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How’s the market? The question I am most frequently asked.

Ask 10 people, and I suspect you’ll get 11 different views.

Are we on track for better times? Will things suddenly get worse?

Fortune Hill is a specialist in the Customer and People domains in the UK, EMEA, and US. So the following commentary refers to our specialisms.

We are certainly far busier than we were this time last year. There was a notable absence of private equity activity last year. PE sprung back to life in the middle of Q1. Hiring for roles reporting to C-suite has returned too. We are also noticing more activity in retail – some of which is driven by investment, some by optimism and/or confidence, and some by the realisation that the world didn’t actually collapse last year and so perhaps we need to be braver when facing the future.

There has been a noticeable increase in people posting news of exciting career steps recently. That’s a great sign! Movement acts as a market stimulus and creates more movement.

However, there are certain trends we are noticing
🔵 A never before seen level of specificity in briefs – this is likely due to the perception that it is a buyers’ market, so organisations can be as picky as they like
🔵 Risk aversion and hesitancy – this is something we are witnessing amongst both organisations and individuals due to broader uncertainty
🔵 Polarised experiences of reality – some people will tell you they are witnessing a major uptick in the volume and quality of opportunities they are being approached about. Conversely, others will tell you it’s silent out there

In summary, our view is that there is evidently more senior recruitment activity currently in our specialist domains – Customers & People – in comparison to the equivalent period last year. However, things are moving slower.
A bit of analysis shows that if we ignore the spikes and slumps of the Covid years, senior level recruitment activity is lower than we’d normally expect but is currently on the increase.

That said, we expect that elections in the UK and US may cause a slowdown in the second half of the year, with UK markets likely gathering pace again in Q4 and the US in Q1