In these lean times, it’s tempting to shower as many recruitment agencies as possible with your resume in an attempt to gain access to the full spectrum of job opportunities. But this might not be the most effective way of getting noticed by employers.

Because of the expense of utilising the services of a recruitment agency, employers in the Middle East’s financial sector are increasingly taking them out of the equation.

“More companies seem to be using either their own resources/contacts/websites, rather then recruitment agencies. Companies often come to a recruitment agency only after they have exhausted their own resources rather than at the beginning of the search process – which they would have done previously,” says Mike Hynes, managing partner of HR consultancy Kershaw Leonard, which highlighted the trend in a recent report into cost of living and employment in the Middle East.

Clearly, the ongoing redundancies within the financial sector in the latter part of 2009 and beginning of 2010 have impacted the recruitment industry, which has gone from feast to famine over the last two years. Some, such as Gulf Executives and Catalyst Search, have gone into administration while others have had to broaden their industry scope.

One prominent financial services recruiter, who declined to be named, says that “every single bank” is looking at cheaper ways of hiring, including internal referrals, utilising web portals and bolstering their internal resourcing team.

So, from a job-hunting perspective, is it likely to be particularly fruitful using recruiters?

Well, this depends on which area of financial services you focus on. If you’re looking for a role in general finance, retail banking or back office, you’re likely to find more success applying directly to the employer.

But the fact remains that there’s still a very limited pool of talent locally in areas like wealth management, investment banking and asset management, which means headhunting is often necessary to find the right people.

What’s more, banks would generally need to look internationally for candidates if a real expansion was on the cards and this is where a recruitment agency can add value, argues another senior financial services recruiter.

“Bypassing recruitment agencies is a temporary phenomenon,” he insists. “We have access to a global database of candidates, which makes us much better placed for recruiting internationally, and it’s not great for a banks’ reputation to be seen pulling talent from a competitor directly, so our headhunting expertise is valued. What’s more, when recruitment picks up again, internal teams won’t be able to handle the volume of roles.”

In any event, while job numbers are growing in the region’s financial sector, they’re far from plentiful. It would therefore currently be counter-productive to block off any avenue of opportunity.