Dissecting Recent Success Stories

What's it take to get an offer of employment these days? First and foremost, an openness to major adjustments, especially in pay. Second, don't be too quick to dismiss online job postings.

Those are two takeaways from The Wall Street Journal's update on seven laid-off M.B.A. holders who eventually found new jobs after spending time as guest authors in the "Laid Off and Looking" blog series the newspaper inaugurated last December.

"Four of the eight original bloggers, and three additions, have landed full-time jobs," the Journal reports Tuesday. "But they made compromises, many of them significant." Five of the seven took pay cuts to get back to work, and at least three are making at least 35 percent less than their previous job. Four changed industries, four joined smaller firms, two relocated, and one took a full-time consulting job without benefits. (On the other hand, at least one of the WSJ's bloggers rejected offers as too low.)

The article details five back-to-work cases. The re-employed individuals ranged from 27 to 40 years old. Before their layoffs, three had been investment bankers, one was a commercial banker and one was a marketing manager at a large travel company.

Three found their current jobs through online job postings. Only one found it through networking.