Insights from a Recruiter

The Enterprising Investor article, "Insights from a Recruiter," interviews Russell Reynolds Associates' Debra Brown, offering key insights and career management advice tailored specifically for investment professionals. The following is an excerpt of the article.

This past June, I sat down with Debra Brown, a New York-based recruiter for Russell Reynolds Associates’ asset and wealth management practice, who shed light on these and other questions, offering career management advice tailored specifically for investment professionals. Brown has completed searches for CEOs, chief investment officers (CIOs), portfolio managers, and senior sector analysts, among other positions, so she has plenty of wisdom to share, with insights on assessing leadership trends as well as strategies for re-entry into the industry and tips for women on managing their finance careers.

I would like to share several points I took away from our conversation that I think might be interesting to career-minded finance professionals.

Who Recruiters Target

Companies engage recruiters to find candidates they cannot easily find themselves. For better or worse, this leads recruiters to look for professionals who are content in their jobs and successful at other companies. After all, individuals who are actively promoting themselves for job openings or otherwise obvious about their interest in other opportunities would theoretically pop up on the radar of the hiring company without the help of a search firm. Still, recruiters are interested in building their networks of talented professionals, so they aren’t inclined to ignore proactive attempts to connect. They recognize that eventually you may be exactly the person they are looking for.

When You Should Include Recruiters in Your Network

So then, as a professional, when does it make sense to reach out to a recruiter? That varies depending on the specific recruiter’s perspective, but Brown estimates that 10 years of experience is probably the minimum point at which conversations with an executive search professional will have more immediate impact for either side. She also notes that for the economics to be mutually beneficial, the roles for which a potential recruit would be coming from and going to should be compensated at or above the threshold of US $300,000.

Of course, reaching out to recruiters for immediate job opportunities is not the same thing as incorporating recruiters into your professional network. That’s something you should you do long before you need their help.

Full article and video available here.