Tuesday, September 16, 2008

More Job Losses on Wall Street


In March 2008 Bloomberg reported over 34 000 job losses had already happended in the financial sector on Wall Street. By March 2008 Lehman Brothers, had already cut 18% of their employees and Merrill Lynch had eliminated 4.5% jobs. Add to that the job losses from Bear Stearns' collapse and fast forward to more job losses when Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch gets acquired by Bank of America.

This is just the latest fallout due to the sub prime mortgage conundrum and the subsequent credit contraction. No one is clear exactly where the bottom will be for job losses in the financial services sector.

Before we relegate these disappearing jobs to just finance executives on Wall Street, we should know that these job losses go well beyond the boardroom. Think about technology staff, administrative support workers, lawyers and employees who will lose their jobs across all functional sectors like Human Resources, Marketing and Operations.

I am sure that many of the well "Linkedin" folks on Wall Street will call on their connections and line up new opportunities in smaller boutique firms both in and out of the investment banking sector.

It will take some longer than others to wrap their heads around life after layoff.

My hope is that recent college grads who chased their dreams to Wall Street within the last two years have learned enough professionally to be marketable and made good networking contacts.

Some quick job search tips to consider before the adrenaline dissipates into fear:
- Collect work samples if possible
- Download your kudos folder
- Get LinkedIn
- Consider relocation - do not rule out overseas
- Change careers
- Begin a Meetup group
- Join your ex employers' alumni association
- Call your parents and siblings; get them networking for you
- Work with outplacement firms
- New grads should reconnect with their college career centers

If all the finance pundits and economists are right and jobs will continue to disappear until 2010, folks in the financial sector have to get comfortable with change and hang on for a bumpy ride.

11 comments:

Raymond said...

Linkedin is taking off, it was just added to About.com's top 10 employment list with 2 others....from that list:

www.linkedin.com (professional networking)
www.realmatch.com (matches you with an ideal job)
www.indeed.com (aggregated listings)

Whole list here:
http://jobsearch.about.com/od/joblistings/tp/jobbanks.htm

BullsEyeCareers said...

Thanks Ray.

Here's the complete list for busy readers:

www.careerbuilder.com
www.coolworks.com
www.craigslist.com
www.jobfox.com
www.indeed.com
www.linkedin.com
www.monster.com
www.realmatch.com
www.simplyhired.com
www.usajobs.gov

Anonymous said...

This will not just affect financial people but also the people who work to serve the area like restaurants. These are good tips for everybody.

Anonymous said...

Good points Miss Cotty. Of the 159,000 jobs lost in September, I am researching how many are outside the financial sector.

Vishlysr said...

We’ve crossed mid 2009 and it is a welcome relief to know that the overall productivity is increasing. Usually productivity falls in a recession. So there are overall some good signs. But we are all scared about the jobs. Is your job in danger? There is a survey that can help you do get to know if your job is in danger or not at http://www.angstcorner.com

resume writing said...

This is something that was projected years ago by analyst. A lot tried to prove them wrong but it's just sad that it really turned out to be this way. However, this is an opportunity to improve and we will be to get through this.

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