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Posted by Walter L. Zweifler, ASA

In the midst of the crisis, some sectors of financial services are still functioning. They may not be hiring in a wholesale manner, but theyre still hiring in a retail fashion and are picking up handfuls of people from Lehman. They are

Commodities: When Morgan Stanley announced its 3Q results earlier this week it highlighted commodities as one of the major revenue drivers during the last quarter. Predictably, commodity headhunters say theres very little in the way of commodities hiring going on at US investment banks, but that utilities, oil majors, and big commodity trading houses are picking people up. Carbon trading is also hot, but not necessarily easy to get into. Theres a huge amount of growth in carbon trading, says Jakob Bloch at Commodity Appointments. But its populated by professionals that have established credentials in that market.

Hedge funds: Start-up hedge funds are being hit hard by the crisis, but bigger houses like GLG Partners and Citadel have been hiring. Hedge fund headhunter David Durham, of Durham Consultants, says hedge funds are picking people up from Lehman and elsewhere. Prop traders and analysts are most likely to be lucky particularly if they have any experience of working on financials or emerging markets like India and Latin America. Russia has fallen out of favour. (Why could this be? )

Prime brokerage (pb): As the sixth largest prime broker in Europe, and with a 38% year-on-year increase in revenues in its securities services division in Q1, Lehman wasnt doing too badly in pb. Its clients have now gone elsewhere and, as of yesterday, Morgan Stanleys are said to be getting cold feet. too. One pb headhunter says this is creating job opportunities at houses like Barclays and JPM which are picking up clients. He says the sought-after pb professionals are those with long experience who can bring hedge fund clients with them. Hiring numbers can generally be counted on one hand, though.

Infrastructure: Babcock & Brown and Macquarie are clearly having a few issues. but infrastructure headhunters are adamant that theres still recruitment going on. Were doing quite a lot of work picking people up from Lehman, says James Wakefield at Cobalt Recruitment. He says opportunities are still out there for people from infrastructure teams in banks, as well as people from M&A and corporate finance whove been advising on equity fund raising.

Private equity: Private equity is still hiring, albeit in extreme moderation. Funds are interested in people with experience in infrastructure, renewables, energy, utilities or financials, says one headhunter who declined to give his name for fear of being inundated with CVs.