Ex-Barclays VP's HSBC job application shows how hiring works really

Carmen Chevalier-Firescu has plenty of experience of moving from bank to bank in London. Having started her career at Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong in 2006, she spent the next decade moving first to JPMorgan, then to Deutsche Bank and then to Barclays.  

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In 2018, however, Chevalier-Firescu attempted to move again, this time to HSBC, but was thwarted. Her resulting court case offers interesting insights into how the hiring process in banks really works.

When Chevalier-Firescu applied to HSBC in 2018, she was out of the market. Barclays made her redundant after she returned from maternity leave in 2016. In 2017 she brought a discrimination case against the British bank, which eventually resulted in a "seven figure" settlement.

Chevalier-Firescu is arguing that HSBC didn't hire her because it learned of this discrimination claim. HSBC is denying this. Chevalier-Firescu is now suing HSBC too, and the court documents make for interesting reading. 

Firstly, they confirm that jobs aren't always advertised. HSBC says it advertised the role, but Chevalier-Firescu says that Eric Dutruit, the head of equity derivatives sales at HSBC had a job to fill and that CVs arrived at Dutruit's desk via his network. 

One of those CVs belonged to Chevalier-Firescu, whom the judged described as "pushy and indefatigable" in her attempts to get HSBC to hire her. Chevalier-Firescu was also using her network: she sent her CV to a friend at HSBC, the friend sent it to HSBC's then-global head of equities, Hossein Zaimi (who's now at Barclays as head of macro) and Zaimi then sent it to Dutruit, asking him to interview her. The entire application happened through word of mouth.

Secondly, the court documents reveal that HSBC had a convoluted process for reviewing applicants, involving interviews and a "values assessment" by psychometric test providers Hogan Lovells. The bank also operated a "no promotion on hire policy." 

However, the documents also suggest that line managers at HSBC could expedite and manipulate this process. Because Detruit (initially) liked Chevalier-Firescu, he thought he could push things through. After interviewing her, he reportedly sent a terse email to Zaimi saying that he needed to hire her. Zaimi then sent an equally terse email in return, saying, "Find space and do it"! Dutruit also reportedly planned to explain to Chevalier-Firescu, who was at associate director level in her previous role, how she would make director, even if she was initially hired into the rung below.  

All was going well, until word of mouth allegedly intervened again. Chevalier-Firescu claims that a Lebanese senior manager in HSBC's equity derivatives team spoke to her Lebanese former boss at Barclays and learned of her previous discrimination claim. At this point, she claims that HSBC decided not to hire her because the informal poor reference meant she was effectively "blacklisted" from the new role. It is this blacklisting that Chevalier-Firescu is contesting in her claim against HSBC. She's asking for an undisclosed amount of damages. HSBC hired a "strong" male candidate instead. 

A judge initially struck out Chevalier-Firescu's case, but she appealed against that ruling in February. Last week, HSBC asked for the case to be struck out again. It is contesting the case on multiple points. 

If Chevalier-Firescu is successful in suing HSBC, it will mean that banks have to think very carefully about gathering references through informal networks. Even if she isn't successful, her case is making it clear that recruitment occurs in the shadows, despite banks' attempts to drag it into the light.

For her part, Chevalier-Firescu also illustrates how to write a fine email to a potential employer after being ghosted and upon finding out that you haven't been hired after an interview. After discovering the job had gone to someone else, she initially wrote - “I just heard Andre von Rieckoff is coming to HSBC. I believe congratulations are in order. This also makes me believe that it is official now that I will not be joining you. It would have been a great pleasure. All the best.”  

This was before she discovered her alleged blacklisting by the former colleague at Barclays. 

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