W hen we started working for Salomon Brothers, they were at their peak as the world's premier Investment Bank.

They employed the sharpest minds, paid the highest salaries and made the most money - by far.

We were fortunate enough to work with them in London on launching an International Fixed Income Fund and helping them be the first financial institution to introduce the now ubiquitous Bloomberg trading terminals. We also had the slightly bizarre experience of being commissioned to create a Graduate Recruitment brochure designed to put applicants off - rather than attract them.

The issue was that they were offering the industry's highest starting salaries in order to attract the best, but only had a small Human Resources department to sift them. By the time the department narrowed down the avalanche of applicants, being the brightest graduates, they invariable had other pressing offers and so they slipped from Salomon Brothers' grasp.

Our solution was to suggest that Salomon Brothers' HR ignore the unsolicited cv's and informal applications and simply send out a brochure which we would create, with a formal application inside.

Our Graduate brochure was almost a day-in-the-life across their various departments of previous years' intake. This illustrated the excitement of working at Salomon Brothers, but also showed how serious a job it was. The opportunist applicants attracted by the high starting pay did not reply and so overall applications dropped by half. The ones that did apply were generally better informed and far more serious about working at the Firm. With a more manageable number of applications, HR was able to pinpoint and interview the stars they wanted before they were snapped up elsewhere.

Our brochure was reprinted three years running without modification which shows how effective they found it.