Overall
The need for sales people has risen over the last few months in all areas and so there are many vacancies around, whatever the sector. What these look for though are an improvement on the type of people traditionally hired – greater experience and more active sales.
FMCG
It seems that when it comes to recruitment and opportunities for sales managers, the real demand is from FMCG companies that produce food products. Of particular interest are candidates in the key positions of key account manager, (with a focused on retail chains) and national key account managers. Trade marketing managers are still quite in demand, as well as regional (divisional) managers for traditional trade channels management. Also sought after, or though less so are distribution managers focused on the distributors’ channel. “Good sales managers understand that in the downturn they can continue to build a successful career by making a move from a big FMCG companies to mid-tier ones, swapping working for the status of the company for a more senior position for themselves,” comments Aslan Tsarikaev, Antal Russia FMCG Sales Team Leader. “At the moment recruiters like us are often given confidential assignments to replace current sales directors, division directors or Key Account Directors with more effective ones”.
B2B
The B2B sector meanwhile requires sales managers in the industrial equipment and food and packaging equipment market. This comes as the surge in demand for the areas of agricultural equipment, energy and chemical industry has leveled off, while following a lull, the demand in sales managers for automotive industry components has risen once more.
“B2B companies typically used to consider candidates with experience from a similar, related market, but this has shifted and now a basic requirement for most roles is work experience in the same sector,” says Eugenia Lanichkina, the head of B2B department at Antal Russia. “An ideal candidate’s profile at the moment has over three years’ work experience (and up to seven years for the more niche ones) coming from a demonstrably loyalty to a single employer (companies are not interested in hiring “job hoppers”). To find these people, recruiters like us will direct search or referrals to identify individuals for the role”.
Oil & Gas
As for oil and gas, we see that about 70% of the vacancies in the sector are for sales roles. Like the other sectors above, it seem that the greatest demand is from equipment suppliers. However while demand for individuals has gone up, the requirements looking for in candidates are becoming tougher too. The ideal candidate now has to have a technical education, be aware of the technological process, and have a good track record of working with positions such as engineer, sales engineer and sales.
Marina Dubovitskaya, the head of Antal Russia Oil & Gas Department comments: “Companies mostly look at the moment to upgrade existing employees with stronger ones. There appears to be some building and developing of new areas of the business which also leads to new vacancies, but this is still quite rare”.
Banking
The recruitment of sales professionals for the classic banking and finance areas, such as private banking and fixed income, has remained pretty similar throughout the year. The retail banks on the other hand, once the victims of massive headcount cuts, are now looking to reverse that trend and have dipped their toe in tentatively as they once recruit sales people, cautiously and with a wait-and-see attitude driven by results.
IT
The overall demand for sales managers in Russian IT companies has remained at the same level, but with a subtle shift in requirements. Whereas previously they looked for “shepherds” – sales managers who could maintain and nurture existing account, they now are actively seeking “hunters” – sales manager who can go out and aggressively attract customers.
