This is a YouTube video titled "The State of the US Treasury Recruitment Market with Craig Martin" recorded in November 2018. It features a conversation between Mike Richards and Craig Martin discussing the active and competitive US treasury recruitment market, specific job roles, career planning, professional legacy, and advice for treasury professionals considering job moves.
Foreign. We're here at the AFP 2018 conference. What's the current state of the US treasury recruitment market?
Yeah, it's quite active, actually, as we were talking just the other day. Right. There's a lot of jobs that are out there available, but there's a tight labor market. Right. So I think candidates need to pay attention. But also companies who are looking for candidates need to help sell themselves. Right. And tell their story about why somebody should go work for them. So it's a very active and competitive market in the US right now.
What sort of roles are you working on? Treasury analyst or group treasurer.
So we actually have currently two live searches going on for senior managers, one with Franklin Electric in Fort Wayne, Indiana, both that with senior manager Global treasury for Under Armour. Both of them have a focus on foreign exchange as companies, as you know, are becoming more global and they're more global, they have foreign exchange exposure and so they need good FX people.
We did the speech earlier today. It was packed with 250 people. Any highlights from the speech you'd like to mention?
Yeah, I think that, you know, it's. Our talk was on investing in your treasury career. And I think the key was the very first bullet of, you know, you need a career plan and people don't do that. I think we talked about the fact that, you know, when you're working, you're not thinking about your career, and when you're out of work, all you're thinking about is getting a job. I think when you're in your job and working, you need to be thinking about the next step and the next move and you need to look outside and you need to try to think about a career plan.
You spoke earlier about why you feel you need to work on your professional legacy. Could you describe that for us?
Yeah, I do. And it's funny, you know, it was a year and a half ago at an event that I put on for AFP called the Corporate Churches Council Forum. And we had a person there who's an executive coach and a mentor, Corey Shanahan. She has had a book out called Be It, Mean It, Do It. But she talked about personal, brand and professional legacy. And she did a workshop there, and I was there with everybody else. It was a room full of treasurers and assistant treasurers. And I was sitting at a table with everyone else and I was talking about my career and what I was like, what was my brand before I was at the afp and all the people there were saying, what are you? They didn't even know what I was talking about. They're like, right here, this room, this is you, this is your brand, and this is your legacy. And six weeks later, I was no longer at the afp, but I knew my identity. And I'm with the treasury recruitment company. It's exactly what it sounds like. And I'm still in treasury and I'm still following the financial markets and corporate treasury and finance, and that's what I love to do. So that's. I think it's important you don't sit down when you're 25 years old and decide what your brand is. Right. But you should think about that as you go through your career, because it is important.
What's your advice? If someone's thinking about making a move or not moving straight away, should they be talking to you now?
No, I think they should, because one of. Besides trying to work with companies to fill positions and talk to potential candidates. Right. Mike, one of our roles and part of our job is to talk to those people who are out there who are currently in a job, in a role. But what are they looking for? The question you just asked me, what's the market like? They should know that. So they should call us. We want to know who those people are out there as well, because you never know when a good opportunity comes.
