'Talent war' breaks out in the channel

Recruitment agency Robertson Sumner restructures business to accommodate '15-year high' channel hiring spree

The channel is experiencing its most frantic recruitment drive in 15 years thanks to an uplift in market confidence, sparking a fierce battle to secure the best talent, recruitment specialist Robertson Sumner has claimed.

Resellers, distributors, vendors and managed service providers (MSPs) are hiring so heavily at the moment that the recruitment agency has had to restructure its entire business and has launched a dedicated MSP division for the first time.

Robertson Sumner – which works with the likes of Westcon, Northamber, Storm and Insight – said 2015 has been its most successful period in 15 years, and plans to move into bigger offices to house its expanding team.

“Even our headcount has had to increase, just to manage the demand for our existing clients,” said managing director Marc Sumner.

“We now have dedicated teams doing distribution, one doing resellers and one doing vendors. We have also had to add a fourth for managed services.”

The uptick in activity reported by Robertson Sumner comes despite the recent closure of fellow channel marketing agency CRS. Sumner claimed his firm had not benefitted from any rise in potential clients floating around following its demise.

"If I'm honest, I think we had their client base anyway," he said.

He added that the market is growing at such a positive rate that recruitment budgets are being freed up and competition is becoming increasingly fierce.

“There is an uplift in confidence in the market and more projects coming out, the purse strings have been relinquished a bit, I think," he said.

“Also I think as the market is growing, if you are not growing by 15 per cent minimum then you are not even standing still, you are actually going backwards in the market at the moment.”

If channel companies do not recruit heavily this year, Sumner said they will be left behind as more hands are being dipped into the talent pool. He added that it is distributors and vendors that are really scaling their efforts to keep in line with competition.

“Every company is looking, every channel partner is looking – it is a talent war and a real fight for the candidates. We have had to segment in line with that, so our distribution team, for example, will be talking to every distribution candidate in the market to keep up with supply demand.

“There is so much demand at the top of the channel from the vendors and then in distribution, that it will probably filter down to the partners over the next two quarters. But we are seeing huge uplifts.”

The current shortage in talent within the channel is driving a rise in salary, according to the recruiter, who says he has seen entry-level wages increase from about £23,000 plus commission, up to £28,000. However, this will not continue.

“The salaries are suddenly ticking up month on month. But by the time we get to the summer [2016], the salaries will have plateaued a bit. I don’t think it can continue to rise at this rate,” he said.