Two banks that are still said to be paying generous guarantees to hire front office staff in 2011

Front office recruitment is slow. But it hasn't stopped.

Amidst the chatter about redundancies, some banks are still hiring. Some are still paying generous guarantees to bring people across.

One of them is said to be RBS. Despite letting go of 200 people from its 'corporate and advisory team,' RBS is still said to be hiring for equity research and fixed income.

For example, it's rumoured to have recently recruited Guy Chalkley from Nomura for its gilt sales business, allegedly on a fairly substantial package.

"RBS are still hiring and paying guarantees that are typically 65% cash and 35% stock," alleges one headhunter. Another says that RBS will typically offer an unconditional guarantee to match last year's compensation, plus conditional upside subject to the new recruit meeting certain targets.

"Say someone's a 1m pay guy and last year he got 500k, they'll offer a 500k unconditional guarantee, plus an extra 250k if he meets his targets," he says. These targets are 'meaningful' but not too onerous. If market conditions deteriorate, they can apparently be negotiated down.

Generous guarantees are also, allegedly to be found at RBC, which is rumoured to be paying big cash packages to attract the best people. For example, it's said to have recently recruited Johnny Vo, head of insurance research at Goldman Sachs, for its corporate finance business.

RBC declined to comment on rumour and RBS was unable to respond within our (tight) deadline.