One novel way to measure financial career space activity? By taking a look at LinkedIn metrics. According to a recent post on the LinkedIn Blog, the site has seen substantial activity within five companies since the financial crisis: Barclays, Credit Suisse, Citigroup, BofA and JPMorgan. Events like the Merrill Lynch takeover and Lehman's filing for bankruptcy triggered many more registrations and updates.
And while you might expect a lot of that activity to reflect people leaving the finance career space, that's actually not the case. Some people did flock to other industries, but most stayed in finance. Aside from the companies that acquired loads of people (i.e., BofA taking over Merrill and Nomura scooping up Lehman people), Barclays hired 10% of laid off LinkedIn users who left their previous finance jobs. Credit Suisse snatched up 1.5% and Citigroup 1.1%.
This isn't so surprising, as those companies have made it clear they're eager to hire. Barclays is looking to beef up its equity sales and trading team, and Credit Suisse has been adding hiring managers by the boatload. Citigroup, for its part, has been ramping up mortgage officer hiring to help with the wave of foreclosures.
Write to Julie Steinberg