Work in HR is both people and process-driven. In HR jobs in banks, on one hand, you are dealing with all the foibles of individuals, on the other you must adhere to the laws governing recruitment and layoffs in the country you're operating in. For example, HR staff have responsibility for ensuring there is no discrimination on the basis of gender or race in the recruitment process. And they have responsibility for ensuring redundancies result from a fair selection process.

HR teams also have responsibility for administering annual performance appraisals. These are particularly significant within financial services, where the results to appraisals are an important factor in determining the size of employees' annual bonuses.

Although HR staff can be generalists, many HR jobs are divided into specialist categories. These include: employee relations, graduate recruitment, lateral recruitment, recruitment marketing, compensation and benefits professionals and jobs for people with training and development expertise.

While banks and financial services firms employ their own in-house recruitment professionals, this sector also contains all our external recruitment jobs in financial firms, search firms and headhunters and so-called RPO or recruitment process outsourcing organisations.

These external recruitment organisations facilitate the recruitment process for the financial services firms they work for. For example, they will place advertisements, sort through applications, draw up short lists and conduct initial interviews. External recruitment consultants are typically divided into two categories: contingency recruitment firms and search firms or headhunters. Contingency recruitment firms are paid a fee only when they find an individual who is actually hired by a client. Search firms and headhunters are paid a 'retainer' or an upfront fee while they identify a pool of potential candidates that might be suitable for a vacancy. While contingency recruitment firms typically advertise positions and wait for candidates to respond, headhunters and search firms proactively approach potential candidates and make individuals aware that they might be suitable for 'an exciting role.'