The recruitment and executive search market took an expected big hit during 2009.The overall market being down caused client companies to change their hiring methods and requirements and job seeking candidates to alter their job search expectations, which effected the business and profitability of the broad spectrum of international and local recruitment and executive search companies operating on the Russian market. Staffwell sailed through those tough times by having long-term loyal clients, new clients with progressive growth plans, and the most highly skilled and hard working professional recruitment/executive search team on the Russian market.
On any given month in 2009, Staffwell and any other top recruitment firm who survived had decreases in revenues anywhere from 25% to 80%. If companies like ours were forward thinking in 2008, and cut their expenses by half, they potentially broke even in 2009 without additional investment.
A Different Market
Recruitment budgets at companies in Russia were severely cut in 2009. Many of Staffwell’s vacancies were from clients replacing a currently employed underperformer or where their internal recruitment team was unable to close the vacancy themselves within a three month time period.
Our job recruiting was made much more difficult due to many clients advertising their vacancies for 3-4 months prior to us working on them, leaving a very limited available candidate pool to target and screen from. Companies were also presenting us with long-lists of candidates they had already screened. One global manufacturer supplied us with a list of 120 people they had considered and a global insurance group supplied us with a list of 50 people after a yearlong search. Staffwell then successfully placed the candidates with these companies.
The vacancies themselves this year were very specific and specialized in the mid to senior level range, which is Staffwell’s specialization area. There were very few lower levels or administrative vacancies being offered to recruiting firms from companies, as their internal recruiters were placing those themselves.
Staffwell also had a few clients first try other recruiting firms offering fees much lower than ours, and then returned back to us when they were unable to make the placement for them. One client, a private equity group, tried recruiting through a small agency offering 10% recruitment fees. They returned to our services in 3 months saying that our level of expertise and knowledge was much higher. We then made the placement for them.
Search requirements from companies were also much stricter in 2009. Companies preferred employed candidates. Many placed candidates were not offered salary increases, even if they were currently employed and the motivation to change jobs was mostly working in a new environment and having new career challenges, not money.
Staffwell’s recruitment work became more complicated and time consuming due to the overwhelming amount of necessary additional pre-search market analysis required for narrow specialized searches that were already made extremely narrow from previous attempts made by internal recruitment departments, unsuccessful low-fee agencies, and other top firm competitors also given the same vacancies to work on, however, where it was the Staffwell team who succeeded in making the placements.
Most international companies had strict cost cutting policies globally that affected their Russian operations. In several cases there were even offers extended to candidates that were then cancelled, which affected everyone: the office wanting to hire the candidate, the candidate desiring to join the company, and our team who worked hard making the match.
Many potential candidates, in the end, chose not to leave their current employers, fearing instability. However, most top management and professionals were highly interested in speaking about potential opportunities and making recruitment contacts for the future.
Staffwell surviving 2009 took taking smart cost-cutting measures in 2008 and then retaining, supporting, developing and leading our best performers. Our clients stayed with us due to our results, reliability, expertise, creativity, hard work and brand.
Staffwell’s 2009 Top 10 Clients by industry sector:
1. Banking & Investment
2. Legal
3. Real Estate & Construction
4. Insurance
5. Education
6. Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG)
7. Pharmaceuticals
8. Oil & Gas
9. Leasing
10. Industrial
Staffwell’s 2009 Top 10 Placed candidates by occupation area:
1. Finance & Accounting
2. Legal
3. Banking
4. Sales
5. Marketing
6. Insurance
7. Engineering
8. Pharmaceuticals
9. Human Resources
10. Logistics
Staffwell’s 2009 Top 10 Most placed ‘vacancies by fees’ by industry sector:
1. Banking & Investment
2. Legal
3. Real Estate
4. Pharmaceuticals
5. FMCG
6. Oil & Gas
7. Leasing
8. Industrial
9. Big 4/Consulting
10. Insurance
Staffwell 2009 News Highlights
• Staffwell moved to a new, larger ‘state of the art’ office in Moscow
• Staffwell’s St. Petersburg office started the Company’s new payroll service
• Staffwell Owner & CEO establishes equity & profit sharing pool for employees
• Staffwell offers employees with children/grandchildren ‘family days’ as additional benefit
Staffwell 2010 and News Highlights
2009 was a challenging year but also one that Staffwell did very well in, and given the market conditions our platform could not have been stronger going into 2010. We forecasted quarter 1 of 2010 to pick up and improve over 2009 results, with then Q2 showing even stronger growth. This has already proven to be accurate as from April 1st Staffwell’s active vacancies brought in have more than doubled, and we see this upward trend continuing.
• Staffwell hires Director Tatiana Ivanova from Pynes Group. Tatiana is focused on further developing our FMCG and Retail divisions
• Staffwell hires Director Maxim Kaurov from Kelly Services. Maxim is focused on further developing our Oil & Gas and Industrial divisions.
• Staffwell CEO Teri Lindeberg gives birth to 3rd son (Savva Frederic Timurovich Lagutin)
• Staffwell’s new website to launch in Q2
• STAFFWELL TURNS 10 in 2010! Celebration planning in process now
A big sincere Thank You to all of our clients who trust us with their recruitment needs, and to all of our placed candidates who trusted us with our career recommendations. We wish you all the best in 2010.
We would enjoy your comments or thoughts on this report either in the comments section of this blog post and/or via email at TLindeberg@staffwell.com.
Kindest regards always,
Teri Lindeberg
CEO Staffwell
Dear Teri,
Thank you for the report.
Thought the essay was not much about the market, I still enjoyed reading the real story of the business (Staffwell) overcoming the crisis.
Your latest moves on hiring new team members pared with positive attitude to future market perspectives may witness that on a recovery path of the HR market Staffwell will keep strong and stay on a leadership position.
Whatever the reason for the businesses to stop hiring by own means and return to professional HR services, I hope Staffwell will take best of this situation.
BR, T.KH.
Dear Madam,
Thank you for sending the feedback on the state of the Job Market in 2009.
There are two conclusions which I have made based on your report & my professional experience & analysis:
Companies shall now look more at bootom line rather than top line performance
The corporate world shall never be the same as it was between the period 2000-2008 when money was being misused at all levels
Regards
Ravnish
COO
Tsar Greetings
Distributors for Hallmark CIS
+7-495-9362685
Dear Andrey S,
Thanks for writing. My next market report will come out in July, and I will definitely put in some specific salary information. Salaries have been mostly stagnant, but will start to move very soon once businesses start to show real recovery… in many sectors this trend will likely happen this year.
We have trippled the amount of vacancies brought in, so overall companies are back in hiring mode. The upward trend is happening and will continue, I am confident. How steep and fast is still a question.
You are getting calls…everyone is or will be soon. It is natural after a recession. Be prepared for turnover, but do what you can to minimize it. If you need help with this please give me a call at the office.
Again, thanks for writing,
Teri
I am surprised that a report named MARKET report is so vague without any numbers. I would expect the author to give an estimation of the salary trends in 2009 and 2010 to make the analysis more specific.
We see that the labour market is recuperating now and there are more head-hunters approaching me and my employees.
Do you have any statistics on the MARKET development, not just Staffwell?
We all know what happened in 2009, what’s going on NOW? Do we see an upward trend?
Очень радостно, что мы сумели пережить столь трудный для всех период и выйти из него с достоинством.
Since January 2010 there have been more and more HR vacancies - Recruitment Specialists, T&D, C&B professionals, HR Managers (mid- and senior level). Moreover Consulting sphere (HR and General management consulting) is also becoming more and more active in bringing in new people, which is, no doubt, a good sign.
Speaking about Real Estate sector, the positions that we filled through these 2 years mostly referred to maintenance and property management, facility management services, procurement management, anti-crisis management and leasing specialists. Beside the demand in these specialists nowadays, we can observe the demand in the Commercial Project Managers and senior Marketing Managers/Directors who would promote the company’s services at executive level.
For me working in the banking sector recruitment last year was a tough one, it took some creativity and flexibility to be able to place those candidates into banks and then I had to switch to totally new markets. This year banking is still under pressure but my growing expertise in other areas is starting to pay off, for instance, my two big invoices this year are both for candidates placed in the insurance industry. I hope this year will bring positive news for banks as well as for the financial services sector as a whole.