The pictures of former Houlihan Lokey banking consultant Joshua Persky pounding the streets of New York's financial district trying to get a job sent a shiver up many a spine. Financial markets professionals, aware that we are in the middle of the worst market crisis probably since the 1930s, wondered if they were looking at their own future.

Well, in recognition of the pressures firms' recruitment budgets are under, we are now giving candidates and hiring firms the opportunity to start the recruitment process (and hopefully finds some folks some jobs) free of charge. Our new product, DirectConnect, enables candidates to upload shortform details about themselves into a global database which can be searched by hiring institutions. Candidates will remain anonymous until a hiring institution has made contact with details of a job opportunity and, if the jobseeker is interested, he or she will be able to press a button to release their identity and send off his or her CV.

So far, representatives from the likes of ABN AMRO, Bank of America, Barclays Capital, Barclays Global Investors, Blue Crest Capital, BlackRock, City Index, Credit Suisse, Data Inc., Dresdner  Kleinwort, Dubai International Financial Centre, EBRD, Ernst & Young, Fortis, GAM (UK) Ltd, Goldman Sachs, Guidepoint Global, HBK, Janus Capital Group, JPMorgan, Landsbanki Securities, Macquarie, Man Group, McLagan, Merrill Lynch, Morley Fund Management, Nomura, Northern Trust, Pershing, Piper Jaffray, Royal Bank of Scotland, State Street, Sunrise Brokers, Swiss Re, Threadneedle, Tristone Capital, UBS and Wachovia have already expressed an interest in this product. All these firms have open recruitment positions, and are currently looking to secure talented people.

And Here Is The City is hereby giving a commitment that we will not charge for this service for the remainder of 2008.

If you are a financial institution (or onsite recruiter) or any other company (except a contingency recruitment or search firm) that has an interest in hiring financial markets professionals, please contact vicdaniels@hereisthecity.com, so that we can give you free access to the database at least until the end of the year.

If you are a candidate looking for a job, please press on the link immediately below to register your details.

Register for DirectConnect

careers.hereisthecity.com

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