The Turning of the Tide   3 Jun 2009

Moana Burt

There was a time when New Zealand’s employers were required to cast their nets far and wide to find the right people to fill vacancies. However, the country’s economic recession and a growing list of redundancies means homegrown talent is becoming more plentiful by the day. But is now as good a time as any to make a move downunder? Moana Burt takes the pulse of the New Zealand recruitment market.

With the developed world in the grips of an ever-deepening recession, the question of the moment for many considering a move to New Zealand is whether it might not be better just to sit tight for the moment.
To gauge the temperature of the New Zealand job market, we surveyed specialist recruiters in six different sectors - Banking and Finance, IT, Sales and Marketing, Engineering and Construction, Nursing and Education.
We asked each to offer an opinion on their section of the market as they saw it today, and for their expectations over the coming 12 to 18 months. Our questions covered the types of jobs available and skills in demand, the level of competition amongst candidates, salary expectations, preferences for local versus overseas candidates, changes witnessed in the selection process, and how a candidate can stand out in a newly-crowded marketplace.
Collating their answers, several trends emerge. Despite the downturn, demand for employees providing essential services – healthcare and education – remains high. The market is also showing greater flexibility around professions where New Zealand has documented skill shortages, including IT and engineering.
“We have a number of skills that clients are seeking,” says Grant Burley, director of Auckland-based IT recruiter Absolute IT. “The old adage of ‘there are always good jobs for good people’ rings true in any market conditions, especially this market.”
In addition, the Government’s stated plan to spend its way out of the recession will help to secure existing jobs and create new roles as others disappear, partly through the development of infrastructure projects.
But with spending contracting amongst consumers and within businesses, it seems the salary increases of recent years are winding down – perhaps pointing to a renewed focus on job stability and potential for growth.
“Candidates are becoming less focused on what they can get, and more on obtaining the right job,” says Ray Chamberlin, principal of CRS Recruit, an engineering and construction recruitment company based in Auckland. It also seems the hauling in of budgets has led to a disinclination by employers to rehire immediately after a position is vacated, perhaps even choosing to siphon off responsibilities into other roles.
It appears the recession elsewhere could also be pushing expat Kiwis homeward. From 2008 to 2009, Banking and Finance recruiter Robert Walters has seen an increase of 20 percent in candidates returning from the UK through its international candidate management programme. But although international enquires were up for several recruiters, it was also difficult to pin down what effect this would have on the market given the difficulty many overseas candidates would have freeing up the property equity required for such a move.
One thing is for certain though – employers are now enjoying the luxury of being able to choose from a wider range of employees. Nearly all recruiters noted that the selection time had increased, while candidate approval seemed to be passing through a longer chain of command.
“The tide has turned,” says Jo Gorman, Christchurch-based general manager for sales and marketing recruitment at Adecco Personnel. “It’s been an employer’s market for so long.”
Below are the recruiters’ thoughts on the market. We hope it may shed some light on the answer to that all-important question of moving on.

Banking and Finance
Robert Walters – Michelle Miller, Manager Banking & Financial Services Division, and Claire Ellis, Manager Commerce Contract Division.
“Most of our current roles are at mid-level, for both contract and permanent vacancies. Examples of live roles are Financial Accountant, Management Accountant and Financial Analyst.
Any candidates who have credit management skills or have worked in fraud and insolvency industries will be in demand. Clients are becoming more focused on tertiary and professional qualifications, along with industry experience due to the larger candidate pool. The Chartered Accountant (CA) qualification will always be a competitive advantage in the finance and accounting disciplines. In the banking and financial services sector the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) qualification is also highly sought after.
Salaries and contractor hourly rates have stabilised in the first quarter of 2009 and we anticipate there will be significant downward pressure on salaries in 2009.  In comparison, from 2001 to 2008 we saw a 44 percent increase in salaries within finance and accounting roles (source Robert Walters 2009 Salary Survey).
Candidates have financial commitments, which translate into them being more realistic about their market worth in the current recessionary climate.  Therefore we have witnessed far more flexibility from candidates around salary levels and benefits. Organisations, however, are still willing to pay market rates in order to attract and retain high calibre candidates.
Due to redundancies and Kiwis returning from overseas the candidate pool has significantly increased, therefore the response to advertised roles is much greater in volume. We still believe only a small percentage of these responses meet the clients’ job requirements. Clients are able to find their ideal candidate in this tight job market, whereas a candidate-short market requires flexibility around skill sets. We have noticed an upward trend of interest from international candidates, primarily from the UK as their recession deepens. 
With the greater candidate pool the selection process is longer and clients are able to review and consider a larger number of suitable candidates. Meeting face-to-face will always instil a greater confidence in both the organisation and the candidate during the recruitment process. Given the current candidate-rich market, clients have sufficient local talent to select from without resorting to other markets.”

IT
Absolute IT and Absolute Global –
Grant Burley, Director.
“Though we don’t deal with fresh graduates, we have an even spread of all roles from junior to senior management. The professions and skills most in demand include: Mid-level to Senior Developers with .Net and Java, Senior Business Analysts, Senior Project Managers, Application Testers, Oracle and SQL Server DBAs and Developers, SAP Skills, Merchandise and Assortment planning in an Industry Standard retail environment, Application Architects, Java J2EE and .NET, Enterprise Architects particularly with ERP integration skills/experience, Peoplesoft Consultants and Developers, and Microsoft CRM Consultant or Practice Manager Level.
We expect salary levels in the most part to stay the same. However, our customers are asking if job seekers will accept lower salary and contract rates due to what they perceive as an oversupply of talent. We’ve yet to witness a surge in job seekers, especially for the skills our clients are constantly asking for, which in turn will keep rates static. Supply of the hard to find skills will remain challenging, so demand will remain high. We have noted that a growing number of candidates are “staying put” as uncertainty continues in the employment market, thus continuing the trend of making it difficult to source talent.
It’s still very early days as yet to comment on whether candidates are adjusting their salary expectations. Overall most IT professionals know they’re in demand and will wait until they receive the right offer with benefits. Many are still receiving multiple offers.
Overall, the number of overseas enquiries, through Absolute Global, are up as expected, however I’m not convinced this due to the downturn in the UK economy at this stage. If things continue to get worse I would expect enquiries to increase. Overseas experience is highly regarded and often clients will pay a premium for this, especially if there is a skill set they’ve been trying to recruit for a while.
In the IT industry any technical skills that are ahead of the local New Zealand market should be used as a distinct advantage. These are very easy to identify as New Zealand is often some months behind some of the practices or new version releases that have hit offshore markets.
We have noticed that the decision-making process is increasing, in time and in the number of stages/interviews, as employers review headcount regularly. In the past if someone left an organisation it was common practice to replace that individual immediately. This is no longer the case and the workload is often distributed amongst other employees.
We have been using video and Skype for interviews for some years, Skype now being our preferred method. As Skype is so cheap and multiple interviews are no longer cost prohibitive, as it has been with video conferencing, we’re witnessing an increase in the number of job offers being made to those candidates based offshore.”

Sales and Marketing
Adecco Personnel Limited - Joanne Gorman, General Manager, Group Sales and Marketing
“We currently have the most vacancies for mid-career jobs, for those with two to five years experience. These are predominantly in sales, as most organisations are pulling back their marketing budgets at the moment. Our clients are looking for salespeople with a proven track record.
I don’t expect any change in salary levels over the next 12 to 18 months, not even inflationary adjustments. I think often people move jobs for a salary increase but, right now, that’s not going to happen.
One of the things which has happened recently is that a lot of organisations are now recruiting themselves. Even six months ago, most organisations gave this work to us but now we are only given jobs that are hard to fill for some reason or another; niche roles. But in general, where generic skills are needed we are seeing a three-fold or even five-fold increase in candidates.
We haven’t noticed an increase in enquiries from candidates based overseas. But that is partly because we have stopped advertising for overseas candidates. There’s plenty of talent onshore. But we have noticed for New Zealanders wishing to return from the UK or US that the recession has made it very hard for them to move as they cannot sell their house.
Right now, to stand out from the competition you have to make it plain you have been doing it really tough in another country. Numbers are all relative to the size of the market you’re in, for example it might be easier to land a $1million account in London than a $50,000 account here. You need to let the employer know you’ve been making the extra calls, knocking on extra doors, and how tough it’s been. 
If you can demonstrate a broad base of experience that would also be an advantage. Often people come back from overseas and find themselves at a disadvantage because they have got themselves into a niche.
It can take our recruiters longer to find a candidate, because they have 200 CVs not ten, but we are still presenting our clients with a shortlist of three candidates, so it’s not actually taking our clients any longer. Certainly there is evidence of a longer chain of approval, and more scrutiny of the candidates.
Unless you are a truly international company then I don’t think there would be many organisations that would not prefer a face-to-face interview. It’s not just seeing their face – it’s the chemistry you get with someone in the room. Video has become more acceptable, or it has been up until now. But if I presented a client with a shortlist with one local candidate and someone from London, the one in London would have to be superior to stand a chance – and that’s just human nature.”

Engineering and Construction
CRS Recruit – Ray Chamberlin, Principal.
“I see the demand is going to be mainly around civil infrastructure work for the next year or two. The Government and Local Authorities are going to maintain infrastructure and create new projects as a way of stimulating the employment market. CRS Recruit concentrates on professional engineers in both the consulting and construction fields, along with professional construction personnel.  At the present time the demand is more for experience in all fields needing senior level engineers and project specialists.
I do not see salaries increasing as much as they have over the last few years. There is still uncertainty in the market with the financial crisis so there is not the pressure to increase salaries to retain employees. I have not noticed a large increase in applications from overseas except there are probably more returning Kiwis this year.
When it comes to standing out in the market, it’s hard to show stand out features in a CV. It is important to describe the work one has been doing, especially in the last ten years, the projects worked on, and to give some idea of the scale. I think people who are prepared to visit for interviews will be taken more seriously. Being freed up of owning houses in the UK before starting the recruitment process shows commitment.
Clients are being much more cautious and are enjoying the ability to look at more than one candidate for a job which they have not been able to do for a few years. The decision time is generally longer than it was.
New Zealand employers do like face-to-face meetings rather than phone and to a lesser extent video. As the choice in New Zealand increases then an overseas based candidate, if serious, is going to have to get over here on a visit or ‘for good’ to secure a position. However, there are exceptions in certain sectors where there is still a demand/shortage.”

Nursing
Geneva Health – Julia Johnson R.G.O.N, National Permanent Services Manager.
“Competition is a little higher this year due to an increased number of New Zealand nurses seeking to get back into the workforce. However, this is not a threat for others as there still is a high number of jobs in the market.
Currently the highest demand is for Registered Nurses (RN) with a minimum of two years experience. This is due to a global shortage, New Zealand RN’s travelling overseas for greater incentives/salary, more facilities opening up, and an increased demand for Aged Care nurses with New Zealand’s growing aged population.
We haven’t noticed that candidates are taking lesser salaries, or expecting less in the way of bonuses, but it will be interesting to see over the next year. However, nursing salaries for District Health Boards are set by the Multi-employer Collective Agreement (MECA), so there is no room for negotiation there. With the current climate, I’m not sure what will happen with this over the next 12-18 months. Migrants generally prefer a relocation incentive, which is currently being offered by some hospitals/health facilities, so it will be interesting to see if this also continues during the next year.
We have noticed an increase in enquiries from candidates currently residing overseas. However, we have also noticed an increase in UK candidates that, although they are interested in working in New Zealand, are unable to move due to houses being in negative equity, and therefore cannot travel until the market improves. 
Employers are happy to employ nurses who have trained or worked in similar healthcare environments to New Zealand. Obviously returning New Zealanders can get registration quicker, do not need to apply for visas (so can start quicker), and are a known entity i.e. employers know that they know the health system and what to expect in New Zealand, which are all positive factors. 
To be competitive, overseas candidates need to obtain New Zealand Registration, have an informative CV, have worked in a similar specialty overseas, have great references, be flexible as to shift work, have two years experience, and be able to pass English Language tests e.g IELTS/OET.
Employers tend to be slower at the moment in regards to response towards candidates. This could be due to the number of candidates applying or other factors such as finance. There’s been no change in interview format preference – employers have always been happy to conduct telephone interviews.”

Education
Select Education – Donna Mendjan, New Zealand Operations Manager.
“Ongoing demand is always with Early Childhood teachers and this is on a national level. However, there is an increasing demand on quality Primary and Intermediate teachers, and we have noticed this shortage increase over the past 18 months. Currently our vacancies range from qualified Early Childhood teachers through to Primary/Intermediate and Secondary teachers. We have both casual and permanent positions.
Public school (state school) salary levels are determined by the Government. However, I believe we will see no change in salaries in Early Childhood. Because centres are privately managed, salaries can differ from one centre to another quite dramatically. We haven’t noticed a change in salary offers compared to last year – it seems more that people are reluctant to hire permanent staff in this climate.
The level of enquiries from overseas seems to be consistent, with a huge response from the UK, Canada, Fiji and India. Early Childhood is different as we are not normally able to cross credit overseas qualifications to a New Zealand Early Childhood qualification, which limits our overseas pool of candidates (in that sector).
There is a preference for a New Zealand-trained teacher whether they are returning or already here, as they are familiar with our curriculum. However all teachers are considered based on their own personal skill set. We are able to put any teacher from around the world who has the right equivalencies in front of our clients, and it is up to our clients to determine whether they are suitable. To stand out from the competition, overseas candidates should research the New Zealand curriculum, research New Zealand culture, and familiarise themselves with both as much as possible.
The change we have noticed is that, due to the increase in candidates available, it can take our clients longer to make a decision as they have a wider pool to choose from. This is from a mix of local and overseas candidates.
We offer a video/phone interview service to our clients and in some cases this is the only option if we have an overseas candidate that has been shortlisted. The preference, however, is still face-to-face.”

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