What information do traders and PMs want to hear from HH/recruiters?
I understand recruiters can be annoying for NUMEROUS reasons, but good ones can provide insight on hiring and help make connections/intros.
What info do you find most valuable when speaking with HH?
For context I focus on Macro/FICC where clients are hedge funds and sell side desks.
Do: Be upfront about the firm, risk limits, compensation potential, understand who the players are in a sector and provide color on market, have some idea of what the candidate does before talking to them.
Don’t: Be ignorant of different job types and push irrelevant jobs or downgrades, walk into intro interviews not knowing anything at all about the person, ghost, ask what they are making so you can collect data, ask who hiring managers are so you can drum up business, ask for other candidates they know without having helped the person you are asking in some way.
Agreed. I appreciate the response.
Recruiters are constantly working with incomplete information whether it be for specific roles, market intel, or candidate profiles which is frustrating for both parties to say the least. I think where a lot of recruiters fuck up is when they can’t say “I don’t know” when being asked something by a candidate and end up bullshitting things they shouldn’t.
I’m a firm believer in providing more info than you are asking for in return which is why I would imagine it’s helpful to have a recruiter who specializes in what you do.
Definitely agree that specialized recruiters are more helpful. The ones at 2-10 people shops that focus on one sector and have years of relationships there are way more informed than the people at big finance/accounting/tech mega recruiters who copy and paste the same message to as many people as they see.
Another quite simple thing to do is to just stay on top of the process(es), chase business development when waiting for answers, and provide feedback on why a candidate was or was not chosen to move forward. I've also had recruiters tell me beforehand that "they are going to challenge you on XYZ, so be prepared," which I thought was very helpful.
Finally, this may be more of a criticism about business development than recruiters but be discrete when doing under-the-table background checks. I understand you need to diligence a candidate, but at least wait until we're further in the process or more serious about what we're doing. I've had to deal with angry/suspicious bosses because somebody suddenly started asking around about me. I wouldn't mind if something ultimately had a good chance of materializing, but alerting my boss early on in a process when something doesn't have a good chance of going through is a good way to make me not want to speak with you again.
Thanks for the response. I agree with you that good recruiters should be doing that at a minimum when they actively are engaging with a candidate for a specific job. Discretion is very important when it comes to these processes as well, to you point I think BD teams can be a little more aggressive in conducing that back end due diligence as to cross reference what they are hearing from recruiters who have a bias to the candidate.
I'd be curious to get your thoughts on speaking with recruiters outside of just pitching to get your resume out the door. Do traders/PMs find value in having more general discussions/check-ins with HHs and if so what information has been useful or interesting to you?
Sure, I know people or have friends-of-friends at many funds, but I don't know everything about every fund out there. It's always good to hear about who's doing well, who's not doing well, who's growing, what are common pain points at various firms, etc. I understand you have a bias to place - but it helps to be honest here. I'm not going to trust your opinion very much if every pod is "the fastest growing pod, led by a star PM" etc.
Also understand that the most important thing from our perspective is longevity in this career. I've found most recruiters don't really understand the gravity or magnitude of making this kind of decision. We have a very small probability of making truly life-changing money and a very large probability of washing out of the industry, often due strictly to variance. I guarantee you the first thing on someone's mind when they learn about a new potential job is 'Am I going to be fired from this role in 6-12 months?'. The risk of being let go needs to be sufficiently low and the expected value needs to be sufficiently high in order for it to be worth it for me to consider moving.
Unfortunately, this isn't as easily quantifiable as % payout or bonus guarantees but is far more important in the long run. Know the approximate churn rates for PMs at the various funds, what happens when PMs are stopped out (are they fired automatically, grounded for a period of time, or something else?), and what happens when things go wrong. I'm far more concerned with what can do wrong rather than what can go right. If things go right, everything will take care of itself.
Really helpful. I will definitely be implementing this. Thanks.
The person above really nailed it, look I have no interest in talking to 5-7 recruiters. The main point is do not bullshit me and be professional but ultimately I want 2-3 recruiters I trust who are almost like a friend in the industry. This no different than the broker I choose to give my flow to.
The recruiter I trust the most I think came at me more like a "long-term career coach" and to this day still has not found the right opportunity for me. That said they took down my whole profile, they helped me explain my P&L in how firms like to hear, they coached me with what to say around my style of trading. Further they took a real interest in the "non-professional criteria" when moving roles so be it my family circumstances or what my spouse considers is important. At times when we go back and forth about a possible role, they do explain how to fix the issues I see or getting ahead of it (need an analyst, will need extra pay cause will take longer to ramp up sort of thing).
In return I have provided them information, about "what is abc up to now", "hey can you help draw this org chart, know who is senoir there, who is jr there". Also I have passed other candidates to them. Also no issue to have an annual check-up with what is going on and who moved where and so on.
Thanks for the reply. Really helpful. This is exactly the type of relationship i'm aiming to have with my network.
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