For Specialized Headhunter, Job Is a Trade-Off : Careers: Tony Mecca finds currency traders for commissions he plans to use someday in charity work.

For Tony Mecca, business is booming. Banks are beating a path to his door. Why? Because for each of them, Mecca holds the key to salvation. He can get his hands on the best currency traders money can’t necessarily buy.

Tony Mecca is a headhunter--a very rare and specialized variety. He hunts currency traders for fun and, mainly, profits--profits he hopes he can someday turn to the charity work that’s his real passion.

The recent spate of U.S. bank mergers, which has cost many workers their jobs, is a particular boon for Mecca, a 40-year-old college dropout who also has owned a cheese shop. His two-person firm, FiannaCorp, based in Manhasset, N.Y., is booming, with some banks looking to expand in a hot area that other banks are exiting. Sorting the wheat from the chaff among all the moving talent is how Mecca rakes in the big bucks.

“He was particularly good at finding senior people,� said Gerhard Tarantik, head of European financial market operations for Standard Chartered Bank, who used Mecca earlier at Westpac bank in New York. “He was so well-connected that he was extremely useful.�

The currency trader recruiting business grew in the late 1980s, when increased international investment led to an explosive increase in currency trading volume, which led banks to hire more currency traders and salespeople.

Out-of-work traders aren’t the only ones calling Mecca and his partner, Liliana Nealon. Banks with currency trading and sales positions to fill are anxious to avoid open searches that would be cumbersome with all the new job candidates in circulation, Mecca said.

“My work is already starting to increase,� he said. “Banks that are hiring can’t afford the time to sift through scores of resumes and then take more time to weed out candidates.� After completing 11 searches last year, Mecca did six in the first half of this year and expects to complete 10 between now and February, when most banks pay their bonuses. Currency trading managers at banks call him one of the top recruiters in the country.

“Tony is in the top echelon,� said Varick Martin, head of foreign exchange at Manufacturers & Traders Trust Co.

Mecca only does searches for senior positions that pay at least $100,000 in base salary. A bank hiring one of his candidates pays him a percentage of the first-year salary and any guaranteed bonus.

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Prior to his headhunting work, Mecca was a currency trader and broker. The currency market was not quite what Mecca had in mind when he decided to major in religion at New York’s Manhattanville College.

Studying religion “was really just a way to tick off my parents,� said Mecca, whose father is a retired meat shop owner and whose mother is a preschool teacher. “They wanted me to study something practical, like accounting or business administration.�

While Mecca remains devoted to religion, playing an active role in the Second Congregational Church of Greenwich, Conn., he didn’t finish college. In high school, he had begun working for the Cheese Shop, a gourmet cheese retailer.

After his sophomore year in college, the Cheese Shop offered to let him run his own outlet.

After two years in the business, with health advocates warning about the dangers of cholesterol and fat, he sold the store.

He found his next job through an ad in the newspaper that promised a salary of $25,000 to $45,000. It turned out to be a headhunting job, and in 1980 Mecca placed his first currency trader. It wasn’t long before he became attracted to the business itself.

“I saw these people getting paid double what people the same age were making in corporations, and a lot didn’t have college degrees,� Mecca said.

So with the help of a friend, he found a job as a junior trader at Royal Bank of Canada in New York.

Mecca worked there for two years and would have been happy to continue, but a conflict with a senior trader in 1983 led to his dismissal.

Mecca said he was assisting the trader, who had bought $15 million for British pounds. The dollar started falling, so the trader sold his dollars to avoid further losses. “He sold $13 million. I told him he had to sell two more. He said no and started calling me names and swearing at me,� Mecca said.

The trader called the broker who had arranged the dollar purchases and was told that he indeed had bought $15 million.

“His face turned red because he was wrong in front of the whole room,� Mecca said. “He turned around and threw a punch. I deflected it. My friend yelled, ‘Tony, don’t hit him; you’ll get fired.’ Well, I may as well have.�

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Two weeks later, he was dismissed. Having learned that currency brokers made more money than junior traders, Mecca found a job as a broker at Tullet & Tokyo Forex in New York. He enjoyed his work there, including the bacchanalian outings with traders financed by his firm to keep the traders as customers.

While being interviewed about another job, Mecca was offered a spot in the headhunter’s own firm. So Mecca returned to the business, this time as vice president at Olaf Meyer & Co., until five years ago, when he formed his own company.

Meanwhile, Mecca became very involved with local politics (he is an elected official of Greenwich’s town legislature); church work (he is a member of the executive committee at his church); and charity work, helping to build and renovate homes for the poor.

“Some people say charity gets in the way of their work,� Mecca said. “For me, work interferes with charity.�