Equity research, management consultancy and FIG: where you could possibly get hired before the end of the year

As a salve for the selection of about recent articles about hiring freezes and redundancies, here's something more uplifting: an affirmation that there is hiring happening, somewhere.

Here's where:

1) Equity research

Yes, there IS hiring in equity research. Financial News today reports that MF Global wants 20 equity analysts 'across the world' before the end of the year. According to one equity research headhunter, six of these hires will be taking place in London.

Also hiring still in equity research in London is understood to be Berenberg, Germany's oldest private bank, which divulged its intention of hiring 25 equity researchers and salespeople in July and has apparently been busy aggregating them ever since.

Other equity research hiring possibilities include Unicredit, Numis, Collins Stewart, and maybe even the insatiable recruitment machine that is Jefferies. Banks like RBS, HSBC and Citigroup are only expected to resume their recruitment in Q1.

"There is hiring going on in equity research, but it's certainly not

amongst the big houses, most of which have got hiring freezes," says Alex Williams at Pelham International.

2) Management consultancy

Management consultancy hiring is especially hot.

The Financial Times today reveals that we are in the midst of a spree of hiring in management consultancy. Deloitte wants 400 new management consultants by May; E&Y wants 200 sometime soon; KPMG wants 550; PWC wants 300 to 500 in the next 12 months.

David Howell, managing director of EM Consulting, says recruitment for financial services management consulting is particularly heated: "There's been so much change in financial services, a lot of it government enforced, that consultants have been having a field day."

Pay for consultants at the Big Four is generous, but not awe inspiring. An associate with four years' relevant experience can allegedly expect a 60k salary plus 20% bonus; a senior manager with 8 years' relevant experience can expect a 75-80k salary plus 33% bonus; a director might get a 105-115k salary, plus a 35-40% bonus. Ernst & Young reportedly pays higher salaries, but lower bonuses.

3) FIG

Financial News is excited about FIG (Financial Institutions Group) bankers.

It points out that BNP Paribas, UBS and Rothschild have all made recent hires in FIG as 'the market for M&A gathers steam and banks look to raise capital to meet regulatory requirements.'

Extremes of enthusiasm may not be appropriate, however. Recruiters say FIG's been hot for a while and that most of the hiring's already happened.

"Fig hiring has been incredibly busy for the past year, along with natural resources, it's the area where banks have been hiring the most," says Logan Naidu, partner at Cornell Partnership.

Failing FIG, the real recruitment in M&A now is said to relate to the emerging markets of Central and Eastern Europe, energy and resources, and TMT. "BofA Merrill Lynch is still hiring juniors and Deutsche have a few places still, but where at the start of the year they were hiring for 10 teams, now it's one or two," one M&A recruiter reminisces.