Primarily permanent
Emerald is not a perm-only firm, and it is not a contract-first staffing shop. Permanent search is the center. Consulting is a genuine capability beside it.
Consulting talent
Consulting and contract talent.
Emerald is primarily a permanent, direct-hire search firm, and it has a real consulting, contract, and temporary practice. This page is for defined programs, urgent delivery, transformation work, and coverage gaps across trading, operations, finance, risk, data, and technology.
The market
Where the talent sits, and what usually goes wrong.
Consulting talent in this market is experienced specialists, not a general staffing catalog. The same subject-matter bar applies: the person has to have done the work, on a clock, inside a financial-markets function.
Role distinctions
The differences that change the slate.
A defined program
The best consulting mandates have a scope, an end, and a reason the seat should not be permanent yet. An open-ended contract that is really a permanent hire will be treated as one.
The same markets
Coverage is the traded-markets ecosystem: trading, investment, quant, risk, middle office, operations, finance, data, and technology. Not retail banking, not branch staffing, not generic technology.
How Emerald runs it
Map, then screen.
Emerald defines the program, maps people who have done that work, and is explicit about rate, duration, and whether the seat should convert. Candidates are told the truth about the engagement before they are submitted.
For clients
Send the outcome, the length, and whether this is coverage or a prelude to a permanent hire. Those are different slates.
For candidates
A contract is still a representation. Emerald will say what the program is, how long it is meant to last, and whether a permanent path is real.
Proof
What we can actually say.
The firm’s own description of the work is the constraint: permanent and consulting, inside financial markets, with the same refusal to send people who do not fit.
Questions we actually get
Does Emerald only do permanent search?
No. Permanent, direct-hire search is the center of the firm. Temp, contract, and consulting are a real part of the practice, used for defined programs, urgent delivery, transformation, and coverage gaps.
Is this general contract staffing?
No. The work stays inside specialized financial-markets functions. Emerald does not run a multi-industry staffing catalog.