If you could talk to a room full of headhunters, what would you ask them? Will deals ever get any bigger than they are now? Do I have to have an entrepreneurial mindset to succeed in this business? Is the wirehouse business model still a good idea?

We already did that, so all you have to do is read our 11th annual Recruiters Roundtable. As you might guess, they agreed on some things and disagreed on others (like whether wirehouses will continue to dominate the industry.) But even if they don't, and if you're unhappy with your job-which some recruiters guessed is the case-there are still options out there for you. Whatever direction you take your career next, our Recruiters Roundtable will tell you the opportunities and pitfalls that await you at the wirehouses, regionals, boutiques and independent shops.

FRANCES McMORRIS, Editor-in-Chief of On Wall Street: Let's start with predictions. What's the big story going to be in 2010?

MINDY DIAMOND, of Diamond Consultants: It's the year of the four major wirehouses. We're going to see a lot of wirehouse-to-wirehouse recruiting again because there was a lot of attrition at the end of last year for sure.

CARRI DEGENHARDT-BURKE, of Degenhardt Consulting: I predict that Merrill Lynch will continue its downward spiral, whether that be due to TARP money still owed [Editor's Note: This discussion took place shortly before Bank of America announced plans to repay $45 billion in TARP money], or low morale. They're going to continue losing brokers until they change things around. And I don't think that Sallie has a lot of say with Merrill right now.

MICKEY WASSERMAN, of Michael Wasserman Consulting: The surprise of 2010 is going to be where UBS winds up. They don't have a plan right now as to where they're going. I believe they will be sold and we won't have UBS as we now know it by the end of 2010.

RICH SCHWARZKOPF, of Schwarzkopf Recruiting Services: I disagree with Mickey. I think UBS will be here a year from now. I think it's too valuable a brand and distribution system to eliminate. They've put too much into it. I think they will shrink, and maybe drop 25% of their brokers. I think their plans are to become what a lot of firms would like to be: a place for high-net-worth clients with $500,000 or more to invest.

BILL WILLIS, of Willis Consulting: The deals will continue to get bigger and better than ever. The reason for that is almost all of our firms are owned by banks, and banks have access to money at almost 0% interest right now. They want to buy [client] assets and the money to do so is almost free for them.

STEVE ROSEN, of Rainmaker Associates: The big story will be breakaway brokers. If you speak with any financial advisor or manager who's been in the business for 25 or 30 years, they'll tell you that the wirehouse model is broken.

As this trend continues, we'll see independent models become more refined and become a threat to the wirehouses.

DANNY SARCH, of Leitner Sarch Consultants: The wirehouses are at a tipping point where they can either differentiate themselves from one another or not, and that's where we're going to see their efforts this year. And the higher deals go, it just indicates that they really can't differentiate themselves so they're defaulting to the money.

If that fails, then you'll see a lot of the migration from the wirehouse model into some other model, whether it's regional or independent, people are looking for a different solution.

RICK PETERSON, of Rick Peterson & Associates: The big unknown is UBS. They've already stated that they're not going to be the highest bid on the Street by any means. If they stick to that I'm not sure that the major wirehouses will continue with these huge deals much longer because there will just be two bidders. And if that happens, then the regionals will come back into the recruiting business.

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OWS:Carri, you said that Sallie doesn't have enough say. How so?

DEGENHARDT-BURKE: Basically, it's the same thing that happened at Citi. She didn't have very much say over Citi, and she doesn't at Merrill Lynch. It's just the nature of the beast, the bureaucracy. She's gone from one bad situation to another, and so it continues to show in their morale.