Headhunters more active

My company has hired a lot of senior folks since January and now are going to be starting to hire college and business school grads, probably taking effect in January of 2010.

It's def. looking better in the banking world. I have to give credit to UD. He is very nuanced in his reports these days.

Umm...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/nyregion/18unemploy.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

This article is backward looking, I am talking about new activity that will occur over the next few quarters. I am pretty convinced you don't work in the banking industry. You are trying to look inside from the outside.

You would be wrong. I work in investment banking at a bulge bracket. Capital Markets business has been very strong this year, both debt and equity, but M&A activity is down 30% YTD and structured products are dead. Most trading desks have done well too. But I still know many more people that are out of work than those who have found jobs. Guarantees are being given for key positions to hires from other banks (people who still have a job), but every person who was laid off and looking for a job is not being offered a guarantee, and in fact are only offered positions a year back. So the only people making money are those that already were.

I love that you try to "report from the field" that hiring is up, and try to down play the fact that unemployment in NYC is at a 16 yr high and somehow doesn't matter. Nice try. It is very clear that YOU do not work in banking.

Amusingly, folks came on this board saying the same thing a year ago, too.

Yes, I'm sure somebody somewhere is hiring. But the nets just keep going down and down...

The incoming classes at the banks are pitiful... and, remember, they're replacing bigger numbers that left (who were hired 2-3 years ago).

Really? Yes, I do work in banking. And, umm, structured products are not dead in my firm. Of course, people that were laid off don't get guarantees, never claimed that. My point is that banks are a lot more optimistic at this point, even in areas they just got out a year ago. I am very surprised how short their memory is. And yes, I have a lot of laid off ex colleagues that found jobs in banking again. Actually, I would say 80% of them.

Remember, business NEEDS to be up, what, 20% for business to be "flat".
Thats because you have to make up for all the lost business from Lehman, Bear, etc.

There should be mass hiring just to cover the shifted business.
And there really isn't.

Thats not a good sign.

A lot of people have found jobs, but most I know that did either found a job not in banking, or not in NY. UBS is rebuilding their IB and is consequently hiring, and many banks are building out areas they previously didn't have by hiring away from TARP banks.

I am working on one deal where a client cannot refinance a securitization that has turbo'd so they are looking to do it in our market.

Yes, there is some hiring, but it's like saying a scab is healing when you still have two broken legs when it comes to NY real estate.

Now you lost me. I have tons of friends at Lehman and Bear. Most are still employed. It's not that all Bear/Barclays bankers are on the street.

nyc10022- it's not like 100% of the Lehman/Bear business, and 100% of the Lehman/Bear employees, just disappeared in the night when those firms collapsed.

I have a lot of ex-Lehman friends who are doing very well now at Barclays. And I know a quite a few ex-Bear people who are doing just fine at JPM now.

Big parts of those businesses were taken underneath the the Barclays/JPM umbrellas when they acquired Lehman/Bear. It is not accuratee to say that all that business was simply "lost".

Guys there is more to New York and New York unemployment than banking and Wall Street. Communications (publishing, broadcasting, advertising) have taken major hits and have yet to show anything but marginal recovery unless you are a 25 year old "digital native" who has 5 years experience with "social media".

carnegie - exactly right. you said it better and more succinctly than I could.

> It's not that all Bear/Barclays bankers are on the street.

Did I say all?

Mass numbers lost their jobs, and mass pieces of business went elsewhere. There would need to be significant hiring (in the thousands) just to cover that business.

That a headhunter makes some calls doesn't really say a whole lot.

The actual numbers are pretty f*ing horrible these days.

It amazes me that many people on this board seem crave hopelessness and try to snuff out any bit of optimism they perceive.

I actually think there are some vultures out there, vulture capitalists, that are rooting for economic demise so that they can buy up the land and capital.

But what you might get, dear pessimist, is more government involvement. America is too big to fail, and we won't.

in general, headhunters may actually be less credible than re brokers

and the bear lehman folk who landed at barc and jp and those whove found jobs elswhere had serious wealth confiscated--wont be aggro RE buyers for many years

unfortunately media/creative/publishing people havent been aggro RE buyers for a long time--a sad byproduct of ny's recent evolution--there has been less and less room in the NY economy for those in non-banking related professions (even f'ing doctors for chrissake) but that's one of my socialist issues

liz, did your finger heal OK? or were you scarred for lif? i was delivered at St. V's--and ar, lived at 18 stuy oval from 0 to 3 years of age! not quite the cachet of peter coop but good enuff

ubottom, from 0-3 you probably didn't need the second bathroom much. i would like to move to ST, to one of the three beds closer to the east village, but they still only have one bathroom. and i have a girrrrrllll.

needed more than bathrooms--2nd of 5 raised on a lawyer's wage--thus waiting for my dad to leave for work at 6AM--we were in larger quarters by then!!
have 2 teen girls--no wife--know very well about girls' bathrooms...and closets..and bdrms...i've been fired by a few cleaning ladies in fact--this is an empl;oyment thread right?

Thanks for asking Ubottom. My finger healed fine from that misadventure, as well as from the time I wore my hold school contacts for 26 hours straight (no comment as to what I was doing) and ended up again at St. Vincents looking sheepish. Now alas the scars of adulthood seem much more permanent.

Wish I could help you with the cleaning lady gig since I need a job, but I knew from the first time I saw him that my soul mate was Oscar Madison--cleaning, not in my skill set.

i aint no felix, but you girls can get messy