Spring 2008 Newsletter Welcome to Futureboard's Spring Newsletter - our seasonal round-up of marketplace trends, best-practice and an opportunity to share the perspectives of both candidates and clients. Contents:
The Impact of the Economic Climate? The labour market is known to be a good barometer of the economy and in previous downturns businesses have decided to pause or post-pone 'early years' talent recruitment and development. We decided to review whether the economic uncertainty has had an impact on graduate recruiters' perspectives on their recruitment campaigns and also whether it had started to filter down to students' decision making process. The picture is not as murky as some would have us believe… The Recruiter's Perspective The majority of clients claimed that whilst they were carefully monitoring their recruitment spending, on the whole they were not making significant changes to their recruitment campaigns in light of the economic volatility. Interestingly, a very recent survey conducted by the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) in the UK suggests that job vacancies are reducing in IT and Financial Services but remains strong in other sectors such as engineering and construction. Our experience shows that the graduate market is following a similar trend. Financial services companies have reduced both hiring numbers and development spending and are not yet in a position to forecast for the 08/09 campaign. One leading international property investment firm has cancelled their programme all together for 2008 claiming that they will resume hiring when the market picks up. In contrast, some engineering clients have launched additional Spring campaigns - numbers have increased by as much as 30% in some cases. A survey published by the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) 2008 in mid January also points to a buoyant market at the graduate level. Their survey of over 200 graduate recruiters indicates that vacancies have increased by 16.4% in 07/08, which is the fifth consecutive year of growth. Additionally, those surveyed claimed they were committed to fulfilling numbers set in 2007. This makes commercial sense; particularly for the 'goliath' size recruiter as turning recruitment activity on and off is difficult and potentially costly. A Head of Graduate Recruitment for a FTSE 100 organisation claimed, "despite our business putting a temporary freeze on headcount we have decided not to tamper with our campaign or reduce target numbers as we experienced a shortfall last year anyway." Many of the investment banks will have wrapped up their hiring by January 2008 anyway which was before much of the financial market troughs.  back to topThe Candidate Perspective We talked to 100 of our 'top tier' candidates based in UK universities to find out if the current economic environment had influenced either application/offer choices. Here is a summary of our findings:
The UK Graduate Careers Survey 2008 reports a similar pattern from the 'Class of 2008' with a record number of students applying for graduate jobs in investment banking, making it the 2nd most popular destination behind media. Only 2/5ths of finalists believed there would be fewer graduate jobs in banking and finance this year; 1 in 8 said it put them off applying to this sector and 25% thought it would mean job cuts in other areas. Although after last week's cull we may well see students being more cautious. back to topOn MBA applications The impact of the global economic slowdown appears to be showing at the MBA level. Our experience tells that individuals consider this to be a good time to evaluate their career and potentially make an investment to accelerate their longer term earning potential. The Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC) published survey results of application trends in 2007 from 252 business schools around the world. Applications increased across full/part-time MBAs, Executive and Flexible MBAs, with increasing applicants from females and international students. The strong applicant numbers is a continuation of a longer-term trend - as numbers have been increasing since 2004. More recent figures show a correlation between a change in the economy and interest in applying in 2008/9 - GMAT registration figures for Jan/Feb this year were 11.82 per cent higher than for the same period in 2007, with the highest numbers outside of the US. back to topBusiness School Rankings The Financial Times published their annual global rankings of MBA programmes in January. The top ranked schools worldwide, in order, are: Wharton, LBS, Columbia, Stanford and Harvard. A number of UK schools moved significantly up the table. London Business School moved up three places to No 2, Cranfield moved up to 30 from 37 and Tanaka from 56 to 35. The methodology used to evaluate rankings includes alumni salaries and career development, the diversity and international reach of the business school and its MBA programme, and the research capabilities of each school. The strength of the UK economy in the past 3 years would have undoubtedly contributed to the success of students graduating from the afore mentioned schools. LBS's shift up the table is due to 96% of their 2007 graduating class accepting job offers within three months of graduation and alumni surveyed reported a 126% increase in their pre-MBA salary. The global nature of the School was a contributor also; the proportion of international students (90%) was the highest of the top five schools. back to topTalent Spotting Tips: Futureboard's 6 marks of leadership potential How do we spot potential at the graduate level? On average, a student finishing university will have a maximum of one year's experience; so how do we judge whether someone has the potential to progress to a leadership position? Here are our top 6 indicators:
If you would like to discuss issues covered in this newsletter in more detail, please contact: Katherine Travell at kt@futureboardconsulting.com or + 44 (0) 20 7 849 4565. back to top
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