GUEST COMMENT: Stop complaining, start being realistic about your prospects of finding the perfect job
This is a wakeup call. If you've been out of work for over 18 months, it's time to get real. Stop complaining about the job market. You're doing something wrong.
I'm talking about several of my friends here. Although their individual situations are all subtly different, they were all laid off by bulge bracket investment banks when the bubble burst.
They've all been struggling to find their feet ever since.
They refuse to accept that the City may not bounce back for a very long time. They're turning down jobs for various reasons; too poorly paid, too small or young a firm, too narrow a business model; management aren't hungry enough. Meanwhile they've developed a huge CV gap.
Deregulation made finance a lucrative sector and those forces are likely to reverse. There will be fewer jobs and pay will be much lower. We're unlikely to return to the levels we've got used to for a long time.
We forget that there were long periods when people didn't make fortunes in finance. In the recent, excellent but flawed critique of Wall St and capitalism 'Inside Job', Charles R. Morris talks of a friend who in the late 1970's was working as a bond trader during the day and working a second night job in the evenings to support his family. By the early 80's he was earning a fortune trading and "thought it was because he was smart".
Whenever I see the complainers I'm afraid to ask about their job search. If you were laid off as the financial services sector spiralled into recession, you got a pass on 2009. Climbing Kilimanjaro, voluntary work, all those lessons in Mandarin which came to nothing and finally reading "The Black Swan" and "Fooled by Randomness" - good for you.
But schlep rock, if you don't have a job yet, it was all for nothing.
Quite often these guys have received job offers, and had they not refused them, they might have settled into a role which, whilst not perfect was at least some experience to talk about in the interview for that dream job which only comes along every six months.
The world we live in now is a different one to the job market which I and legions of other graduates were hired into before the crunch. Gone are the benevolent banks which hoovered up any graduate who could walk. The lions have been de-fanged; the zoo is a very different place these days.
Dozens of start-ups and spin-offs have sprung up which can pick and choose the brightest and most motivated of the currently unemployed. They don't hold flashy recruitment evenings, have snazzy careers websites, or even have plush offices. They don't need to. It's up to you to seek them out, by using websites such as this one.
The complainers also refuse to cold-call or even network. "I don't want to bother people" is the common excuse. Well I'm sorry, but firms are only hiring the very hungry right now. Fortunes are to be had by taking a chance on a new area of finance. New innovations will appear to address the issues presently facing capital markets.
Your gamble may not pay off. We're in a cyclical trough and it might take a decade to return to where we were in the middle of the last decade. Do something until that time comes though.
Try to figure out how the experience you have can best be applied. Former leveraged financiers with half a brain have landed jobs restructuring loan portfolios and deleveraging the stricken financial institutions which gorged themselves during the credit boom.
Furthermore, you might find that your new or prospective bosses are not the most motivated entrepreneurs. A lot of people have already made their fortunes during the boom years. They were in the sweet spot of their careers and managed to maximise their earnings potential up until the very end. Us young Turks missed that boat, but we might be able to jump on the next one, when it does arrive. Sitting at home complaining won't get you there though.
