The sales and marketing team, headed up by Cameron King, reflects on the ups and downs of another quarter once again impacted by COVID-19.
It’s been another interesting quarter in the sales and marketing recruitment world. The reality is that business confidence is higher than what was predicted six months ago and the recruitment market has steadily built throughout the quarter.
From a sales and marketing perspective here at Tribe, each week that goes by seems to be getting busier and busier, with new jobs coming in. Unfortunately however, the balance between job opportunities and demand is still way out of kilter. Below are some interesting insights from our team of what we have seen in the market over the quarter:
- A lot of the big corporates and multinationals, especially with head offices based in the US or UK, are still working from home and have been since March.
- Insurance industry clients we’ve spoken to have reported offices at 20 percent capacity as they err on the side of caution. Other global businesses are following international directives with the majority working from home also. The general feedback is that productivity is good.
- Recruitment freezes and restructuring in bigger corporates and multinationals across both FMCG & services sectors.
- The Telco industry has seen a lot of change in terms of marketing department set up and functions.
- The FMCG sector has seen multiple well known businesses put in place hiring freezes and restructures. Those that have significant stakes in channels outside of grocery have been hit the hardest and are finding ways to make up for a downturn in profit.
- Increased activity across sales and marketing at the $80K-$100K level, with more mid-tier level roles ($150K range) being impacted through restructures and people being asked to step up internally.
- We are finding more business development roles compared to last year as companies focus on finding and securing new business revenue.
- Within FMCG, we are seeing an increase in appetite for businesses to invest in more junior, up-and-coming talent. Businesses are trending towards taking a long-term approach with their recruitment as opposed to hiring more senior candidates who can hit the ground running.
- Hiring managers' expectations have gone through the roof in some instances, wanting very specific experience, background, level, fit etc. Their thinking is that there are more people on the market so they can be particular in what they are looking for. This is not necessarily the case however, so some recruitment processes are taking a lot longer in order to find a particular profile or experience that might not exist.
- This certainly is the case within the FMCG space as the majority of businesses haven’t been impacted in the same way as other sectors. We haven’t seen a change of expectations from companies in terms of candidate experience. There haven’t been as many redundancies within FMCG and many candidates that might have been open to new opportunities prior to CV19 are reluctant to risk moving in the current climate. If anything, it is more difficult to find the type of specific talent many hiring managers are after.
- 80 percent of our sales & marketing recruitment activity at the moment is coming from NZ businesses, with NZ-based innovation, marketing & decision making to drive growth.
- This is a mix of mostly medium and small sized SMEs. We are really enjoying working with them and ensuring we have candidates with awesome skills, experience and cultural fit.
- This has been the case within the FMCG sector for some time and it seemingly hasn’t changed. Agility and innovation from SMEs in the sector continue to drive growth, without the constraints of global directives.
- Candidates
- We are noticing more senior candidates willing to take on junior roles in order to fill the gap salary-wise given the current environment. While this can be win-win – great candidates get a role and clients get a great candidate - the concern clients have is that candidates will move roles once a better opportunity comes in.
- We are finding candidates are less likely to move from current roles given the uncertainty in the workplace when we are reaching out and shoulder tapping them.
Overall, it’s been a better quarter than anticipated in the sales and marketing space. As long as the sector continues on a similar trajectory, the outlook for the rest of the year and leading into 2021 is looking positive.
