Monday's Headlines: How Wall Street's Hiring Recovery Affects You

What To Make Of The Wall Street Hiring Boom [FierceFinance]

What does Wall Street's widely-noted hiring pickup mean for you? Here's a succinct message, courtesy of FierceFinance newsletter: "This is certainly a good time to be pondering your options, as the payouts are about as generous as they can be in this environment. If you've done well through the crisis, you're likely to be in good position. If you've been out of the game, this may be a great opportunity to jump back in."

Wall St. Hiring in Anticipation of an Economic Recovery [NY Times]

Falling in line with Bloomberg, the WSJ and other tier 1 media outlets, the New York Times becomes the latest to confirm the Wall Street hiring rebound. New York securities firms have added nearly 2,000 jobs since February, net of job losses. While just a fraction of the 30,000 New York jobs lost during the downturn, economists and headhunters foresee financial hiring continuing to gain steam in the year's second half.

Aon to Purchase Hewitt for $4.9 Billion in Cash, Stock [Bloomberg News]

Both managers and support staff in Aon and Hewitt face possible job loss following Aon's agreement to acquire and merge Hewitt with its Aon Consulting unit. Aon is targeting $355 million in annual savings by cutting back-office costs and overlapping managers. Job cuts might not concentrate in the acquired company, however: "From a pure consulting perspective Hewitt is a better name than Aon," remarks Sandler O'Neill analyst Paul Newsome.

CEOs Fight To Prevent Discretionary Spending From Creeping Back Up [WSJ]

Even as business rebounds, managements at large firms including Deloitte are keeping the reins on discretionary spending such as travel, supplies and office space that they cut during the recession. For instance, Deloitte's CEO is monitoring travel costs and urging employees to conduct "virtual" meetings.

Five Major Differences Between Small Accounting Firms and the Big 4 [Going Concern]

Compared with the largest accounting firms, local firms have a different concept of "busy season" and differences in caliber of employees, degree of responsibility of staff auditors, compensation levels, and encourage employees to bring in individual tax clients (rather than only corporate audit clients).

Follow eFinancialCareers on Twitter: https://twitter.com/efcusnews