11 tips for getting recruiters to find you a banking job in Singapore or Hong Kong right now

If you’re looking for a banking job in Singapore or Hong Kong you may well be asking recruitment agencies in those cities to help you in your search.

You may also be aware that recruiters don’t hold all the answers because since the financial crisis banks in Asia have been trying to reduce costs by filling fewer vacancies via agencies and more via their own in-house recruitment teams.

In the context of that broad ongoing trend, however, it’s worth noting a range of more recent nuances that are coming to characterise the way banking-sector recruiters operate in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Here’s what to expect from recruiters if you’re a candidate in the current job market.

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1) Know your niche skills

You may not currently think of yourself as a particularly hot candidate, but if you have any niche skills or qualifications, it’s worth chatting to a recruiter to discover your true market worth. For example, a law degree or knowledge of Bahasa Indonesia, may give you an unexpected edge in the job market. Banks’ in-house recruitment teams in Asia are busy pipelining candidates for 2015 and dealing with mass-market hiring, so they often rely on agencies for “difficult-to-find” skills, says Han Lee, director at search firm Lico Resources in Singapore.

2) Your recruiter should know the vacancy inside out

The days of recruiters being able to close deals despite scant knowledge of what the job actually entails are (almost) over. Recruiters in Asia stress that they are now “partnering” with banks – they don’t just place adverts and collect CVs but are strategically involved throughout the hiring process. “Our value starts early on – sharing thoughts on the market landscape with clients, telling them where the candidates are, formulating  ‘go-to-market’ strategies, deciding on the ‘storyline’ to sell the job, and advising on the timing,” says Lee.

3) Get set for a grilling

It’s the flip side of point 2 above: banks in Asia expect recruiters to work harder than ever for their fees and this involves them doing increased due diligence on candidates. Expect a tough series of questions when you first meet a recruiter. “Our value-add comes from knowing the candidate’s background, work achievements and potential fit to the bank’s business,” says Anita Sim, head of financial services at recruitment firm AYP Associates in Singapore. “We’ve been candidate-short for the past nine months in Asia, so we’ve had to make more effort to search for good candidates.”

4) Banks are turning to recruiters more quickly

This perception of a returning skill shortage in Singapore and Hong Kong means that banks are handing over roles to recruiters more quickly than they were last year. “I’ve seen the in-house recruitment teams start to move a lot faster to agencies when they realise they don’t have the depth to cover certain vacancies,” says Richard Aldridge, a director at recruiters Black Swan Group in Singapore.

5) Finding foreign talent

In-house recruitment teams in Asia are more adept at tapping the domestic job market than they are conducting complicated, time-consuming international searches. While banks in Singapore and Hong Kong are making extra efforts to hire local candidates, they are still likely to use recruitment agencies when going global is the best option. “For regulatory roles, for example, if you’re based in the US or Europe your global regulatory knowledge generally starts to develop as you move into a VP or director role, hence this is where banks in Asia will begin to bring in foreign talent,” says Aldridge.

6) Regional roles

Recruiters are often roped in when the Singapore or Hong Kong-based headquarters of a financial institution wants to fill senior jobs in emerging markets elsewhere in Asia. As we noted earlier this month, many of these roles – from private equity in Myanmar to shared-services in Malaysia – are beyond the scope of generalist in-house recruitment teams because they require coaxing candidates to leave the comforts of Singapore or Hong Kong.

7) More VPs, please

Recruiters are now advertising fewer analyst and associate roles in Singapore and Hong Kong because in-house teams have largely cornered the junior job market. “Most of the time it’s VP and above positions that we are working on – almost all other jobs are done directly by the banks,” says Lee from Lico Resources.

8) Still poaching

Despite the rise of direct recruitment, most banks in Asia remain reluctant to aggressively poach senior rainmakers from competitors. For MD or C-suite jobs, where banks have people in mind from the start, employers typically prefer the anonymity of using a recruiter or headhunter to approach their target candidate, says Lee.

9) Middle-office makes its mark

It’s not only front-office folk who are being tapped by recruiters. In a trend that started during the financial crisis and shows no sign of abating, recruiters are increasingly earning their crust by sourcing staff for middle-office regulatory roles in Asia. The extent of the talent shortage in risk, compliance and internal audit means banks in the region are struggling to do all their own hiring. “In the past year, we have been seeing more jobs in risk management and product advisory and in the next two years, we are also expecting a continued need in compliance,” says Sim from AYP Associates.

10) Chinese banks are using them too

Chinese banks have traditionally shunned recruiters when hiring in their home market, but as they expand their headcounts in Hong Kong and Singapore they are becoming less adverse to using their services. “If an agency can offer a strong local candidate database in HK or Singapore, Chinese banks will be interested,” says Aldridge from Black Swan.

11) Recruiters are now harder to get rid of

If you’ve just accepted an offer for a banking job in Singapore or Hong Kong, don’t think that your relationship with your recruiter is at an end. As part of a push to provide an end-to-end service, recruiters are increasingly being asked to deal with any problems, in particular counter offers, that crop up between offer-acceptance and the candidate’s first day in the new role. “Almost all good candidates are experiencing counter offers in this market, so making sure that they turn up on day-one can be a challenge,” says Lee.