Candidate FAQ

Although we have filled roles across Europe over the years, Luxembourg is our core market where today we are completely specialised.

It does not matter if the person contacting you is in our London or Luxembourg office, both our offices are specialised in serving the Luxembourg market. We struggled to find enough team members on the ground in Luxembourg, so we decided it was more important to have the right people on board.

Yes! For 17 years we have specialised in making placements in only funds businesses. As we do not provide any other sector with staff, we’ve become the market leader in Luxembourg for jobs in asset managers, fund services firms, and niche investment funds. Our clients are an attractive cross section of the industry; we’ve done this on purpose so that we can offer our candidates the full range of role types to best suit them, from fast growing jobs, to more technical positions, or people-led companies – we have always focused on having a large range of options to offer.

As a Funds Talent candidate, you will gain access to information about jobs and companies that others do not know; the histories of the management teams, why we think they are a good / bad fit to your profile, and why. We’ll be able to give you clear career guidance, tailored to your needs.

Absolutely not, our fees are paid for by our clients, and they do not impact your salary at all. In most cases, companies will incur costs with having a seat empty; they would either lose clients, or have problems providing a service that they are paid to do.

This is why companies have a budget to recruit that is completely separate to the salaries they will pay their employees. The recruitment budget is a one-off investment in their business to find the right person. Many successful companies recognise that it makes sense to invest in their people, because that way they can find better people. This leads to them having a more successful business in the long-run.

No, agencies fees are paid by the companies that have hired them to find the person. In most cases, companies will incur costs with having a seat empty; they would either lose clients, or have problems providing a service that they are paid to do.

This is why companies have a budget to recruit that is completely separate to the salaries they will pay their employees. The recruitment budget is a one-off investment in their business to find the right person. Many successful companies recognise that it makes sense to invest in their people, because that way they can find better people. This leads to them having a more successful business in the long-run.

Yes, we actually advise you to consider multiple options in order to see how you feel about different jobs and different companies. The same job can feel very different in another environment; big or small, niche or volume, has almost as much impact on the work as the job content itself.

So, while it’s important to know what kind of job feels right to you, it’s also important to test your own reaction to jobs by reviewing different types of roles and attending interviews for different types of employers.

There is a large working population in Luxembourg that only speaks English, and they are doing very well!! While it’s nice to have other languages, you can learn them when you arrive. Many of our clients offer lunch hour language learning, or allow flexibility on some days for you to learn another language by leaving early for a language class.

Of course, it would be handy having other languages; French is useful to communicate in town, but many people thrive in Luxembourg without speaking good French. You can find out more about languages in our Language section here.

The average salary in Luxembourg is quite high in comparison to other countries, and even in comparison to other EU countries. Outside of the financial services sector, base salaries are €15,000 gross less per year than jobs within the country’s financial services sector.

The Statec website will provide you with more detail, but we believe the average salary within Luxembourg’s funds sector is around €65,000 per year for an average employee in a typical role – with an average number of years’ experience.

As graduates start with a base salary of almost €30,000 gross per year, it is not hard to see how within 5-6 years most candidates who are doing a good job will reach the average salary bracket, much higher and more quickly than this number would reach in other EU countries.

The most active areas of employment for companies in funds are: Finance & Accounting (funds and corporate), Legal & Corporate, Risk & Compliance, and Sales.

Yes, you need to train in a specialism, ideally at degree-level, before you start looking for work in one of the main areas that is useful to an asset manager.

Depending on your profile, you might be more interested in the front office (sales, client relationship management), the middle office (fund legal, structuring, risk), or the back office (accounting, transfer agency, fund administration).

You should apply to degrees and jobs that match your personality profile, as well as challenge you in areas that you enjoy working in, whether it is communication-led roles, like working with clients, or technical-led roles, like working as an accountant or a lawyer. Always try to start with your core skills in mind before applying for a job.

Funds Talent are the largest and most specialised recruitment firm for the funds business, having started out as Funds Partnership 17 years ago, and now having a staff of more than 12 colleagues, all specialised in the asset management sector.

Today, 95% of our work is in Luxembourg. Historically, we also recruited in other fund centres around Europe, but the Luxembourg office grew so quickly that we decided to specialise here – which we did from around 2015 onwards.

We specialise in all funds businesses, so that could mean directly with Asset Managers, AIFMs, and niche funds; or Fund Services companies like accounting and administration firms; Depositary Banks, Custody Banks, and niche Risk / Compliance Firms.

We are quite atypical in the recruitment word, as our structure is more similar to that of an audit firm, or law firm. We are quite a small team (but large in the recruitment world) so we don’t have a heavy structure.

The Partners / Directors are more involved with client issues once they have been escalated, and our middle layer, which is the majority of our team, focus on getting to know our clients really well – but also deliver to searches. The only real structure and hierarchy in our team comes from how senior people are. The people that are the newest to our team are of course the ones that deal with the most candidates, but many of them also have significant client responsibilities as well.

To our candidates, we frequently have the feedback that they like being involved with different people at Funds Talent throughout their experience with us. Each person in our structure brings a different set of skills to hiring, and you can have access to really senior people when you need it.

If you contact one of our great team, we will take you through this live. It’s all very simple and easy to imagine.