Day in the Life: Gary Goldstein, New York headhunter
0430-0500 I usually wake up early. The first hour of each day is my time for meditation. I practise many of the customs and traditions of Orthodox Jewry, though I'm not classically Orthodox. I spend between 5am and 6am each morning in ritual prayer known as davening.
It's a great start to the day. It has been said that people who connect with their spiritual centre at least one day a week extend their lifespan by 5.7 years.
0630 After I've davened, I dress and take a train into the city. The journey takes about an hour. This is my opportunity to catch up with the day's news. I read two newspapers: the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
I also carry a Blackberry handheld device, enabling me to check overnight messages from London or Hong Kong.
Arrival at Grand Central Station is followed by a pleasant five-minute stroll to my office, midtown on Third Avenue.
0800 Once at the office I usually go straight to my computer and respond to the email messages I've received overnight. Then I put together a to-do list, look at my calendar, and start preparing for the day's meetings.
In a typical week I meet three or four clients to pitch for new business. This week we're pitching for mandates in everything from corporate finance to municipal finance, fixed income and insurance.
There's also a constant stream of potential candidates to meet and interview. Whitney only operates on a retained basis: all candidates have been identified from specific searches.
0930 The day kicks off with meeting a chief executive of an asset management firm. He's looking to develop a unique concept that could help private equity funds overcome liquidity issues when they take investee firms to market.
Our initial role is to help establish whether the concept has any appeal, and secondly to try and find the right people to execute it.
1230 Lunch is usually a modest affair. At Whitney we are not big on working breakfasts, working lunches, nor working dinners: I'm of the opinion that working and eating are difficult to do simultaneously.
Occasionally I take a client out for dinner or lunch, but it is a social instead of a business occasion. Generally, we are more productive with clients and candidates when we meet them in an office setting.
1300 When lunch is over, I get down to the business of meeting and interviewing prospective candidates.
Today I have a meeting with a specialist in distressed securities focused on the Latin American market. He has been referred to me, and is interested in working in New York. He has a terrific track record of success, despite a complex home situation.
His family lives in New York, and he's spent the past two years commuting between the US and Argentina. It must very tough and it would be terrific to help him. We discuss a possible opening.
1400 Early afternoon is spent telephoning potential candidates. This is an important part of my day. Some search firms use junior staff to make the first approach, but at Whitney all consultants telephone candidates themselves. This is the only way to get the best information on the market and to find out what's really happening on the ground.
We're very busy at the moment. Only a small group of firms are willing to buy out bonuses, so most people are looking to hire early next year. Because the courtship period can take months and months, the general feeling is that it's good to start early.
The market has picked up dramatically since the Labour Day holiday in September. For the first time in a few years, it seems banks are really looking at how they are going to grow revenues.
It's not only the hot areas of fixed income, credit derivatives, and structured products. We're also seeing a resurgence of interest in corporate finance and its industry groups such as healthcare, telecoms, utilities and industrials.
People are usually receptive to our calls. A lot of people feel disempowered and are open-minded when it comes to contemplating alternative positions. They have no loyalty to their organisation and feel that the organisation has no loyalty to them.
This will be a problem if hiring picks up further next year. Under the old partnership cultures, it used to be possible to attribute a personality to each firm: there was a definite Salomon type, a definite Goldman type, or Morgan Grenfell type. As these distinctions have disappeared, so has people's commitment to a particular firm.
1600 I spend the last part of the day overseeing developments in our global database and knowledge management systems. We completed a management buyout in March 2003, and I now spend a lot more time addressing strategic questions.
We're working on globalising the Whitney brand, expanding our product capability and refining our IT systems.
1800 I leave and head home. Some evenings I workout in a 'spin class': a stationary bike class in which everyone cycles along to music. It's great and burns around 1,000 calories in an hour.
Other evenings I might attend social events with my wife, who is editor in chief of Avenue Magazine. I also usually try to spend a few nights a week at home with my six-year-old son.
