Is it age or a recession?

One of my good friends whom is an alumni of William college and Oxford university has worked in fixed income for over 15 years primarily at Bank of America where he was a managing director of fixed income sales. During his tenure he was an integral part of 351 deals totaling over 89 billion until the 08 crash. Since then he has done fixed income sales for a couple different firms lastly working for Morgan Stanley as an FA where he was promised a supporting team to help build a book of business. This however did not happen as the manager left the firm shortly after hiring him. Without help he still managed to build a book of business and stayed with the firm for 5 years until he resigned. He has since been looking to get into private banking or a hedge fund. He had an interview at a prestigious private bank where the recruiter told him that he was a perfect fit only to go and have a face to face interview with the MD who asked basic questions such as, have you ever had objections and how did you overcome them. These are question a chimp such as myself would be asked. What is he doing wrong, what can he do any advice? I would highly appreciate it. He has his series licenses and highly credible references, yet he has gotten barely anything aside from 7 jobs paying 100% commission which he is not looking for. Any thoughts are welcome. He is also a veteran.