Business Week has released a Special Report on the “World’s Most Influential Headhunters,” and the time is certainly ripe.  Those with secure jobs will find the Report worth skimming at least, and those who are out of work will want to read with care.  The leader notes that the “world’s top headhunters control access to the lion’s share of C-suite succession and leader-replacement searches for the world’s largest corporations,” and continues in a vein more relevant to hedge fund players: “Their influence also extends to the top ranks of the most ambitious smaller companies, which understand how crucial top talent is and are willing to pay for it.”  That certainly applies to hedge funds.

Over a dozen topics comprise the Report, such as:

• “Complete List: Most Influential Headhunters”
• “How to Let the Headhunter Do the Job”
• “Video: Acing the Headhunter Interview”

The hundred individuals who make the cut are all profiled, with contact information and brief statements of philosophy and advice.

The article, “How To Manage Your Executive Résumé,” may be of special interest right now.  Related advice, specific to advancing in the hedge fund industry, can be found in the interviews with hedge fund recruiters on this site.  And cross-referencing Business Week’s top 100 list with our index of hedge fund recruiters will create an excellent industry employment resource.

We’ve been commenting on a boom in hedge fund hiring, so it’s a good time to revisit some of the interviews we’ve published during the past year with hedge fund recruiters. These recruiters work mainly in the USA, but occasionally in Europe and Asia. For the candidate looking to manage recruiter relationships professionally and effectively, these candid discussions of how the hiring process works — for roles in quantitative analysis, IT, portfolio management, sales & marketing and more — are solid gold.

• Working With The Best - Bob Olman. Bob Olman is a noted speaker on careers in capital markets and the founder of Alpha Search Advisory Partners (www.alphasearchadvisory.com), a top recruiting firm to the alternative investment community, based in NYC with offices in London and Singapore. The second half of our interview with him is here: Career Moves and the Credit Crunch - Bob Olman - Part 2.
• Kathy Graham - Analytic Finance, Econometrics and Recruiting. Kathy Graham of Highest Quality Search (www.hqsearch.com) in Chicago discusses the past, present and future of the job market, confidentiality, and managing career trajectory.

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The hedge fund industry is arguably doing better in Europe than in the USA, and better still in Asia. In an article entitled “Hedge-fund Mania Hits Asia”, BusinessWeek reports: “From Tokyo to Singapore, hedge funds are as hot as Thai chili peppers.” Jim Rogers, co-founder of the Quantum Fund, says: “I am told a new hedge fund is being set up in Asia every other day.” So after last week’s report of strong hiring at European and American hedge funds, it is appropriate to consider the hiring picture in Asia.

Matthew Hoyle International (MHI) is a financial recruiting firm with offices in the UK, the Netherlands and Hong Kong. It’s a boutique-style firm, with a small-feel, personal touch and strong flow of mid- to senior-level positions in Europe and Asia. Hedge Fund Search Digest publishes a steady run of its prop trading jobs, portfolio manager jobs, and quant jobs in Singapore, Hong Kong, Seoul and elsewhere. Earlier this year we asked for Matthew’s views on the Asian hedge fund industry, especially from the point of view of candidates in Europe and the USA. In a nutshell: the Asian industry is very robust, but mobility at a global level is not easy even for very talented candidates.

On industry growth:

“More hedge funds are moving into Asia, particularly from Europe. We see special situations, distressed funds and funds involved heavily in private deals as being especially aggressive in 2008. We also expect the Asian convertible space to remain particularly attractive.”

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We followed up directly with finance recruiter Kathy Graham about her 2008 Financial Services Career Forecast (about which we posted a few days ago) to hear more about where hedge fund employment will head this year. Her are some of her thoughts.

How can someone evaluate job security in an uncertain environment? Can you suggest “Five Questions To Ask Yourself”?

Yes, here are my “five questions hedge fund professionals should ask themselves to evaluate their job security in an uncertain environment.”

(1) How diversified is your firm? The more diversified the strategies, the more likely there will still be funds performing well enough to keep the firm viable (and hopefully your position) if one or more funds are especially impacted by a market movement.

(2) Does your firm have some very liquid funds? In March 2008 a number of hedge funds closed, all of the same type of strategy. They were outstanding firms run by experienced professionals that had their positions in almost every single strategy impacted by the markets (i.e., mortgage-backed real estate, fixed income derivatives, munis, distressed debt, etc.). They had very few liquid strategies like a quantitative fund that could be closed out to generate needed cash for increasing margin calls, etc.

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Speculations and casual soothsaying about the markets abound. Seasoned finance recruiter Kathy Graham puts her job forecast down in writing, in five pages of detail. The 2008 installment of her annual Financial Services Job Forecast (now in its seventh year) examines upwards of a dozen indicators to produce a sector-based analysis of the likely developments this year in financial services employment.

The overall picture for hedge funds jobs in 2008 is down, with the exceptions of accounting and compliance positions. (This site has also reported on sales and client service as possible strong areas.) Since the Forecast covers the financial services industries broadly, hedge fund employment is only one of many areas discussed. But the big picture should be of interest. First, for someone who hasn’t yet broken into the industry, how to best position oneself never stops being a consideration. Second, someone who finds himself out a hedge fund job this year has to consider what to do while waiting for another shot.

The Forecast not only describes the leading positive and negative indicators and their import for various sectors, but also discusses personal strategy in a section entitled, “What To Do If You’re In A Potential Non-Growth Area.” As Kathy writes: “Winter can be a lovely season if you’re prepared for it…” Key points: review your resume and rethink your employment history; consider whether additional training or education will be an asset; consider where your skills can transfer; network, network, network.

Kathy Graham (kathy at hqsearch.com) is a financial recruiter and consultant via her several Chicago-based firms: Highest Quality Search, HQ Seminars, HQ Scripts, and HQ Services. The complete version of the 2008 Financial Services Job Forecast is available via her website, www.hqsearch.com, or from Kathy by email.

Landing, or offering, a hedge fund job means working with the busy, colorful world of hedge fund recruiting, and that’s why one of our themes is: Know your recruiter. Productive relationships with recruiters can last an entire career. Successful candidates advance, become clients with positions on offer, and then perhaps become candidates again at the partner level. Plan on each relationship lasting a lifetime.

There might be a few hundred recruiters worldwide with a really strong hedge fund practice, and these are the ones to know about — not that trying to maintain too many such relationships is a great idea, but knowing the lay of the land is.

Schwab Enterprise is a specialist hedge fund recruiter and regularly posts to Hedge Fund Search Digest’s job database. CNN pitches the story of Schwab’s incorporation into mega-recruiter Heidrick & Struggles as the story of a giant of the recruiting world growing another limb. But since recruiting is a relationship business — a person-to-person business — the interest of the story lies in the fortunes not of the large firm, but the small one, and more specifically, of the individuals at that firm you already have, or may yet have, a relationship with.

Get in touch with other small, hedge fund-focused recruiting shops like Schwab — worldwide — using Hedge Fund Search Digest’s Recruiter Rolodex.

This is the second of a two-part interview with Kevin Collins, a capital markets recruiter who has made his career with April International in New York. In his words, “a recruiter’s biggest mission is to let people know what they’re worth in the marketplace.”

Please give an overview of your firm.

The firm was founded in 1978, and I’ve been here since 1989. A friend of mine who owned the firm approached me. At the time I was working at CBS News and also managing a restaurant. I went to see what it was all about and realized it’s a fun, people-person job. In restaurants there’s constant contact with people, and in the newsroom too, of course, so my experience was very applicable. In recruiting you learn something new about industry every day, so it was very attractive.

Now we work almost exclusively in capital markets, but in the early days we’d work with almost anyone. That was enjoyable because it broadened your scope. I’ve looked for Saul Steinberg at Reliance Insurance, for a helicopter pilot for him once. I’ve looked for patent attorneys for Sony Corporation. I have another client, an investment bank out of Europe, and they come to me for everything, areas that I don’t normally recruit in.

15% to 20% of my work is for hedge funds. The remainder is major investment firms: Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley. We primarily do quantitative analysts, risk managers, credit analysts, controllers.

How has the internet changed your business?

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We spoke with Kevin Collins of April International about his firm’s work in Asia and his approach to recruiting. This is the first part of a two-part interview.

Tell us about your office.

We have eight people, and we work days and into the night. We work until usually 11 pm or midnight, because we have a Hong Kong and Tokyo business.

It’s a round-the-clock job.

I’m in from 11 in the morning until 5:00 or 5:30. Then I go home and have dinner with my wife, then come back at 8:00, and then I work until 11, sometimes 12.

But I’ve left here at 4:30 a.m., too, depending on what’s going on. Close a deal, do some dealing in Tokyo time. Time is relative — irrelevant, actually. It doesn’t mean anything in this global economy.

What’s the background of your international reach?

Maybe 15 years ago, Salomon Brothers asked us to find a Japanese-speaking accountant. We went out to dinner, came back, called all the American and British firms in Tokyo — that is, once we figured out how to dial a phone — and we asked if they knew anybody. Next thing you know they started calling us back saying, “We have positions we need help filling. Could you help us?” That was Japan.

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A new guide to making a hedge fund career from major financial recruiter Glocap shouldn’t be overlooked ($45 plus shipping). Adam Zoia, founder and Managing Partner, and Aaron Finkel, VP and Head of Publications, collaborated on Getting a Job in Hedge Funds: An Inside Look at How Funds Hire. Click through to read the table of contents and a sample from the first chapter.

Bob Olman is a noted speaker on careers in capital markets and the founder of Alpha Search Advisory Partners (www.alphasearchadvisory.com), a top recruiting firm to the alternative investment community, based in NYC with offices in London and Singapore. This is the second of a two-part discussion with him.

Do you see fund performance affecting employee loyalty?

In two cases: If a PM has been making great returns, his compensation may be adversely affected if the rest of the fund is not performing as well and he has a discretionary bonus that is linked to the fund’s overall profits. In addition, a good PM might not have the opportunity to manage the amount of capital that he desires, if his fund can’t raise money from investors due to poor performance.

In both of these cases, the PM who is performing well may look to leave the fund for one that performs better. A scenario we are faced with most often is the PM who runs an “also-ran” strategy at a hedge fund. Here, perhaps the fund’s core or legacy strategy is not doing well, and they have had some redemptions. Often, the allocation to the PM in a bolt-on strategy is reduced, to boost the size of the core strategy. An excellent performer may find himself managing a reduced book in this case.

What advice do you give on handling resignations?

Candidates should handle a resignation with professionalism. They should not burn any bridges at the fund they are resigning from, and should give the fund ample time to close out the portfolio they manage.

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