Were the past two years particularly good for getting noticed?

The Financial News produced its list of Rising Stars for 2009 today. Such is its popularity that it seemed to slow their website to a crawl earlier this afternoon.

As well as highlighting the extent to which the City is populated by non-Britons (around 40% appear to come from overseas), the list of up-and-coming (mostly) under 37 year olds suggests the years 2007 and 2008 were particularly good for getting ahead if you were a youngish banker seeking recognition.

One of those on the list, 36 year old Mark Barnes, now global head of FX trading at RBS, was promoted three times in a year (Barnes went from senior FX options trader, to global head of FX options and hybrids in May 2008, to global head of FX in March 2009).

Another, Colin Fan, also aged 36, benefited from staff departures at Deutsche Bank: when Boaz Weinstein left in January to launch a hedge fund (after making $1.8bn of losses), Fan was promoted from co-head to sole head of the credit trading business. In July, he and a colleague also took on the responsibilities of the departing head of emerging markets.

Various others on the list also appear to have been fast tracked. This leads us to wonder whether hiring freezes in late 2007, all of 2008, and the first half of this year, encouraged banks to promote internally rather than bring people in from outside.

Maybe so, agrees the head of HR at one bank. "Existing people had to take on more responsibility because there were fewer heads," he says. "We were more focused on our internal resources and more inclined to give people a go, whereas previously we might have decided they weren't ready and hired from outside."

Unfortunately, times have now changed. Since June banks have reverted to full external hiring mode. "It's been frantic. I've done more hiring in the past six months than at any time in the last five years," says the head of recruitment at one US bank.