News Mixed On Risk Management Jobs

Employment opportunities for risk managers remain available despite the recession, as firms look to upgrade their risk management personnel and expand staff, a top industry headhunter said.

However, some risk managers are taking a step down in position in return for increased job security with financially stronger companies, the headhunter noted. And one insurance industry professor contends that the overall risk management job market has stalled because of hiring freezes.

Organizations are “still looking for the upgrade and the [higher] education,” said Bill Perry, president of Logic Associates in New York. “But what I'm finding is that more than ever there is an expansion [of risk management staff],” presumably to cope with the demands of the hard insurance market.

On a national level, he said, even though some companies might be laying off employees and hiring from within because of the economy, “I'm finding that there's a lot of staff being hired in the risk management community.” He said he has also seen some companies “upgrading” by laying-off risk managers, but then replacing them with others who are “more educated and well-rounded.”

But Robert Hoyt, professor and head of the risk management and insurance program at the Terry College of Business, part of the University of Georgia in Athens, said he is seeing the job market for risk managers slow down. “We get some requests for risk analysts [an entry-level position], but that's been probably chilled a little because we're talking about companies whose industries are not necessarily expanding.”

He explained that risk managers work for a variety of organizations hit with “across-the-board hiring constraints,” which can cause companies to “pull back and reallocate from within,” rather than hire externally.

Mr. Hoyt also noted that the school is seeing a tremendous interest in risk management courses at the masters level. “We actually had to move to a bigger classroom this fall because we had such a jump in enrollment for our risk management courses,” he said. “We really kept the lid on it as best we could, but even with that we probably saw a 20 percent increase.”

Another trend, Mr. Perry said, is that more “number-one risk managers” are willing to take “a really viable number-two role” with a stronger company. “We're not dealing with the egos like we used to deal with,” he said, noting that these positions are paying anywhere from $100,000 to $150,000.

Risk managers are willing to take on lesser roles because “so many companies are going out of business and so many companies are questionable,” he explained. They're asking, “Why wouldn't I want to go to work for a Fortune 200 or Fortune 500 company that I think is going to be in business? I'll be a number-two there versus staying where I am with a questionable company.”

As for enterprise risk management, Mr. Perry said that “even though everybody's talking about it,” it has yet to become a real hiring trend. Some firms, he said, are trying to formulate enterprise risk management departments, and the term is being “bantered about,” but “I'm still not seeing it happening from the insurance risk manager who is being upgraded to an enterprise risk manager.”

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, September 2, 2002. Copyright 2002 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.

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News Mixed On Risk Management Jobs

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