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Hard Times On the Thames

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"We didn't stand outside of Lehman Brothers handing out business cards -- that would be morbid," Alexandra Andreae-Jones, a corporate headhunter, said of the failed U.S. bank that employed several thousand people in London.

But she did recently send her team down to coffee shops at Canary Wharf, trawling for recruits among the lattes and croissants in one of the sparkling centers of London's financial world.

Headhunter Malcolm Wood said he is advising clients to set reasonable ambitions. He said one woman recently called to say that her banker husband had been paid severance of 45,000 pounds, or about $77,000.

She complained that it wouldn't cover their monthly credit card bill.

Special correspondent Karla Adam contributed to this report.

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