Unemployed for a While

It's a recession. Stuff happens.

Go back to school or consider looking down a tier. For my first two years, my backup plan if I ever got laid off was working as an IT guy back in Chicago.

How are your programming skills and what is your math background? Analytics Developers are experiencing about 3-4% unemployment in NYC right now. It's not quite the same money as trading- probably more on the same level as risk management over a career, but if you can survive a tough programming interview, a lot of firms will take you. There's just an insatiable demand for stronger developers who understand finance and/or math right now, and there's no sign of that demand dropping anytime soon.

File incorporation documents to set up an independent contracting firm. Try to get some clients for whatever field you have expertise in. Even if nothing pans out, at least you have continuity.

ivoteforthatguy has a good idea, but there's a lot of options here. It all depends on what OP wants to do.

How about volunteer work? Start a blog? Go back to school? Take an internship?

I remember u want to be a trader check this out its the old RBC prof trader group( i believe similar model to FNYS), better than making ur own company and thinking of bs to do, I spoke to them but they want immediate placement, im still in school

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I feel your pain bredren, been trying to lock something down since august of 2010. Feeling pretty stressed out as a new class of graduates are about to enter the market

bump

Lower your expectations/sights. At this point you need something to fill the gap on your resume. It might not be perfect but its better than a big open white area.

Happy - I've applied or reached out on social networking sites to about every white collar job that I could think of. So I am trying anything at this point.

Mel - Thanks for that G-2 link. Hadn't seen them, just sent them my information.

cheese - I know people who did the see the world/finding myself bit for a while and came back and were poorer for it. I'd really like to raise a family one day, and I worry about providing for kids I might have. I really couldn't do it (in my mind) if I couldn't afford to raise them as well as I was at least. So my main priority is finding a job at all costs and praying I can find a career path again.

I'm seriously biased in this direction, but if nothing else; get a part time gig bartending in the area you want to work in. It will help you meet people rather quickly, and provided the rest of your resume is ok, it can be a big plus. Knowing that you can talk to people is a big selling point, and several very senior people that I've met had to work a bar at one point, so you can actually use this shared background as an opening to build a relationship with someone who can help you later [everyone wants free drinks, so save it for the people you need]

The idea above about starting a company, even a small one with small results, is pretty cool, and someone I know very well filled the gap (they also desparately needed money) on their resume like this and really impressed the heck out of the next person interviewing them. Taking the intiative is always going to look good for you. You gotta do what you gotta do.......

Whatever you do, don't make up some fictitious company in Japan and claim you worked for them.

Identical position here. Sometimes I find it hard just to get to sleep because I'm thinking about what happens if I hit the one year mark and the cycle restarts. I feel my life's also a dead end, even with a statistics master's. Yep, and applied to not only Wall Street, but internet companies, market research, the works...seems every employer wants experience, and nobody hires you without it, meaning you can't get started.

I'd look into temporary placement somewhere, or an unpaid internship. the gap on your resume is crushing you, and its much easier to get a job while employed (even if temp or unpaid). you should lower your standards considerably as well. what's important is that you get some work experience. I know you must feel terrible, but try to think of funny stuff before interviewing (depression is a bad look). personally, I've read that thread about 'dropping a dump before interviews' before my actual interviews and it just cracks me up. sb to cheer you up!

At this point I am definitely looking for just about any job. If anyone has any leads throw em at me. Thanks for the SB and encouragement Mr. Draper.

PM'd you.

PM'd you.

PM'd you.

what happend with G-2?

G-2 is a bucket shop. They give you 10:1 leverage on a 100k down and want you to pay 2 percent over treasury for any overnight holds. I can get better trading deals through my own broker.

Not to be overly harsh - I definitely thought it was great of you to give me that lead. It's just not a place I would feel comfortable with since their fees are pretty bad and the downside is all on me.

did u speak to them personally?really i thought its no capital cont and u get a draw+ actual training prog kinda like trillium?100k damn .....mybad

Yeah, spoke to them personally. It really did sound like a scam - hey at least they didn't try and get me to do something illegal off the bat. One HF did that to me so that was fun.

looking at your profile, it says you have a degree from UIUC in a relevant major with a 3.5 GPA AND you live in DC. DC is such a hot field for jobs right now, I don't understand why you are having trouble finding a job. Are you a US Citizen? You should be able to land something really easy if you're not aiming too high.

I'm a US citizen. Not in DC right now, living in Chicago, but definitely willing to relocate. Anything in DC that you can think of that might need me?

eyelikecheese, I love your outlook on life, so no offense, but your advice is a little impractical. The guy is probably living hand to mouth so where would he get the money to travel the world or develop hobbies ? That's something you do if you have money saved up in the bank.

Anyways, monkeysama, tell us more, what industry was your last position ? for how long were you employed ?

Here's a link to my resume. I won't bother editing out my name (if people are really curious they'll find out anyway), but please be courteous and don't pass it around unless I say it's ok:

Resume: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B6lf…

Monkesama, didn't take a long look at your resume since i'm on an iPod, but have you looked at a firm like the Eurasia group, at first glance you might be a good fit.

SAC, thanks for the idea, but all the (entry level) positions require 3-5 years experience and an advance degree. Most of them also require fluency in multiple languages (although with the translation software that's available these days heaven knows why). I've bookmarked it though so I'll keep checking.

did you completely write off law school? with your stats along with that LSAT score, you would be competitive to some great law schools

I know a few people who have come out of law school who are completely broke and can't get a job. And they went to a good school and had connections. I just see too many stories like this: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/16/unemployed-and-struggling-…

The only reason I have it on my resume still is that maybe the test is a good indication of general intelligence.

My first impression is that it does show your general intelligence level but I would leave it off. It seems like you are a little too all over the place, with GRE (considering you didn't go to grad school), LSAT, and CFA.

I would keep just the SAT, GRE and CFA, but take off LSAT. Those three should be enough to serve as a good indicator. Who knows if an employer might not want to bring you in for an interview since you pose some risk of jumping off to law school or grad school any minute.

What happened at your last position that ended june 2010?

2 year term contract. They only keep phds.

Yeah be real careful about getting into law school just to mark time. It's a very expensive way to do it, particularly if you don't go to a top 14 place and land a biglaw job to cover your debt payments.

You're not in any debt, are you? If not, you've got choices.

Have you considered an econ ph.d. program? You can probably get into a good one. And it's free.

Monkeysama,

How come you didn't go to grad school for econ or something?

I decided that I wasn't interested in getting a phd in econ. It's 5 years or so and then you come out and it's a battle for tenure. The way it usually works is that it's 6 years as an associate and you find out at the end of the sixth year whether you have tenure on the seventh. If not you get to go to a smaller school and try again. My mom's first husband went through that twice before he got tenure. That means he had to do 14 years on top of the first 5 to get a stable career going (cause associate professors are paid like 30k). Econ phds are very similar to what he was doing - same bs.

I just can't wait 20 years to know if I'll have enough money to be able to live a decent life. It's just not in me to do that. I really enjoy econ, but I want to try finance to see if it's a more liveable life style. I may end up trying to get a F500 gig too, but I'm definitely sure a phd is not what I'm going to do.

Here's a link to the economist on why doing a phd is not necessarily a good idea: http://www.economist.com/node/17723223

Are you fixed on staying in the US? Given you have had some frontier market experience, it may be worth having a go at actually going to work in one for a bit. The Gulf countries in particular are places where if you work hard you can progress rapidly on the experience scale and then lateral into any multinational firm. I would highlight Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as two countries with a particular lack of talent/brains/people who want to actually go there, Saudi in particular (unless you're married that is). The lingua franca (so to speak) is English, you get free housing and salaries comparable to the US (=huge savings). Get some middle east experience, learn how the system works and sell it with your pakistan/asian/sub saharan experience and you could do rather well in a host of fields..

I don't think taking on more debt to get another degree is the answer, when the first degree isn't helping much, not in the "new normal" economy at least. Monkeysama, if you haven't cast your net wide and applied for EVERYTHING, do it now. Right now, you need is a paycheck, and there are jobs out there for a guy with your background and IQ.

Yeah SAC, I agree with you. I'm trying to stay debt free and learn to play the market while I'm looking. somebody, do you have specific examples of jobs that might need me and would want to hire me if I moved to the middle east? The only concerns I have is that I'm not muslim/native so I don't know if they would want to hire a white jewish boy (not to be snide, just the way it is). Also, I am a little concerned about the recent instability in the region - I definitely don't want to get killed.

I know 6 people with the FED that have been there over 5 years each and none of them even have Masters degrees...could you try to switch to something else within the FED?

Monkeysama,

Have you checked out research analyst positions at global asset allocation quant shops? You might need a master's degree though.

Have you thought about getting a MFE?