A monthly recruitment blog for National Account Managers, Brand Managers and Category Managers
(and everybody else in FMCG Sales, Marketing and Category!)
This is not an employment market of long, slow and smooth trends. It’s lumpy. Some months are up, and some are down. And, even within the niches of FMCG and Consumer Sales, Category, and Marketing we have several different markets; junior, mid and senior all moving independently. So, how is(are) the market(s)? Let’s try and make sense of them.
Marketing – Demand for talent has softened in junior and mid-level roles (ABM, BM, SBM), but the senior end (MM, HOM, CMO) is showing some signs of life; the trickle of roles we mentioned last month has swollen to a small stream. That’s not to say senior marketers have lots of career options yet, but over the last month Clorox, Vitaco, Accolade Wines and Integria Healthcare have all been searching for marketing leaders.
Category – We predicted last month that FMCGs would respond to retailers putting pressure back on price and promotional spend by increasing resource in Category and Revenue Growth Management, and so it came to pass; Colgate, JDE Peets, Sanitarium, CCEP, Red Bull and iNova are some of businesses tapping into the junior and mid-level talent pools. Head of Category roles remain few and far between.
Sales – Still runs hot, from NAE to NAM, and increasingly in NBM and Head of Channel. Even the Sales Director community has more than 1 role a quarter to fight about. For us, the Sales function is the recruitment bell-weather, so high demand bodes well as we start to quicken our pace in the pre-Christmas talent race. Everyone’s favourite FMCG Mutti, alongside a long list of very good businesses including Kellanova (the FMCG formally known as Kellogg’s), DKSH, Haleon, Unilever, Dulux, TCC, Lego, Samsung, Kimberly Clark and Dyson have recently landed their candidate or are mid-process.
We’ve adjusted the patented “[axr] How’s The Market Barometer” this month to reflect vacancy numbers and candidate supply.
VACANCIES: 6 out of 10 – we have seen lots of opportunities in Sales & Category, but it’s a slightly quieter market in Brand & Marketing.
CANDIDATES: 8 out of 10 – we are chatting to lots of great talent at the moment, with lots thinking longer term than just their next role.
Overall, the market is a mid-strength with whispers of more activity on the horizon. Bring on December!
