(April 16 – 17:00 ET) – With markets struggling, brokerage firms are looking for solid brokers that do a good job of retaining assets rather than pure home-run hitters in recruiting new talent says the Wall Street Letter.

In a bull market firms are constantly looking to raid one another’s top producers, but in today’s markets recruiters are looking for brokers that can retain assets, rather than those that just crank out the commissions. “A broker may have made a lot of commissions in the first half of the year, but have blown up his book in the latter half of the year,” Paul Richardson, an industry recruiter with Richardson Recruiting Services, tells the WSL.

“Recruiting today brings brokers under greater scrutiny,” says a branch manager from PaineWebber. “We are looking at lots of things besides production levels, like size of accounts, number of accounts, production mix, compliance.” Recruiters also advise that firms look for brokers that generate decent revenue off their asset bases and brokers that are likely to be able to bring most of their clients with them.

“Double and triple check the broker’s book,” advised one industry recruiter. “It all comes down to due diligence, when you feel like you’ve done enough checking, do some more because you can not protect yourself enough in this market.”