Market Overview
Prominent growth was seen throughout the first, second and third quarters of 2006 across the banking and commerce sectors. Due to a number of key appointments arising in the second half of 2006, the fourth quarter slowed down steadily at the senior level, resulting in an increase of junior to middle level appointments.

Growth has been particularly spurred by blue chip organisations expanding their presence in Singapore, resulting in major changes within HR functions.

In-house recruitment has experienced the most rapid growth with clients offering premiums for individuals with agency or inhouse recruitment backgrounds, particularly with sector experience. This growth has been driven by a sharp rise in headcount and was most evident within the banking and consultancy sectors. We observed a slight resistance from HR professionals to specialise in resourcing work, with most preferring more generalist positions which would give them broader exposure within HR.

HR Generalists/Business Partners are in high demand at all levels across financial services and commerce. Clients are looking for individuals with strong project management and co-ordination skills rather than pure operational HR professionals. We have witnessed a dramatic increase in regional roles as compared to country specific job opportunities. Individuals with experience working within Asia Pacific markets and overseas regulators are highly sought after.

The high levels of travel required for the majority of HR generalist roles has had an impact on the number of individuals coming forward, and continues to be a challenge in attracting quality professionals to commit to such jobs. As a result, clients have become more flexible in their resourcing requirements and are now prepared to consider professionals drawn from outside their specific industry sector, or even from overseas.

There also continues to be a high demand for compensation and benefits specialists at all levels, across both banking and commerce. Due to the specialist nature of these roles, candidates tend to move on after a few years to ensure they experience a broader scope of work. We foresee growth in this area in 2007 due to more organisations choosing Singapore as a hub for their Asia Pacific operations. With the prevailing war for talent, we envisage clients will be hiring at the more junior levels and training them up to fill the gaps at the senior end of the market. Analytical graduates who are keen to move into the HR arena would find this to be a perfect role to take on.

Mobility management, specifically within the banking space, gained dramatic prominence in the middle of 2006 and we foresee this to continue into 2007 due to the hubbing activity of organisations into Singapore.

With organisations investing a large amount of time, effort and money into staff development, the training and development function of HR is experiencing a rapid growth. Technical and soft skill expertise is sought after as much as industry experience. We observed a surge of line managers moving into more technical roles, and ex-consultants moving into the soft skills side of training. Such a trend is particularly prominent in the FMCG sectors as well as financial services.

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Robert Walters is a leading international recruitment consultancy, placing high calibre professionals into permanent, contract and temporary positions at all levels of seniority. With a developed network of 27 offices across 14 countries, we work with leading investment banks, multinational corporations, smaller enterprises, business start-ups and the public sector.

Every year we produce a comprehensive Global Salary Survey to provide you with information about salary packages and the latest market trends across an extensive range of market sectors including:

Accounting & Finance • Banking • Human Resources • Information Technology • Legal & Compliance • Sales & Marketing • Secretarial & Support