Unemployed and adapting
BY ANDREW TANGEL
For now, Karen Bodner gets to sleep in. No more waking up at 5 a.m., driving from her home in Upper Saddle River to work at Citigroup in Manhattan.
After 13 years in finance, Bodner, 36, got a pink slip in May from the giant investment bank, where she oversaw public offerings of stocks. She is among the thousands who have been laid off from Citi and other Wall Street firms roiled by the financial upheaval.
A former banking manager with such experience might easily have found work in less trying times. But Bodner's story of life after Wall Street is a familiar one these days. Her case highlights the uncertainty many face as hope for landing another financial job dims, at least for now. Citi announced earlier this month that it would lay off another 50,000 workers.
The impact of the financial-services sector fallout is hitting New Jersey hard. In the 12 months ending Oct. 31, New Jersey's economy lost 8,100 financial services jobs, said David Socolow, commissioner of the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development. New Jersey is home to 260,000 such jobs — and that's not counting 80,000 New Jersey residents who Socolow estimates work in finance in New York.
Bodner has schmoozed, networked and dropped off résumés. She has had only four serious interviews since May. Not one of them — for two international banks, a smaller institution and a hedge fund — has panned out.
It's even difficult to tout her credentials over the phone, she said. Managers in the already frenetic world of finance seem more difficult to reach as they watch stocks tank nearly every day.
So, she's trying to enjoy her newfound, if unwelcome, free time.
"It's hard to be at home all day and not have anything to do," Bodner said.
On a recent Tuesday, she spent much of the time at home with her 1- and 3-year-old sons and oversaw a painter finishing work inside her house. For lunch, she tried making homemade chicken soup for the first time; unemployment has finally afforded her time to learn to cook. (Her husband, who works in information technology management, typically has cooked, if they didn't get take-out.)
"I've also been doing a little bit of day trading, because I can't help myself," she said. "Just need to be involved in the market."
Experts predict the ranks of jobless Wall Street workers will swell further. From November until the end of next year, the New York City metropolitan area that includes New Jersey and Connecticut stands to lose an additional 82,000 financial services jobs, Socolow said. "It would appear that the biggest effect is on its way in the next few months," as the shakeout in the financial services sector continues, he said.
The increase in Wall Street refugees is likely to keep résumés stacking up on recruiters' desks.
Michael Page International, a global financial recruiting firm with offices in Paramus, has recently been getting 750 to 1,000 résumés a week, said Simon Lewis, a managing director at the firm's New York office A year ago, it was perhaps 150 a week. Many financial services jobs pay in six figures.
"This is the worst market I've ever seen here in the U.S.," said Lewis, who has been with the firm for five years.
Financial workers with narrowly focused jobs may have fewer prospects, he said. With the job market "awash in talent," it has become even more difficult for, say, an investment banker to jump to a hedge fund, Lewis said. Smaller firms have scooped up some Wall Street workers in transition, said Jackie Connors, president of The Connors Group in Secaucus. And firms seem to be looking to recruit people from the same industry, she said.
While Connors' company has seen résumés double to about 200 a week, available jobs have dropped from 250 a year ago to about 80. During the 2001 recession, however, her firm had only about 15 jobs available at times.
"The market is not as bad as it was back then at all," she said.
Still, many laid-off financial workers are wondering what comes next. "I've never heard more people talking about going back to school," Lewis said.
There are stories floating around of Wall Street refugees pursuing all sorts of careers. People interviewed for this story spoke of men becoming house-husbands, one becoming a ski instructor, another making sandwiches at a deli. And then there's the tale of the trader who became a dog-walker in Manhattan.
But for many, reality may not have yet sunk in.
"There needs to be a huge change in humility," said Adam Connors, a recruiter with Spire Search Partners, which has offices in Hoboken. "Right now you need to take what you can, put in your time, appreciate whatever level of stability."
At a recent Pink Slip Party for laid-off Wall Street workers in midtown Manhattan, recruiters and job-seekers mingled over drinks. One young woman who was let go from her job of trading credit default swaps — contracts to protect lenders against companies that go bankrupt — said she was starting her own jewelry business. A laid-off investment banker said greed and power had lured him to Wall Street, and now he was pursuing a career in music.
Steve Grundleger of Paramus has started his own business, EOS Solutions LLC, which provides administrative services to small and midsize companies, such as law firms.
After nearly three decades on Wall Street, he was laid off in January from Fitch Ratings, one of the three major credit-rating agencies, where he supervised the rating of residential mortgage-backed securities. He felt it was time to switch fields.
"I had a very strong [sense] that we were getting close to what we are now in," said Grundleger, 52.
Bodner, the former Citi manager, said she hasn't begun thinking of switching careers because she's confident the economy will rebound.
"The capital markets have to function," she said. "Companies need to raise money. They can't be shut forever. Things have to eventually work through the system.
"The question is when, and how long, you can hang on."
Contact:
Kevin Fitzgerald
Michael Page International
203.905.5253
