Former Lehman Brothers graduate trainees snapped up by Nomura

A global investment bank has rehired around 60 per cent of graduate trainees let go by Lehman Brothers following the bank's collapse in September last year, with claims that they used a social networking site to contact the individuals.

A front-page article in the Financial Times suggested that the trainees were recruited through Facebook, a claim which Nomura told The Journal had been "misinterpreted."

Nomura, who have offices in Europe, North America and Asia, employed around 8,500 candidates following their global acquisition of Lehman's businesses in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Graduates were not initially part of this recruitment deal, but since then the Japanese bank has rehired a number of graduate trainees.

A spokesperson for Nomura told The Journal: “We realised quite quickly that Lehman had established a strong graduate class through their recruitment, and we would have been silly not to take advantage of what Lehman had put in place.”

This fast transition between the two companies has offered a lucky escape to many graduates who were recently let go by Lehman Brothers after only a short term of employment with the company. It also provides a long awaited boost to the decreasing number of opportunities available to current graduates.

Commenting on this sudden development, Malcolm Horton, head of graduate recruitment at Nomura, said: “For the graduates who had just started it was certainly a shock – 90 per cent were ex-interns and had only been with Lehman for a matter of weeks. Though we were able to keep on a significant proportion of the graduates we weren’t able to find room for everybody.

“It was a particularly difficult situation for me, as one of my main policies as head of graduate recruitment had been that unlike other banks we would never rescind offers or buy people out of their contracts before they started. We would always find a suitable position for them somewhere.”

Nomura was quick to defend its use of the Facebook to track down candidates, citing “ease of communication.”

“The use of Facebook has been slightly misinterpreted. A lot of the graduates were based in Europe and America, and with no contact details for them using the social networking site was the easiest way of contacting them.” A spokesperson confirmed.

When questioned by The Journal as to whether the investment bank had plans to continue with this graduate recruitment scheme, Nomura responded: “The process is still ongoing; we could be—nothing is certain at this stage. Our graduate recruitment team are continually working and engaging with employees, and at this stage, it is important to keep these channels open.”