PJT Partners Inc. has “quite significant” plans to keep hiring even after the advisory firm tripled headcount in the past eight years, Chief Executive Officer Paul Taubman said.

“We see tremendous opportunity to grow,” Taubman said Tuesday in a Bloomberg Television interview. This year will set a record for hiring, and the company will be much larger in three to five years, he added. PJT had more than 920 employees at the end of the second quarter, according to a presentation.

The recent slump in mergers and acquisitions has pushed large firms to downsize while smaller rivals, including PJT, have gone on a hiring spree. PJT and several of its competitors have said they’ve been inundated with resumes from senior staffers at firms such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Barclays Plc and Credit Suisse. They’ve taken the opportunity to select the best from that crop, betting that a dealmaking boom is coming.

Taubman, 62, said the industry’s slump has helped with recruiting. “You need to see M&A slow down in order to hire the best,” he said, because that’s when top bankers are willing to entertain offers. He expects to see a “sharp inflection” in M&A between now and the end of the year — an opportunity for his new team members to flex their muscles.

Amid the hiring spree for top bankers, summer internship candidates at PJT face steep competition. The firm accepts only about 1% of nearly 10,000 applicants each year, the CEO said, offering spots to about 100 people around the globe.

Taubman, who founded PJT in 2014 after 30 years at Morgan Stanley, also said he’s optimistic about prospects for the firm’s thriving restructuring business.

“I think we’re in for an extended wave of elevated restructuring,” he said.

PJT’s second-quarter revenue of $346 million was up 49% from a year earlier, primarily driven by an increase in the restructuring business at the New York-based firm, the company said last week.

--With assistance from Sonali Basak.

(Updates with company headcount in second paragraph.)