- Cast a wide net. I did both journalism and technology consulting after my management consulting firm blew up; I figured one of them would hit. I was right.
- Try to get a job that's going somewhere. It's better to be flexible on pay and hours than to take a job that doesn't lead anywhere you want to go. The first job out of business school is important.
- Reassess your goals. Did you really want to be a management consultant? Or were you bored with your job and hoping business school would let you find your bliss? Now's a good time to figure out if you really wanted to go into investment banking, or just couldn't think of anything better to do.
- Network like hell. I sent out about 1400 resumes blind after my firm failed. I got not one response. All the jobs I interviewed for came from personal contacts.
- Look back to your old firm or industry. Unless you really hated it, they'll be more willing than most to take you in.
- Cut expenses now. Right after you lose a job is the last time you want to give up your fun--you feel entitled. But you will regret it if you run through your savings before you find a job and have to move in with Mom and Dad. Allow yourself exactly one feel-good treat of under $150, such as a spa day or a really epic night of drinking. Then promise yourself something really good after you find a job.
- Find other people in the same boat. Being unemployed in America often feels like being invisible. Other people are made uncomfortable by it, and if it drags on, they may start to get irritated with you, as if it must be your fault. That's their own psychological protection: they need to believe it couldn't happen to them. Protect yourself by finding people who know what its like. Also, those people will be amenable to hanging out on a tight budget. PBR: it's not just for hipsters any more.
- Find some way to make money. You can't job search all the time, and it's easy to sit in your apartment getting depressed. Even if you're walking dogs, as one friend did, it both smooths your budget and gives your life some structure.
- Don't panic. Everyone I went to school with is gainfully employed, except for those who have chosen to stay home with children. No
one is living on cat food. It's hard to believe it, but you will come
through this, even if it takes you, as it did me, eighteen months to
get back on your feet. Believe it or not, losing that job was the best thing that ever happened to me. More than a few of my classmates say the same.
« Watch the budget | Main | What the hell just happened? » Sure glad I got that MBA18 Sep 2008 04:14 pm
I graduated from business school in 2001, straight into the teeth of the last recession. This article sure brings back some painful memories. If you're a newly minted MBA, I offer the following, not very helpful advice:
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Having graduated from Law School in New York City in 2001, I'll have to second your advice for newly minted lawyers as well. It applies equally as well. (With one piece of additional advice... be aware of what you are doing to your resume before getting caught up in the feeding frenzy that is about to take place. Think Milberg Weiss).
So, would you say this probably applies to us undergrad folk who have majored in economics and finance?
/me whistles
Most people must expect to lose one or more jobs involuntarily some time in their career (ask Dick Fuld). Even if it is later in your career, most of Megan's advice is still good.
Yeah, it's important not to panic.
In fact, it does seem like very dynamic people tend to be misfits before the age of 30.
Indeed, most people make the big bucks and rise to power between the ages of 35-60. So it's okay if you don't exactly know your career path at the age of 27.
Also, invent something people really need like Google or the iPod.
Do none of those things.
Find and vote for a candidate who will make sure you get your "fair share" of the economic pie by taking it from people who do the things reccomended by our hostess.
Excellent advice!
I was in a similar situation the following year. It was not "the best thing to happen to me" (or even slightly positive). I already built enough character before business school.
But your advice is spot on. I am doing fairly well now. So will most of today's unemployed MBA's.
-Steve
And for those who are not involuntarily unemployed, for God's sake, don't abandon your friends who are.
First, remember the old saw: "if you don't go to other people's funerals, they won't go to yours."
Second, the unemployed will remember who pretended they were invisible and who didn't, and they won't always be unemployed and of no immediate use to you.
And third, that's what friends do, chuckleheads. It's not that hard. I had a friend who got caught out in the tech crash and actually had to declare bankruptcy. I called him up and said "you sound really down, let's do something tonight to cheer you up." He hemmed and hawed and finally said that he was too broke to do anything, until I clarified that by "do something" I meant come over to my place for pizza, beer and kung-fu movies.
I graduated with a degree in Computer Engineering in 2001, a few months after the dot-com bubble burst. I went into my senior year with the idea that there would be a bidding war for my services. Boy was I wrong.
After moving back home, I sent out hundreds of resumes to companies. Out of these, I managed to get one interview with a local tech company looking to hire someone for a non-technical, low-skilled testing position. I didn't get the job.
Just to get out of the house, I took a horrible mall job. Around this time I got the bright idea to apply to the local universities, knowing that the pay would suck, but also knowing that they were less sensitive to the current economic climate. Sent more resumes, waited a few months, and managed to get an interview for a low-paying but fun-sounding research position at CMU. They made an offer, and I accepted.
6 years later, I'm now equipped with a M.S. that I got at no cost (other than the damn taxes on the tuition reimbursement... grrr... ) in my spare time. Wrote some interesting papers, designed some cool systems, and moved on to a local start-up where I'm having a blast.
And to think I almost panicked and applied to law school!
"Find and vote for a candidate who will make sure you get your "fair share" of the economic pie by taking it from people who do the things reccomended by our hostess."
People wonder why no one likes Republicans anymore.
And if all else fails, realize that the MBA was a waste of time and learn some useful skills.
This is excellent advice for life in general.
We get by with a little help from our friends. When times are trying, try asking a friend for some time. You'd be surprised how they'll step up to the plate for you. The biggest mistake I ever made when I was job seeking was not acknowledging that everyone sincerely wants you to win. Once you check yourself and acknowledge you're still the same person and not an L7 weenie, it's the first step to really getting somewhere. :)
Excellent advice from Megan; excellent follow-up from Kathryn !
(I weathered the downturn in the early '90s using much the same strategy - though most of it learned the hard way.)
Cheers,
Thanks for the article. I got kicked out by Bear last Oct and haven't still found anything. And the scenario of 'moving back with mom/dad' has come true. Having said that, I feel more relieved than depressed/sad that I am no longer at Bear.
There have been times when you want to throw in the towel and become a priest or something but then I think about the priests and the young boys and the kind of pressure that industry would put on me. Imagine getting laid off as a priest for being straight. Then I send out twice as many resumes as I did the previous day.
I hope something turns up for me soon. I am a month away from a 1-year involuntary vacation.
Seriously: hang in there. I got laid off in October 2001, and got a job at The Economist in May 2003. Most importantly, don't just send out resumes. Network. And do *something* to get yourself out of the house, either volunteering or an internship or any sort of a job.
I agree with the advice to get a part time job, or do volunteering. I was unemployed for the month of July and it was very depressing having my roommates and friends go off to work in the morning, while I had nothing to look forward to other than sending more resumes to more companies, which is like putting paper into a furnace, and hoping someone sees all the smoke.
Having been on the beach a few times myself and both times learning that looking for a job is far worse than the worst job I ever had, let me suggest a wrinkle. Rather than sending resumes into the maw, either via US Postal Service or the internet, do what almost no one does: put on your workday clothes and knock on some doors. Don't call, don't ask for an appointment, just go. This will be fruitless most of the places you go, they won't be interested or will be too busy to see you. You're no worse off than sending a resume.
But somebody somewhere may just have 15 minutes to talk. Even if they don't have anything to offer at that moment, you've been there in front of them, given a vastly better chance to make a foavorable impressiont han you ever would if you relied on sending them a resume. They may be able to offer some leads.
It's been a long time since I had to do this and it was in a different era, but I do remember that there were a lot of people out there who were willing and happy to lend a helping hand. Doesn't cost them much and they earn points in the karma bank. And you know, lots of us have been in the same situation. People helped us, we want to pass it on. People didn't help us, we want to be better than them. Physically going there gives people, us, a much better chance to help you.
Why on earth would anybody get an MBA? What possible use could it be?
Why on earth would anybody get an MBA? What possible use could it be?
I got an MBA from the U of C a year before Megan and more than doubled my pre-MBA salary when I graduated. Since then -- still at the same giant oil company I joined out of b-school -- I've doubled my salary again and taken on international assignments that doubled it once more.
An eightfold increase from my pre-MBA days. Without exaggeration, I can't believe I make this much money. I can't even get close to spending it all (though my wife and I certainly give it the old college try).
That's why you get an MBA, though admittedly it doesn't work out that way for everyone.
I would just expand on "cast a wide net" to say that your net should also be wide geographically.
Both times I've been forced onto the job market, I found equivalent or better jobs in either different states or in a different city within 90 days, when colleagues in similar situations who refused to leave town were either still effectively unemployed as much as a year later or took jobs that were, shall we say, less than lateral.
I lost my job in '05. Had a rough time, couldn't find a job but went on several interviews. The best I did during that time was to volunteer my time, it helped me to focus on someone less fortunate than I. It made my problems seem a lot smaller. The other thing that helped was to work out every other day. I think it really helped keep the depression away. Hope this helps someone.
This is great advice and I'm going to send this link to a student in my grad school program who's wrestling with a long layoff right now. He's been using pretty good judgment as far as I can see, but I think Megan's positive tone will help him.
Why an MBA? I suppose there are many reasons. I actually backed into an MBA course (part-time, online) because of my experience in entrepreneurial business: won one, lost one, saw my brother lose one not quite as spectacularly as I did. Through all of this I seesawed between feeling that I knew enough about business to thinking I needed to know more.
So far my expectations have been met. While some courses are clearly ivory tower nonsense, others provide valuable insights. In financial and management accounting classes, no week has passed without me doing one of those forehead palmprints: "D'oh!" If I'd known then what I just learnt now... which is, of course, why I'm doing this.
Fortunately, I don't care about grades, so I can blow off the trivial courses. There are enough people in the course who want to be distinguished graduate or whatever they call it. I'm just here to learn -- so that next time out in the entrepreneurial stakes, I make fewer errors and better reward my employees and investors.
There is rather more work than they promised and some courses expect 40 plus hours a week, twice what I was told to expect and a bit much for someone employed full-time. (These also tend to be the low-business-value courses, ivory-tower stuff like forecasting). It's completely inflexible around little things like Guard deployments, too -- they say one thing to get you signed up, then once you're on the hook the "flexibility" is gone! I do feel that the online approach has pros and cons, but one major con is the limited interaction with professors and -- especially -- other students. I have always learnt as much from my peers as my professors, at least since escaping the undergrad mill long ago. Harder to do via the net, but not impossible.
One last warning for online MBA wannabees: find out and try out the software they use for a virtual classroom. I thought the system they used, Blackboard, was pretty awful but was able to make it work, more or less. (It's also used by the Army Sergeants Majors Academy and I'd seen it before). Then they changed to an even worse system, called Angel. I have stopped recommending my college's MBA to others since this change, and would recommend that anyone contemplating any school that use this just kill himself instead... you'll just skip the painful act of being driven to despair.
Grad school is a good way to sit out a recession, if you can tighten your belt, pay for it, and live off money already in the bank. I doubt it's a good idea for those who must take loans -- although with the current credit situation that may be a self-correcting problem. I've never seen much difference in performance between people with and without MBAs out there, although some do come out of a first-tier MBA with an incredible sense of entitlement that makes them unpleasant peers and undependable subordinates. Perhaps the MBA without experience only appeals to some employers who actually want that kind of person.
If all else fails become an engineer. I work at a national laboratory in NM, and we can not find enough qualified engineers that can qualify for a security clearance, i.e. US citizen.
Well done Megan.
Thanks Megan and everyone else for advice.
After getting laid off from Bear as I mentioned in the comments, I applied to bunch of B-schools and got rejected by all of them. Due to my work status in the US, I had to leave and go back to my home country. My soon to be fiancee' and girlfriend of 3 1/2 years broke up with me since she wasn't sure if I will ever find a job and I was being cranky and wasn't paying her attention. After that, I had to move back with mom/dad since I ran out of money. Did I mention I am 31? So, yeah, life sucks at the moment but I am fighting through it all.
This article boosted my spirits a bit. Wish me luck. I need every bit of it.
Cat food is actually quite expensive.
Wanna know what? I just got my MBA, and you won't guess what the real kicker is. I graduated undergrad in 2001. Spot on - 2 for 2.
So yeah, I'm unemployed, I fire out a bagillion cv' weekly, I get next to no responses, I network, and have three possible slightly sparkling lights somewhere down on the horizon, but it's still too early to tell if anything will come out of them, I'm running short on cash, I've recently put together a bar tending resume which I thought I'd never return to, and am trying to write as much as possible, working on a book, and trying to break into journalism as I love it.
Long story short, even when depression hits like a battering ram, chin up, eyes forward, and keep marching and keep pushing that boulder up that hill, eventually it'll get there.
Best of luck to everyone esle out there in the same post MBA unemployed limbo land positions.
- J
oh yeah to Mike:
I'll give you one reason for a MBA. A classmate of mine came into the MBA making a good salary of about 65k USD, post MBA, and this is his first job, he's grossing 280k USD given today's GBP/USD exchange rate. Given he's a bit of a stretch to use as an example, but that's why you get a MBA.
I don't have an MBA, but I have lost several jobs over the years. I tell my students that "anyone who has never been fired either is very new to the work force or isn't doing it right."
Basically, I mean that even if you're very good you're going to, sooner or later, run into that boss that dislikes you intensely or that you scare [first time I got fired it was because my boss thought I was a threat to his job], or you are in a company that has no choice but to downsize or re-locate or whatever, or you take a job in a start-up or equivalent or just the diddy-wah-diddy.
Essentially, everyone who has any kind of desirable job faces the potential for losing it involuntarily. Therefore, prepare. Learn as much as you can everywhere you work. Ask others who have different jobs in you workplace what they do and why. Listen a lot after asking a few questions. You'll both learn valuable stuff and build a more robust network. Everyone likes to talk about their job, how hard they work, problems they've solved, etc. They'll even talk about defeats as well as victories.
The rest of Megan's advice goes well, too. Conserve your money until you have at least a 6-month cushion for basic living expenses. Don't buy expensive stuff based on a rosy scenario of your future.
Remember, if you look hard enough and far enough, if you're any good there's a job for you. I also tell my students that "just like restaurants [every city has enough, just never enough good ones], while there's always plenty of (insert position here) but never enough good ones. Make yourself one of the "good ones" and be employed forever." I think that's true even now. Make yourself a "good one" of whatever it is you are and keep looking. Someone at least wants to upgrade.
Well said JorgXMcKie.
I am starting an MBA in 2009. I was at Ford and left a good paying job. With the present state of the economy, Ford would have downsized me any way. Thanks for the job search advice.