Most candidates who are actively looking in asset management know to cover three channels: the executive search firms, the agency recruiters, and the selection firms. Many do this thoroughly, speaking to ten or fifteen headhunters before concluding they have covered the market. Most have not.
At the largest global investment firms, a significant proportion of senior roles never reaches any external channel. They are filled by in-house Talent Managers, and if you are not speaking to them, there are whole firms you are missing.
The role of in-house Talent Manager has existed for years, but it has changed considerably over the past decade. In the early years, asset managers who built internal recruiting functions tended to hire from agency backgrounds. Those individuals were well suited to running selection campaigns and volume hiring, but less effective at senior search. Because they came from an agency background, they struggled to perform the detailed market mapping that retained executive search requires, and companies continued to mandate senior roles to external firms.
That pattern has shifted. Over the past five or six years, a steady flow of former executive search headhunters has moved in-house at the largest global firms. Equipped with a LinkedIn Recruiter licence and the knowledge of the candidate universe they built in external search, they now conduct effective senior-level searches that would previously have been mandated out. At firms such as BlackRock, Fidelity, Schroders, and JP Morgan Asset Management, in-house Talent Acquisition teams handle a substantial share of Distribution, Investment, and Product hiring directly.
The implication is clear: if you have spoken to every headhunter in the market, there may still be firms you are not reaching.
Talent Managers do not advertise in the way external headhunters do. They sit within HR functions but operate more like internal search consultants, conducting market research and approaching candidates speculatively in much the same way external firms do. They are rarely listed on firm websites and do not typically feature in the directories and databases that candidates use to map the search market.
I had a conversation recently with a senior EMEA Distribution professional who had spent three months working systematically through his headhunter network. He had spoken to more than twenty search and agency consultants. When we compared notes, three of his target firms had, over the previous two years, moved senior Distribution hiring almost entirely in-house. Not one of those roles had been visible to him through the external market.
Unlike HR Managers, Talent Managers want to be found. They are, in our experience, considerably more open to direct approaches than their HR colleagues, and they understand the way an approach should be framed.
The most reliable route is LinkedIn. An advanced People search filtered by the target company, with ‘Talent’ or ‘Talent Acquisition’ in the keyword field, will usually find the right person quickly. A Google search combining the firm name with ‘Talent Manager’ or ‘Talent Acquisition’ will frequently return a LinkedIn profile or a conference speaker credit.
Because they are employed directly by the firm, an approach to a Talent Manager is, in effect, a direct approach to the employer. It should read like one. Someone who conducts searches professionally will not be moved by a message that could have been sent to anyone. A brief, specific note — referencing the firm’s strategy, the business area you cover, and why you believe you are relevant — will perform far better than a generic ‘I am open to opportunities’. The same principles that apply to writing a strong CV apply here: specificity matters, and brevity is a virtue.
One practical point on timing: unlike external headhunters, who can hold speculative introductions on file, Talent Managers can only act on live roles. An approach is most useful when a firm is actively hiring, or when you can reasonably anticipate that it will be. Following target firms on LinkedIn and watching for signals of team growth — a new fund launch, a market expansion, a visible departure at a senior level — will help you judge when to make contact.
Covered alongside the three external channels, in-house Talent Management is the fourth route to the largest global firms. Most candidates do not reach it. That is the gap worth closing.
If you would like to discuss how to approach the asset management job market, or to explore opportunities that may be relevant to your background, please contact us.
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