Job hunting on Wall Street? The line forms here

Eve Tahmincioglu • Profile • E-mail

Employees at Lehman Bros. and Merrill Lynch better spruce up their resumes fast if they want to move to the head of an ever-growing line of out-of-work Wall Streeters.

With Lehman Bros. filing for bankruptcy this week and Bank of America agreeing to buy Merrill Lynch, about 85,000 jobs now hang in the balance.

Just last month, 10,000 financial jobs were lost in New York alone, according to Robert Olman, management partner for financial executive search firm Alpha Search Advisory. While nearly two thirds of Lehman’s entire workforce could be lost, Merrill Lynch could lose 20 percent to 40 percent of its jobs. In the recent government bailout and takeover by JPMorgan Chase & Co of Bear Stearns Cos. about 50 percent of jobs at Bear Stearns were cut.

“If you have a job with one of the surviving banks, you come into work early and leave late.  If you’re in a bank that filed for bankruptcy or was acquired, you say goodbye to your friends and send out resumes to get a new job,” advises Peter Cohan, who runs management consulting and venture capital firm Peter S. Cohan & Associates. “That’s because there are fewer and fewer chairs and more and more bankers scrambling to sit down on them.”

One senior vice president at Lehman, who has been with the firm for more than 30 years and asked that his name be withheld, says older workers like him that are ready to retire will be OK, but as for younger employees: “There’s no place for these kids to go.”

The employees focused on the mortgage side of the business, and those with support type positions, will have the toughest time, recruiters say. The employees with the best chances of landing a gig quick are those with the biggest rolodexes, a reputation for making money even in this downturn, and those with specific knowledge in commodities and electronic trading, experts say.

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“Commodities have been a hot market for a while, and electronic trading has been taking over on the institutional investing side because it’s much more efficient,” says Jay Gaines of Jay Gaines & Company, an executive search firm specializing in financial services in New York.

Headhunters say they’ll be hotly pursuing the stars in fixed income, what Lehman is best known for. “One would anticipate that people associated or part of Lehman’s overall fixed income will fair better, but there may be some scrutiny on mortgage and derivative side where Lehman stumbled,” Gaines notes.

The company is also known for its strong back-office capabilities, and hiring managers will be looking to hire those employees that were integral to operations, technology, and, ironically, risk management, he adds.

Gaines also believes there will be a need for experts in mergers and acquisitions because so many financial institutions are selling off parts of the business and they’ll be looking for people who know how to make things work.

Recruiters are already calling workers at Lehman like crazy, but in most cases they’re calling off a list and don’t really know what those employees really do day to day. So be smart, and grill these folks about actual job opportunities they have available.

Lehman has a prime brokerage business with institutional investors and that will be an attractive piece of the business a buyer like Barclays may want, and they’ll want to bring along those who ran the show, recruiters say.

The reputation of Lehman is probably the biggest plus for workers who’ll be hitting the job-search pavement soon, says Alpha Search’s Olman. “Lehman’s corporate culture,” he adds, “is one of a ‘can do’ and ‘get it done’. They’ve always been a bit more slimmed down staff-wise than other banks and their people are respected.”

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