Oracle of NY

Blog Roll

On September 15th, when Lehman Brothers collapsed, turning thousands more bankers into job-seekers, I received a call from a producer at Inside Edition, and a town car arrived at my sister’s house in Larchmont to whisk me to the mid-town television studio for an interview in response to the collapse. It struck me as absurd how at the same time I was penniless and sleeping on my sister’s couch, I was being whisked by a town car to a television studio in New York City. The show was broadcast nationally—and my phone rang non-stop for days.

One of the most exciting calls I received was from an acquaintance—Sharon Gitelle—whom I had not seen since high school. She worked at Forbes.com and invited me to join the “recently launched community of the high quality business and financial bloggers—the Forbes Business and Financial Blog Network.”
I had started a blog only a month and a half before—more about that later—and already I was receiving a blogging seal of approval!

As a result of the Lehman collapse and the worsening financial crisis, as the poster boy for Wall Street, I was subsequently interviewed by news teams representing major Finnish, Belgian and Japanese TV networks—and I conducted off-camera interviews with journalists from Reuters and a German newspaper Rheinische Post.

I was definitely having more success with the media than with my job search. As the summer slipped away, I was getting far more offers for media interviews than for job interviews. I wasn’t getting paid for all the publicity, but the tremendous interest in my story was an indication that I was doing something right—and it was a sign of great things to come.

Loco Tonic

As August drew to a close and my leads and interviews in the New York area and Omaha did not amount to anything solid, I started to spend more and more time focusing on opportunities and contacts elsewhere in the country.

At the beginning of the summer I had willing to move almost anywhere for the right opportunity—but by the end of the end of August I was willing to move anywhere for any opportunity.

Cindy and I wanted to live in New York City or Omaha, but it came to a point where we were willing to go wherever a job would take us.

In mid-August, I had been contacted by a Sloan School of Management student who was doing a summer internship in Plano, Texas at an entrepreneurial firm that was a private equity fund, venture capital firm and hedge fund all rolled into one. He had told me to get in touch with his boss, Charlie Gallamore, the founder of Southwest Texas Capital.

I called Charlie and we had a great conversation which ended with him inviting me to Plano for a meeting.

Coincidently, that same day, I came across an article in the news touting Plano as the most affluent city in the United States—measured with respect to per capita income versus cost of living. I had never thought about moving to Texas but I was suddenly intrigued.

In early September, within days after leaving my sublet in Manhattan and moving to my sister’s house in Larchmont, I took an early morning flight from Westchester Airport to Dallas to meet with Charlie and the gang.

When I walked in the door of the Southwest Texas Capital’s offices in Plano, I was in for a real treat.

Charlie quickly offered me a can of Loco Tonic, an energy drink he had invented and was promoting for the Latino market—and things took off from there.

One by one, I met with Charlie and his entrepreneurial partners. As awkward as I felt being in an environment very different from what I was used to in corporate New York, Charlie and his gang made me feel right at home. Their charm and charisma were enticing—or was it the Loco Tonic?

Besides Loco Tonic, the firm had several other interesting projects in the works, including a startup called RX HBO which sold hyperbaric chambers for chronic wound care and a municipal bond hedge fund.

At the end of a long and interesting day, Charlie astounded me when after flying me in for an interview, he told me he would love to hire me but did not have any money to pay me.

“Would you consider working for commissions?” he asked.

I was already in touch with several boutique investment banks in New York City who were considering giving me a platform from which to work but no base salary. It was called eat what you kill.

It was typical in some industries for sales-people to live off commissions—but was this the new paradigm for financial services?

No one, it seemed at the time, wanted to increase their overhead with the economy looking so bleak.

I had not given it serious consideration at the beginning of the summer, but with half a dozen of my potential employers talking about revenue sharing with no base—and nothing else working out—I started giving such arrangements serious thought. Nevertheless, it did not seem practical to move from New York to Plano for such an arrangement.

From Dallas, I flew to Omaha to spend a few days with my family.

While in Omaha, I had hoped to meet with the CEO of Mutual of Omaha Bank, a new division of the well-known Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company, but unfortunately the CEO had to leave town on urgent business. He was buying a distressed bank in Arizona.

I returned to New York having had a great trip to Plano and Omaha, but I still did not have a job.

NYSE Publicity

Strangely, as my job leads fizzled out one after another and in stark contrast to my financial situation which kept getting worse over the course of my unemployment, my publicity kept growing [and continues until this very day, Voices of the Decade, Ten defining events for New York City by the people who were there, New York Post, December 27, 2009]. Apparently, my image and story had struck a deep chord in the personal and social psyche. In fact, my publicity seemed to grow in perfect inverse proportion to the deepening global economic crisis.

As the Face of the American Economy and a Sign of the Times, I became the go-to guy for depressing economic news. Every time higher-than-expected unemployment numbers came out, I received at least one or two calls from journalists asking me to repeat the details of my sandwich board story and share my insights on the economy.

And every time a television, newspaper or Internet story came out displaying my sandwich board picture with my contact information in plain view, my cell phone would ring for hours, and I would receive dozens of emails from across the nation and around the world.

On August 22, a crew of journalists from Japan’s NTV chauffeured me from my Upper East Side sublet to Wall Street for an interview in the heart of capitalism.

We strolled around the financial district and settled on the steps of the old Federal Hall National Memorial, by the prominent bronze statue of George Washington.

I sat facing the New York Sock Exchange whose pillars were covered by a giant American flag and spoke about the presidential candidates, their economic policies and the upcoming elections.

I explained that initially I had been leaning toward Senator McCain because I thought we needed to maintain a clear strategy against terrorism and a strong force in the Middle East—and I was for lower taxes and less government.

However, I also admitted that Senator Obama’s charisma was pulling me in, and I was starting to believe he could help change the world’s perception of the USA for the better—which might be more powerful than the sword. Furthermore, I was for universal health care and aggressive development of alternative energy technologies.

Playing the diplomat, I said I was still on the fence and expected to learn more about the candidates’ policies and visions during the upcoming national conventions.

Crowds of tourists passed by, glancing at me as if I were a celebrity—and a street preacher who seemed to have been in the same spot since George Washington’s time barked for all to repent.

When the interview was over, I strolled around Wall Street recalling my first job after graduating MIT—when I worked on the floor of the American Stock Exchange as an Assistant Options Specialist.

I recalled the excitement on the floor, the rows of computer screens displaying stock quotations, the yelling and shoving as floor brokers and traders positioned themselves and elbowed their way through the crowds.

On the floor of the stock exchange, I had felt as though I were in the heart of capitalism, the center of the free market.

After an intense day on the floor, I would often go across the street for a beer at a bar on a high floor in the World Trade Centers. I would look out over the city and feel as though I were on top of the world.

I remembered the awe I had felt when my brother had first guided me around his place of employment, the Salomon Brothers trading floor near Battery Park. I recalled visiting with my mother in her office when she had worked at AIG on Maiden Lane. I recalled my father telling me that his first office, after graduating from Harvard Law School, had been on Lower Broadway.

My family and I were so connected to the financial district, I almost felt as if I were home—or more relevant to my situation, I had the heart-warming sensation of being employed again.

High Frequency Trading

One of the most exciting calls I got during the summer was from a businessman in Los Angeles who had come cross my story in the New York Times. He claimed he was one of the founders of Qualcomm and had several businesses in which I might fit. I Googled him and learned that he was worth about $900 million dollars.

Cindy and I started to get excited. It was unbelievable. The publicity was working. We anticipated I would soon have a great job. Our white knight had arrived. Suddenly, the possibilities seemed endless. Knowing what I knew about him, I was more open to change and opportunity than ever before.

It took a few weeks to set up a meeting with my contact’s colleagues in New York—but then I spent a week with a high frequency trading start-up and learned a bit about the competitive and secretive world of high frequency "black box" stock trading. I also helped the CEO with his business plan and advised him regarding strategic business decisions.

The group I met with had invested millions of dollars and two years developing their micro-second trading platform. They had made many mistakes with their infrastructure and business strategy and were convinced they were on the verge of making it big—or they would go bankrupt within a few months.
It was an intriguing opportunity.

Although I very much wanted it to work out, I could not come to a mutually beneficial agreement with the CEO and we decided to part ways.

As a gesture of good will, he paid me for my time and efforts as a consultant—but the fact that the opportunity did not work was one of several huge disappointments I experienced during my long and frustrating job search.

To make matters worse, my white knight did not follow through with any other opportunities or contacts—and our communication fizzled out.

Sometimes you can be open to change, but change is not open to you.

Multi-Level Marketing

It was fascinating for me to experience the calls one gets when one is famous and unemployed.

As a result of my contact information going public, I received dozens of offers to help me start my own business. In fact, some of the most persistent callers and emailers to me were people involved with internet-based multi-level marketing schemes—and I spoke at length with many of them.

They would first tell me how they liked my courage, spunk and creativity—and then they would hit me with their pitch. “Look at our web site.” “Come to our next meeting.” “Think about it—it will change your life.”

They seemed sincere and had interesting stories of their own, but my skepticism and the many warnings I found in articles on the Internet prevented me from taking the plunge.

Most of the multi-level marketing schemes involved selling products online while also recruiting other people to sell the same products. I would earn money from what I sold but also earn a share of what the people I recruited sold.

The entrepreneurs who started these companies and people who got in early—and people who really did have the marketing and sales skills, patience and persistence to grow a solid network—probably did very well, but most people who got involved with these schemes were just wasting their time, effort and money.

Some of the multi-level marketing networks were free to join or had very low fees, so there was not much to lose and plenty of potential commissions to be made. However, some of them charged hundreds of dollars for new members—and I read several articles stating that most new members do not generate enough income to cover their initial costs and investment.

Multiple streams of income and residual income for life and beyond sounded more than great, so I tried thinking of my own multi-level marketing scheme with a decent product and a way to get started.

Boutique IB

Another call I received immediately after my publicity was from an attorney at a prestigious boutique investment bank. He told me he had read my story in the newspaper, empathized with my situation—he had been there before—and would help me out.

A week later I had an encouraging interview with the COO of the boutique investment bank. I was so excited and the COO seemed impressed with my experience. The firm was growing, he said, and he would see if he could fit me in. The only hitch was that there was no clear job opening or job description—and as a next step, he wanted me to meet with the firm’s two managing partners.

For weeks, we tried to arrange the meeting, but it was summer and the managing partners were both traveling for business and then on vacation.

Week after week, I checked in with the COO to see if we could schedule a meeting, but I soon stopped getting responses to my emails and calls. I didn’t want to be a nudge, but I also did not want to let a great opportunity slip by.

What was going on?

Finally, toward the end of August, almost two months after my initial and promising interview, I received an email from the COO:

Hi Josh,
I apologize for being unresponsive in this process.  Given the uncertain state of the markets, we have actually begun to trim staffing and hunker down for what may be a bumpy ride. I’m sorry to report that there are currently no opportunities at ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________.  I will keep your resume on file and will contact you when we begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Regards,

I was so disappointed, especially after being invited for a second meeting, waiting nearly two months—and then having the company’s situation change before the meeting could take place. How frustrating!

Yet, I knew not to take it personally. At least the excitement of the potential position had helped keep up my spirits during my frustrating search.

Lychee Wine

One of the first interesting offers I received after my publicity went viral was to sell lychee wine imported from China. Unfortunately, there was no salary involved and the company had little infrastructure.

My potential employer Vince LoDato had a wine cellar in upstate New York and partnered with a warehouse in New Jersey but had no facilities in New York City. I would have to carry samples of lychee wine door-to-door, create a buzz and sell sell sell in order to earn commissions. If I could stand out on Park Avenue with a sign board, I could surely sell lychee wine store-to-store.

I met with Vince in Rhinebeck, New York, at my father’s house, tasted the delicious lychee wine made from Chinese lychee nuts and thought how fun and wonderful it would be to succeed in the liquor business.

Vince and I sat on the porch for an hour, sipping the sweet dessert wine and discussing the opportunity—and life.

However, when I sobered up and asked around a bit, I learn it would be a very tough sell. Apparently, local American lychee wine producers had already produced a respectable-tasting lychee wine, exerted their marketing power and cornered the market. Perhaps, if I had not had a family to support, I would have taken up the challenge and gone for it. It would have been a great adventure, and I might have struck it rich—but being practical, I had to focus on finding a salaried position or starting my own business.

Transitioning

After my wife and children had left to the airport, moments before I lugged my own suitcases and boxes to a small summer sub-let across the street, I sat in my near-empty apartment trying to catch my breath. I wanted to comprehend the changes going on in my life—losing my job, being unemployed for six months, wearing a sign board on Park Avenue, saying good bye to my wife and children, leaving the apartment where I had lived for the past five years—and the publicity!

A week before, I thought I had been ready for anything. I had gone out to Park Avenue wearing a sign board to hand out resumes. At least I had been willing to experiment and try something different. Yet, I was still hoping to find a job in New York City—or Omaha.

With all the publicity, my network had been extended nationally—even internationally—and I suddenly found myself in touch with people from all over the country and all around the world involved in various fields of work. I knew I would have to consider each and every opportunity, no matter where or what it was.

As I glanced out over the East River from my apartment for the very last time, there was only one thing I knew for sure—even if I had been open to change before, I would have to be even more so going forward. 

Indeed, I had transitioned several times during my professional life. I had worked as an options specialist on the floor of the American Stock Exchange, in marketing and business development for an international satellite communications company, as a commercial banker for a large European bank and as an investment banker on Park Avenue—and it looked as though it was time to transition again. I knew I would have to consider employment in other fields of work and other locations other than New York City and Omaha. In my situation, I could not afford too be too fussy.

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Lesson Learned—Be Creative!

• When searching for a job, get inspired and be creative! You want to stand out from the competition and get noticed. If your approach is the same as everyone else’s, how are you going to find a job? There are a lot of fellow job hunters out there. You are looking for the job—it’s not necessarily looking for you.
  
  
• It doesn’t take much. You don’t have to be as creative as Leonardo da Vinci or Thomas Edison. A little ingenuity can go a long way. All I did was put on a $2 sign board and go out to Park Avenue to hand out some resumes, and my life was never the same.
  
  
• When doing the same old thing does not work, don’t give up, but also don’t keep doing the same old thing. Get inspired and do something innovative. Think out-of-the-box, and take a little risk. (One of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get different results.) You might have to overcome your fears and inhibitions, but it may well be worth the effort.
  
  
• Don’t be afraid of embarrassment. When I donned a sign board on the corner of 50th Street and Park Avenue, I felt as awkward and embarrassed as could be, but I went through with it. I do not strive to do one thing that scares me every day, as some people do, but sometimes I consciously go out of my comfort zone. Wearing a sign board on Park Avenue was certainly one of those times.
  
  
• Let your creativity flow. Since my own creative and inspirational act, I have become aware of many other resourceful, inspirational and out of the box approaches to finding a job. One person in California had their resume printed on a t-shirt. Another person in Texas advertised their job search on a billboard. A woman in San Francisco set up a web site to help publicize her husband’s job search. A “copycat” sign board guy even hit the streets of New York City and garnered much publicity.
  
  
• Look to history for inspiration. I did not invent the sign board approach. After my publicity, I was contacted by a several people who had advertised their job search using a sign board months or even years before, and they told me they had eventually been quite successful. In the Great Depression, unemployed people wearing sign boards were a common sight.
  
  
• The main thing is to do something. Preferably it’s something innovative and constructive—and also something that suits your personality and that you can live with. If you want to find a job, you have to get noticed. It does not take much, but you have to show initiative. Add a little color to your approach and resume!
  
  
• If you want to find a job, you have got to reach deep inside yourself and bring out your true colors. You’ve got to do something different to attract the attention that will put you ahead of the competition.

Reality TV

As a result of my intense publicity, I was contacted by even more people from the media who wanted to know my story. One of the calls I received was from Megan Alexander, a producer at Inside Edition. She wanted to know if she could film me and my family packing up and leaving New York City. I told her I would be happy to oblige, as long as it could help me find a job. At the time, much to my wife’s bewilderment, I was not familiar with this popular television program.

Cindy was beside herself. She knew the popular celebrity news program well and had mixed feelings about being filmed. She was a very private person and did not want us to be exploited, misrepresented or turned into a sob story. She was going through one of the worst crises in her life, but to the outside world, she wanted to keep her chin up. She loved her life in Manhattan and did not know if or when she would ever be able to return. Still, for anyone beside our immediate family and best friends, she was just taking the kids to Omaha for the summer.

Somehow, I convinced her that all the publicity was good and might help me find a job, so she reluctantly agreed to let Inside Edition film us leaving our apartment. It turned out to be quite a surreal endeavor. As we were going through a very real and personal family crisis, we were being filmed for national television, and the camera crew kept asking us to repeat scenes in which we were packing boxes with our personal belongings and carrying them out the door.

Megan and her crew were as empathetic as could be and apologized with each request for another take. They advised us to carry empty boxes out the door, so we would not have much extra work—but under the circumstances, even the empty boxes felt as heavy as our hearts.

Our little children hid behind the camera man watching and wondering what was going on.

When the program was aired and my contact information was exposed to viewers across the country, my cell phone rang non-stop for hours, and flurries of calls and emails kept arriving for days.

On Sunday, June 30th, Cindy kissed me goodbye and left to the airport with our two darling children and tears in her eyes. However, with all the sudden publicity, I was certain that things were going to work out for the best. It took a lot longer than I had hoped, but after an inspirational Wizard of Oz-like journey, I would eventually find the job of my dreams.

The Face of the American Economy

On June 21, 2008, I was having dinner with my wife Cindy on one of our regular Saturday night outings, perhaps our last Saturday night outing in Manhattan. I had been unemployed for nearly six months, and we had already made some very tough decisions. We were going to leave our apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in a week and a half. Cindy and the children were going to move in with her parents in Omaha, Nebraska, over thirteen hundred miles away. We were going to sell most of our furniture and put the rest of our belongings in storage. I was going to sublet a small apartment in the city for July and August in order to continue searching for a job and to host my children from my previous marriages who spent every summer with me.

The flash of inspiration arrived as we shared a main course and asked ourselves over and over, “What are we going to do? How are we going to get through this? How are we going to survive as a family?”

The idea had entered my mind before, but I had not verbalized it and it had gone into hibernation. Suddenly, it came to my mind again but this time, I described it to Cindy. I suggested I go out to Park Avenue during lunch time to hand out some resumes. A lot of investment bankers, private equity and hedge fund managers go out for lunch meetings or to take a mid-day break. Since I was not an overly aggressive salesman, I would put on a sign board, so that people could see what I was doing. It would say, “Experienced MIT Grad for Hire,” the subject line in most of the emails I sent out to potential employers. The sign board would include my contact information and I would go out every day during lunchtime for a week.

Cindy was immediately enthralled. “That’s a great idea. You’ve got to do it!” She immediately called a couple of friends and they also thought it was a great idea.

That Sunday morning, Cindy purchased a couple a sheets of poster board for two dollars and composed the twin signs. I punched holes in the poster boards and tied the two sheets together with a pair of old shoe-laces.

On Monday morning, I tried to back out of my plan because of embarrassment and rain, but Cindy insisted I follow through. “You have a family to support. You have to find a job!”

Late in the morning, I went out to 50th St. and Park Avenue and donned my sign board. My only goal was to generate a few new leads and find a job. The sky was overcast, but the drizzle had stopped. I was embarrassed but tried to take it all in stride. I am generally good humored and optimistic, but I was concerned how the passers-by might react. Amazingly, the first few people who walked by seemed to smile. I held a stack of resumes in my hand, smiled back and held out a copy of my resume for those who might be interested.

Taking the advice of her friend Matt Hagan who ran a small public relations firm in Washington DC, Bulldog Public Relations, Cindy sent out a press release to the local papers explaining what I was doing. Then, on her own initiative as a photojournalist, she came down to take a photograph of me in my full sign-board glory. She had the children with her, so she worked fast, taking a few candid shots and I didn’t think much of it. As soon as she arrived home, she resent the press release along with one of her photographs.

Cindy and I had no idea how far my little flash of inspiration and her simple publicity efforts would take us and that by the end of the week, my picture and story would be circulating the globe. The New York Sun and New York Post first pick up the story on Monday. On Tuesday, local TV and radio stations such as ABC, NBC and CBS aired my picture and story. On Wednesday, the national networks such as Fox, CNN and CNBC interviewed me, and subsequently my picture and story were launched around the world by the BBC, AP and Reuters. The BBC called me, “The Face of the American Economy,” while the AP called my story, “Sign of the Times.”

By the third day that I was wearing my sign board on Park Avenue, people walking by were telling me they had seen me on television or read about me in the newspaper. The passers-by were all encouraging (okay, almost all) and I handed out a stack of resumes.

In fact, after the first hour I was out with my sign board, there were only a few minutes during the entire rest of the week during which I was not in front of a camera and microphone or speaking with an inquisitive journalist who was taking notes.

As my publicity went viral, emails and phone calls started pouring in from around the world. It took me hours to go through my cell phone messages and sort through the emails. I tried to respond to everyone who reached out to me and followed up with every possible lead.

By Friday, June 27th, the last day I wore the sign board, I had received encouraging emails from then-strangers around the world. It’s amazing how simple gestures of friendliness and support can lift one’s spirit. Still stunned by the completely unexpected turn of events, I opened my inbox to:

YOU'RE VERY FAMOUS IN KOREA.
Dear Jusua Persky.
I'm TaeHun KIM, a Korean and lives in Seoul. I saw you at one of Korean news paper with picture….If you want to join business in Korea. Please contact to me. I've nice skill of general manager even Law of Korea. thank you for read this mail. Good luck and God bless you for the long time.
Best regards.
TaeHun Kim.
 
Josh you are famous now!! Do you have any idea how many websites and news sites you have been on?
 
Hello Joshua. One of my colleagues at 280 Park forwarded your resume to me. Please let me know a good time for us to talk. Thanks so much.
Best regards,
 
Dear Joshua,
This is Anicca Chao writing from beijing,china .I saw your picture on TODAY'S beijing news( a daily newspaper in beijing ) in which you wearing a poster with Experienced MIT GRAD FOR HIRE on it .and i can see clearly your email address. the title of this report is " Losing job wide is hitting US" and the article appraised you that you way of hunting for ajob is quite unique .
your photo also impressive me and my collegue .well ,wish everything goes well with you and good luck in finding a good job.
 Best wishes .
Anicca
 
Hi, I saw you on the newspaper, never loose ur hope man, i hope u can find a job soon.
From Istanbul with love.
Murat
 
Hola Joshua
Es muy difícil estar en la banqueta buscando empleo, lo se y esa es la razon por la que escribo, deseearte la mejor de las suertes y encuentre un puesto de buen nivel. No desesperes, no pierdas la fe y te aseguro que estaras bien pronto.
Francisco Cervantes
desde Monterrey, México‏
 
Hi Joshua,
My Name is Fred Ng, I am in Hong Kong now.
I saw your self promoting method is quite interesting. I guess you have a strong desire to change your life….This may be your life changing moment.
Yours,
Fred Ng
 
hi dear i am tusher from bangladesh . seeing you in the newspaper i feel very pain for you as you lost your job . dont be upset. you are a experienced person so i hope you will get better job very soon. good luck & good bye.
 
Hello,
I saw your story on AOL....I just wanted to let you know that I hope you have a GREAT job before the day's end! Thumbs up on the effort!!!! Don't give up!
God Bless You and yours!!!! 

As a result of my creative act and attention from the media, I went from feeling as though I were at the edge of a cliff to feeling optimistic. I was suddenly receiving so much sympathy from around the world, good will and prayers for success, something positive had to come of it. I was contacted by many people who said they had business opportunities and good leads for me. Yet, would I actually get an interview or even a job offer as a result of someone reading my story or viewing my picture in a newspaper, on TV or via the Internet?

Heartland Bound

One evening, in late May, Cindy approached me and said, “I’m taking the kids to Omaha for the summer. We’ll put our stuff in storage. You’ll stay here to find a job. Hopefully, you’ll get something by the end of the summer, and we’ll come back. If not, you’ll join us in Omaha.”

It was painful to contemplate, but it sounded like a plan. Cindy usually took the children to Omaha for a few weeks during the summer in any case. This time it would just be for longer. I expected that by the end of the summer, I would have a job, and they would return to New York to pick up where we had left off.

Subsequently, I sent out a frenzy of emails, applying to dozens of jobs a day, but the inevitable apocalypse relentlessly approached. Was this really happening? How had I so completely let down my family? What could I do that I have not already tried? What else could I do?

My flash of inspiration was no where near as momentous as Newton’s, when he observed an apple falling from a tree and deduced the Law of Gravity, but it in a similar way, a creative idea popped into my mind and changed the course of my life.

Plan B Boogie

The first significant lead I had was with Pluris Valuation Advisors. I had met with Espen Roback, President of Pluris, a year earlier, and we had much to talk about. I called him, and he agreed to meet for breakfast at Balthazar’s, a trendy SoHo restaurant, where we discussed our experiences and outlooks concerning the valuations business.

A few days later, Espen suggested I visit his office to meet his colleagues.

I knew I had to develop as many leads as I could, so I did not sit back and wait to see what happened with Pluris. I had learned my lesson with Duff & Phelps.

Expanding my search to other types of positions, I reached out to the father of one of my daughter’s classmates. He had a senior business development position with Hewlett Packard and regularly commuted over 3,000 miles to the company’s headquarters in Palo Alto, California.

I met with him several times at school-related events, and he was very friendly and encouraging. He said he would speak with his colleagues and try to fit me in—and then he put me in touch with one of his colleagues in Palo Alto.

After a long and intensive telephone interview with his Palo Alto-based colleague, I had doubts about how the conversation had gone, but my contact later told me he had gotten positive feedback and we could move forward. He only needed to get budget approval for a new full-time employee—and I was in!

Another good lead that manifested itself at that time was via my wife’s cousin whose apartment I was using as an office. David Goldman helped me set up an interview at the hedge fund where he worked, one of the world’s largest and most successful, Fortress Investment Group.

In the middle of April, I had a round of interviews with an asset management and in-house valuations group at Fortress, and although my chemistry with the colleagues I met was not perfect, the meetings went well enough—and I assumed David’s pull would enable me to get my foot in the door.

Another great lead came through a friend of my wife’s family in Omaha. I was put in touch with a recruiter who worked closely with D.E. Shaw, another of the world’s largest and most successful hedge funds. The recruiter was excited by my resume, especially my MIT education and investment banking experience. She thought she would at least be able to get me an interview.

Unfortunately, although they each in turn seemed close to happening, none of these great leads worked out. As the weeks passed, initial interviews, follow-up meetings and all decisions were pushed off indefinitely. After all my efforts and great expectations, I could not seem to get a firm answer Yes or No from anyone. Sometimes, I could not even get a reply.

One contact had to wait for a budget review, while another had to go on an urgent business trip, while the others had to talk to their colleagues when they returned from vacation before they could get back to me. It was all taking too long.

What was I going to do? What was I doing wrong? Why couldn’t I find a job?

Cindy and I knew our time was running out fast. If I did not find a job by the end of June, we would not be able to renew the lease on our apartment. We not only had to start thinking about Plan B, we had to start preparing for it.

Where were going to live? How were we going to survive?

We did not have any practical solutions. We spoke about moving out of Manhattan and finding an inexpensive place to live, but I still needed to find a job. Otherwise, we were going to need some serious help.

Bitten By the Bear

In the middle of March, the bomb hit which jolted me from any complacency, shook my confidence and changed the rules of engagement. Bear Stearns collapsed, and I started to realize that things were different this time. When I should have been re-entering the job market, the job market was collapsing around me.

Bear Stearns was the fifth largest investment bank in the country, had over 15,000 employees around the world, and until the beginning of its travails in late 2007 had never reported a quarterly loss in its financial statements in its entire eighty-five year history.

Suddenly, I was watching news clips of formeremployees walking out with boxes of belongings. They were in shock. Dedicated professionals who had worked at Bear Stearns all their lives, scholars who had earned MBAs at Harvard, Stanford, Wharton and the University of Chicago, streetwise entrepreneurs who had risen from the hardworking immigrant populations of Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens, motivated and high energy buccaneers from all over the country and all around the world who had come to the Big Apple to find their fortune, executive assistants, receptionists and maintenance workers who had worked at Bear Stearns for years were all suddenly kicked out of their workspaces, offices and cubicles.

I had been familiar with Bear Stearns since I was a kid and had worked across the street for the past two years. I had even interviewed at Bear Stearns a few years earlier, in the very same Mortgage and Asset Backed Securities group which helped bring the company down. I had contacts at Bear Stearns and had been trying to get my foot in the door for years. With a bang and a shudder, the door was slammed shut on everyone who worked at Bear Stearns and everyone who had ever dreamed of working there.

With that monumental event, suddenly there were thousands of highly-qualified bankers looking for jobs. The thought of such intense competition was like cold water on my face, waking me from a slumber. I started wondering how long it would take to find a job. Two and a half months had passed since I had left Houlihan Lokey. A month and a half had passed since I had interviewed at Duff & Phelps. Ironically, they had called me every few months while I had worked at Houlihan Lokey, and now that I needed a job, they no longer seemed interested.

With the collapse of Bear Sterns, my already-scratched-rose-colored glasses snapped in half. I was concerned. I had been counting on Duff & Phelps and had generated few other leads and even fewer interviews. Suddenly, I had to compete with thousands of the best and the brightest, with people who were not only street-smart but also Wall Street-smart.

Cindy was also beginning to panic. “If you don’t find a job in the next few months, what are we going to do? Our lease is up at the end of June. If you don’t have a something by then, we won’t be able to renew our lease. You spend too much time in front of the computer. You’ve got to make more phone calls and get out there and meet people. You’ve got to find a job!”

With the collapse of Bear Stearns, I realized my chances of finding a financial services job in the city were quite slim and my job search was too narrowly focused. I did not give up on finding a Wall Street job, but I broadened my perspective and started considering positions in fields other than those relating to my most recent experience. For instance, I started pursuing opportunities in business development and corporate finance.

I also started doubling the amount of resumes I sent out. If I was going to find a job, I knew I had to work hard—and my efforts soon paid off with a string of enticing leads.