Ed. note: Welcome to the latest installment of “Janet Raiffa’s Recessionals,” a column by a laid-off recruiting manager in New York. Prior columns are collected [here]. You can reach Janet Raiffa via LinkedIn, leaving a comment here, or emailing 405club@gmail.com.

Yesterday I had lunch with F., a former Goldman colleague, who left the bank years ago during the last downturn in 2001.  Our entire division had been offered a package then and everybody had three months to decide on whether to accept it.  The decision date was September 10, 2001, and many people who decided not to take the package actually tried to turn it in as they were fleeing the building the following day.  They thought it was a sign from God that they should reevaluate their careers.  I had actually thought about taking it then and decided against it, but can’t help but think how welcome a generous voluntary package would be at so many organizations these days. I wish I had a package offer rather than the five weeks of severance I got when I was laid off from my law firm job in March! F. had a series of other jobs in the intervening years, and ended up being laid off by another investment bank in April of 2008.  Since then she’s taken on a number of odd jobs like shampooing at beauty parlors and babysitting, which like the odd jobs I’ve tried are low-paying, surprisingly hard to get, and relatively humiliating for people with our years of professional experience.

In June I wrote about what my old colleagues from Goldman were doing while they were unemployed.  Global travel was the preferred pastime, and there were many encouraging stories of weight loss and quality family time.  Now it’s September, and almost everyone I featured has secured a new full-time position.  While I certainly envy each one because they’ve gained back a set routine and a certain paycheck, I can’t say that I covet any of the jobs they’ve landed.  My former investment banking colleagues, it seems, have all made some sacrifice to be back in the working world; some have given up manager titles to become more hands-on “individual contributors,” several have taken enormous pay reductions to transition from the private side to the academic world, and a significant number have moved to cities where good Chinese food, a traditional bagel, and live theater may be much harder to come by.  Nobody that I’m aware of has landed a new full-time job at a bank, although a few folks have secured short-term consultant positions at one of our old competitors through outsourcing agencies.  Nobody has moved up in title or in salary, or been able to enjoy the magical ascension that the golden name of the firm was reputed to ensure in the first job transition following leaving it.  As I sat with F. at lunch I flipped through my mental rolodex, and realized that she was the only laid off New York based friend I had who was still actively pursuing a full-time job.  The few other unemployed women I could think of had ended up being laid off with new babies or small children, and had decided to enjoy a sabbaticals as stay at home moms.  Misery does indeed love company, and as much as I’d like to see all my friends back to work, there is comfort in not being the only one struggling to fill each and every work day.  I also need people to have lunch with who won’t leave me there to rush back to work; lunch and the picking up of mail are the highlights of my day.

F. and I had missed each other at the 405 Club picnic because I’d come early and departed early after making sure that I’d spoken with the reporters from France, Japan, and NY1, and she’d arrived fashionably late.  “I really enjoyed it,” she said.  “I was worried that it was going to be all laid off banking people and I’ve had enough of that.  I was surprised by how many different industries were represented.” I agreed with her.  “It’s really amazing when you think about all the fields that have been so hard hit by the downturn, and how few have proven immune. I spoke with one woman whose magazine had folded, and there are so many people out of work in all types of publishing. Did you meet the laid off Training and Development woman from Morgan Stanley who is now studying nutrition?” She said she had.  “When I was there she was sitting right next to a laid off nutritionist.  Isn’t that ironic?” I asked.

F. and I also went through the list of things we’re doing to save money.  I put my pricey gym membership on hold for three months to join a gym offering free membership for the unemployed, color my hair myself for $2.99, and have given up paying separately for landline phone service in favor of Time Warner’s triple play package for cable, internet, and phone.  She’s cancelled HBO and switched from a moderately priced gym to Lucille Roberts for $15 per month.  “That was a big mistake,” she told me.  “I must have been there the first time right after the cleaning lady had come through, because they only seem to clean it once a day and it gets disgusting.” I told her that I couldn’t part with my Chelsea Piers membership because it has become my new office, and I travel there almost every day, enjoying the long trip to and from Park Slope as a way to fill my time. As for HBO, I simply can’t do without my vampires.  F. also confessed to a shopping weakness that made scaling back difficult.  “You’ve heard of guilt haven’t you?” she asked.  “I’m Jewish, of course I’ve heard of guilt,” I responded.  “No, not that type of guilt.  I mean G-i-l-t, the website for designer stuff that offers rush discounts during certain hours of the day.  You can only join if a member invites you.  I have a weakness for shoes.” I guess I’m lucky not to be a shopaholic while dealing with unemployment, but I did look up the website that evening and was very glad that I couldn’t access any of the advertised specials.  I’ll stick to Ann Taylor Loft for now while I raise funds to return to regular Ann Taylor shopping.

Finding a new job is frustrating when you can’t get anyone to respond to the innumerable resumes you’ve sent out, hear again and again that you are both overqualified and underqualified for everything, and have rounds of interviews and never hear anything back from the employers or headhunters.  I also have another major problem, I told her.  “I’ve really been enjoying blogging, but since I decided to focus on writing about odd jobs if I can’t get any odd jobs I have no material to write about.  I’ve been able to do some of the things I’ve already done again, but haven’t had much luck in turning up anything new.” Compilation pieces take longer, and require me to go out to interview people, and now almost all of my possible subjects have new jobs and are over discussing the whole layoff and job search business.  I also feel a bit pathetic for continually reaching out to former colleagues for material. “I’ve been trying to write a new piece called ‘Where Have All My Unemployed Former Colleagues Gone?’ and I’m not having much luck with it,” I lamented.  “Well, you can tell me what everybody is doing.  I’m interested in hearing about it. I’m looking at lots of different industries beyond banking and it’s good to know that others are making the transition,” she responded helpfully.

“I feel like I’m now an expert on job transitions made by investment banking HR people.  I’m not really friendly now with people from the law firm because I was there such a short time, but I have witnessed an amazing number of banking transitions,” I offered.  And then I was ready with my list.  Because she left Goldman several years back, F. didn’t know most of the people I’ve been following, but she was familiar with all the groups they’d come from, and the world of investment banking HR people is small enough that she knew of some people during her interbank events and career moves.  The first major group was that of people who’d transitioned into academic roles.  Although we’d hired a number of people from admissions and placement jobs over the years, the people moving to the academic side now were largely those who hadn’t experienced it before, and always planned to do a stint on the school side sometime during their careers.  “This is a big group,” I told her.  “There’s Candy from Investment Banking who is now at Georgetown in Career Services.  Christie from Campus Recruiting is now at Columbia Teacher’s College working for a program that trains high school teachers to be principals.  Dee from London is at a business school in Spain doing admissions and placement.  One of our diversity recruiters is in Admissions at Columbia Law School. And I got a LinkedIn message from an Investment Management recruiter in London saying that she is now at the University of Manchester Business School in Alumni Relations.  Mike from Campus Recruiting left years ago and moved to Bear Stearns, but after more financial services layoffs he’s at UNC Chapel Hill.”  I’m looking for academic roles myself now, and have dipped my toes into the water by taking on resume review projects for two business schools I used to recruit from.  The academic group leads naturally to the group who’ve switched cities for new jobs outside of academia, and I’ve seen these moves happen within three different countries now.  “Ros from Campus Recruiting in London moved to Scotland, Steffen from Tokyo just started a position in HR in Osaka, and lots of people are leaving New York.  One of the recruiters in my old team, Scott, interviewed in New York and Los Angeles, but ended up accepting a job in Milwaukee.” This seemed like a rather difficult move for me, but he’s been focusing on the positives.  Beyond joining a great organization, he had a nice welcome lunch at the Cheesecake Factory for his first day, has access to lots of chain stores that don’t have New York City outposts, and has discovered that two bedroom apartments could be located for $750. “I’ve been applying for jobs all over, but this really still frightens me.  The people who are leaving New York all seem to be post-collegiate New Yorkers, but I’m a native.  I’m a third generation New Yorker and almost all of my family is here.” I added.

“The third group is the temporary folks,” I continued.   This group is interesting because it includes both pretty junior folks and a number of more senior VP types who may have trouble getting permanent jobs because of their previous salaries and titles.  “Three of my old coordinators or junior recruiters are doing temp/contract roles at banks, and this seems to be the only way of getting another banking role.  Nadya is at Morgan Stanley, Katie is at Barclay’s, and Emily is doing a second stint at Deutsche.  On the senior side, I know of three VPS – one doing a four month stint at Deutsche, and two doing six or twelve month roles at the Fed.” I then had a confession to make.  “It’s funny, but when I think about all the things I could do now, I actually think a long contract stint may be the most appealing.  Having left Goldman before multiple rounds of layoffs, and then ending up in a law firm having two major rounds of layoffs, there’s a certain sense of security and safety in knowing exactly when your job is going to end.  I just don’t want to get laid off again.”

We stayed at our outside booth a good long time going through all of our mutual colleagues who’d made both voluntary and involuntary transitions in the last few years, and marveling that people from Goldman, Merrill, and Credit Suisse had ended up in industries as diverse as advertising, education, healthcare, hedge funds, insurance, and real estate.  We touched on the new spate of GS alums joining Bloomberg, and debated whether the legendary kitchenettes were enough to make up for the issues involving maternity leave.  And we had the opportunity to say to several people who came up to us asking for money, “Sorry, we’re both unemployed.” Both of us joked that we could be joining them in panhandling one of these days.  I wish F. the best of luck in her job search, and will help her if I can, but it’s nice to know that there’s at least one friend still out there who can join me for a long “lady of leisure” lunch to mull over where all of our old colleagues have gone while also counting the pennies to pay for the meal.

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