GUEST COMMENT: I wallowed in self-pity, and then became a self-marketing machine

Thanks to this week's glut of Lehman-related headlines, I'm suffering from disturbing flashbacks about my time as a penniless intern.

I spent last summer at Lehman. As a graduate at the time, I was counting on drawing my final month's salary, and hopefully getting a full time offer.

Neither were forthcoming. Trying to get the money I was owed was like drawing blood from a stone. Weeks went by before someone picked up the phone, and I spent months filling out forms and reading pages of legal documentation. Reading in the news that some Lehman traders were paid bonuses after the collapse was like salt in a wound. I sat wallowing in self-pity.

Nevertheless, all I could try to do was to gain composure and get back to applying for jobs. This wasn't easy in the circumstances. The job market had dried up and all I had on my CV was Lehman and another internship.

I became a self-marketing machine. Over the next six months I squeezed my savings dry and sat for hours at the computer researching firms, sending out applications, writing and re-writing cover letters and CVs, and registering with every job agency possible. I suffered rejection after rejection, hard to swallow after all the hard work I'd put into my degree and the two internships I'd secured.

And then finally someone said, "We'd like you to come for an interview."

Seven months later, and I'm now working for a financial exchange. I'm not working in research as I'd hoped to. Nor am I working for a large investment bank. But it's an opportunity. A job. Something that some of my friends still don't have. In this market I've grabbed it with both hands, and am learning as much as I can.

We all have bad times in life, but as they say, it only makes you stronger. All I can hope is that everyone, who lost their job as a result of Lehman's collapse, will get back on the ladder as soon as possible. That doesn't extend to Dick Fuld...