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Acing Your Video Interview!

Annual Hedge Fund Alert - Recruiters List

From Tardis .. and perhaps from the future? Interview feedback from a client on a superstar candidate in the future... "Great candidate, Really smart , PHD , top of her class , great experience , from an ethnic minority group, she really does tick all our boxes ! , We would really love to hire her .. but, sorry we cant proceed to offer her a job as she hasn't been vaccinated " Over the years Tardis Group has placed thousands of candidates .We have seen a lot of change , but we have never had anything to do with peoples private medical details. We did see a change in the hiring process in the 1990s when senior traders and sales people at banks were subject to drug tests , that became common place and was introduced at many firms and workplaces thereafter. More recently there has been a huge push from the early 2000s by all of our clients to be diversified, inclusive and have gender equality balance which in the last 10 years or so has also focused on the LGBTQ community . All with one common goal ,moving towards workplace equality and zero discrimination policy. So , I'm wondering if in the future, we will be asking a private medical question as part of our qualifying criteria when chatting to candidates? This situation if it arose, makes me think of that great 1990s movie, Philadelphia starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington. Please note. This is just a discussion point. For the record , I am not anti vaccination , and I don’t mind saying I have had the vaccination . However I do believe a person's own health is a personal matter and choice , and everyone should be able to be free without prejudice and pressure to make that choice.

Covid19 has caused disruptions in all aspects of life and the Wealth Management space is no different. Personalities and personal preference have started to play a large part in determining what strategies to adopt going forward. “On the one hand wealth owners are actively looking for the positive growth opportunities that may emerge from uncertainty, while others are choosing a more defensive strategy, focused on de-risking and diversifying to protect existing assets.” A survey done by KPMG post Covid found the following key findings: 42 percent reported financial impacts, 34 percent reported mental health impacts, and 25 percent reported physical health and well-being impacts from the COVID-19 shutdown. 68 percent had reduced discretionary spend and 54 percent on essential items. Digital is the new normal – 80 percent of consumers can be satisfactorily serviced through digital means while 20 percent prefer traditional methods. Insurers are facing challenges – only car, home and contents, and to a lesser degree private health insurance, are now seen as essential. Super funds are under pressure – consumers are seeking better value, and satisfaction is relatively low. Financial planners – those who use them see value, but majority will not pay for the service. “Our survey finds clear signs among consumers of a 'refusal to return' to the pre-COVID-19 ways of interacting with their providers. There is a new consumer expectation that businesses will offer greater value for money and be more flexible in the services and products. Those brands that fail to meet higher expectations in delivering a world-class digital customer experience risk being left behind.” Tim Thomas-Partner, KPMG FS Strategy So, is it just that more time has been dedicated to research in a new work from home world or is it that in a climate that has called for a loss of many business’, we as consumers want to make absolutely certain that we are getting a return on our investments?

It's safe to say that Tardis Group know a thing or two about the hiring process, in the last 30 years we have collectively set up over 200,000 interviews between clients and candidate. These meetings take place at the office, at a hotel, at a nearby coffee shop and on some occasions over dinner. Then one day, "poof" everything changed.... and face to face meetings stopped, at least for a period. What we witnessed since early 2020 was interesting to say the least, we were no longer booking rooms in an office, or tables at a restaurant, instead Tardis Group were sending out zoom invites, Team invites, skype numbers, facetime numbers, whatsapp connections. In the words of Tardis Groups MD Neil MacLean, "2020 was the year that we witnessed people being Interviewed in the kitchen offered the job and signed the contract in the sitting room, and started in the study! 2020 was the first year we conducted a search for clients where we never physically met the client and the candidate and then interviews were conducted on zoom or teams and then the successful candidate started working without crossing the employers threshold! If we had suggested that in 1989 or even as late as 2019, we may have received odd looks." As a company we were impressed by the quick uptake of digital technology that replaced face to face interviews, furthermore the decision making process that continued to evolve during this time. Perhaps the coming years will see an amalgamation of the face to face meeting and the virtual one, similar perhaps to the working from home and office combination also looks like it's here to stay. at least or a while.

It’s 2021 and we are off to races with an incredible momentum that’s carried over from last year. With elections finally behind us and January in the books, the pipeline has not looked better. While 2020 was a write-off for many and the pandemic put dampers on a lot, we are still grateful for all that has and is being done to control the virus. US markets have not seen this type of volatility in some time and it has really been exciting to see some of our clients take that and convert it into positive returns in 2020. Our hedge fund clients continue their plans to make strategic hires across Discretionary and Quant/Systematic strategies in Fixed Income and Equities. Commodities has also seen a bit of a resurgence with alternative energy, precious/base metals taking the lead. Credit has been an asset class that in our mind has taken the lead as a growth area for a lot of “multi-strat” and smaller funds. Majority of our clients have shown interest in building out “Systematic Credit” an area that has alluded

Anyone outside of the Pharmaceutical industry can be forgiven for thinking that the world of health must be booming right now, and certainly in some areas it is, but the race for a vaccine for Covid-19 has inadvertently caused sharp declines in other areas within this sector.