could be great, great, great to have a pint with and have a chat with. But anyway, let's move on. Mr. Perkins, Greg Perkins, your piece of advice. Killer, killer bit of advice for some of those people out there.

Do you know what I would say, in all honesty?

Getting in touch.

If you've been in your role two.

Three, four years, or you're looking for.

A change, you're engaged on an interim assignment, it'd be great to obviously kind of have a conversation because ultimately it's, it's our, Our job, our responsibility, if.

You like, to keep an eye on the market. For you. And as long as we know what.

Kind of things you're it be now.

Six months, a year away, we can.

Put things on, on your radar.

It's tricky to do that if we.

Don'T know around your circumstance.

And it's not so much. I know a lot of people, you.

Know, on the other side of the.

Fence from us will think we don't want to be in a position where we're dropping, dropping people a phone call because we've got something that we're supporting a client on. We'd love to know about your situation well ahead of time. Even if you're not looking now, you know, considering a move the next six months to a year, let us know because something might just crop up, but maybe a little bit sooner than that. And we'd love to be able to drop you a call first. We love to do that. And it's just, it's just planning ahead really. Ultimately, it's been our interest to keep you in mind for things that we genuinely think would be of interest to yourself. So taking that step, you know, you're not, you don't make a commitment to it, to accept a role by speaking to us about it. All we want to do is open up a door, allow you to take a step through it and, and see if it's the right fit. So, yeah, get in touch. That'd be my advice.

Okay. And Katie, open to you.

For me, it's slightly different. I would say that, you know, people need to focus on, keep on developing themselves and taking ownership for their development. So not expecting new responsibilities or to sort of just fall on their lap. You know, if you want to grow within your treasury career, you need to take ownership for it and find ways to develop yourself within your current business or within a new business.

Nice and concise. Loving that.

And actually, could I actually quickly just follow on from what Katie was just saying? I just wanted to say, you know, just touching upon obviously from what I was talking about in terms of CVs, I think it is important to mention as well. I think the way just people view their CV sometimes even just at its very core can be, can be, you know, I'd say just incorrect really. You know, I think people see CVs as a very static document and I think it's important to see it as something that's fluid, something that's constantly changing. You know, there's no harm in sort of looking at your CV every month or two and even, you know, things pop into your head of add them onto There constantly, like I say, it's fluid, it's constantly changing. It should be something that you're always sort of looking into and constantly, always trying to make those improvements on. Even if it's just sort of 1%, you know that 1% every month or so, every week, whatever it is, you know, that'll add up over time. When the time does come that you do want to make that move, you've got this document, like I say, it's been fluid, you've been constantly adding to it. It's a very up to date profile of who you are.

So the closing piece of advice actually that I would give is actually based on, based on an article that I wrote a number of years ago where I tried to get clients to think about candidates and we're all doing this as a group today and we've got, you've had some amazing advice on the show. The article I wrote, it's not about you anymore, it's about them. And what we were talking about is coming at it from your candidates point of view about why would they want to join you. I recently spoke to a US very large automotive group. I wonder who. There's a few of them and I was talking to one of their senior leaders, he was actually over in Germany at the time. And one of the key things, I said, you've done this? Yeah, yeah. And the company helps me and I've moved around, I've got a global career. And I said, you know what? And I'm reading this advert for your job, for one of the jobs you're recruiting. Yeah. He said, says nothing about that. So it shows me nothing about that that this advert you've written doesn't, you know, sell this job to me. You've got to, I think that's what you know, all of our clients, we help them and coach about how we're going to, they going to attract people and how are they going to sell what's the real intrinsic value to someone sitting that candidate's point of view? Put yourself in their shoes. That's the key thing to walk away with today. Sit with your coffee as you've listened today and think. Take all the advice from everyone from Joe, from Craig, from Katie, from myself. Hopefully put yourself in their shoes and then, and then you're going to be successful. So that's it. Me closing. Thanks everyone. You've been absolute superstars. Thank you for your advice today. These guys are going to get great from it. Take part in the salary survey, go to the website, do all the other stuff and that's it. Me done.

Pleasure. All the best. Take care.

Thanks everyone.

Thank you.

Hello, it's Mike here again. I hope you enjoyed this week's show. If you did, then maybe you want to follow the show or subscribe depending on where you listen. Whether that's itunes, Spotify or another great place to listen to the show from. It's totally free and means that you'll be be the first to see each and every week when we release a new show. And maybe whilst you're there you could even leave a quick review. Reviews and ratings are among the most important metrics for a podcast to effectively rank and as you can probably appreciate, the podcast is a lot of hard work to produce every week and be amazing. Just take say 20 seconds, leave a quick review of my amazing guests and their great career stories. We'd rather really appreciate it. Thanks very much and I can't wait to see you soon.