Young, Dynamic, and Unemployed

Networking in a Casual Atmosphere

Investment bankers meet with personnel recruiters at parties in New York, as if there were still jobs to be had on Wall Street.

It has to go quickly, the handshake has to be just right. Groveling is embarrassing and kills your chances. As quick as lightning, Page Walborn’s fingertips dart into her purse and emerge with a card. Her card. She’s hoping for a job; that’s why she’s here along with 400 other unemployed people at a bar in midtown Manhattan. They’ve congregated here, on the lookout for personnel recruiters, easily recognizable because they wear bright green armbands. Green like money, the receptionist at the door explains to everyone.

Page wears a pink bracelet on her wrist that identifies her as unemployed. The color was chosen because they resemble “pink slips,” the term used in the United States for termination notices. There were 20,000 pink slips given last week alone, and the unemployment figures continue to climb. The rate has reached 7.6 percent, and experts predict it won’t be long before it reaches double digits.

Networking in a Relaxed Atmosphere

The situation is especially dim here in New York’s financial district, where the crisis began in the spring of 2007 with a few hedge funds that were unable to make payouts. The situation reached its zenith in the fall of 2008 with the collapse of the Lehman Brothers investment bank. That’s why this is the third “Wall Street Pink Slip Party” being held in less than a year. This is where contacts can be made between recruiters and those seeking a job; it is networking in a relaxed atmosphere, with beer and nachos.

Page had formerly worked for a theater, and has no experience on Wall Street, but nevertheless already knows the financial world’s limits of casualness. If you don’t have a plan or if you’re poorly organized, you don’t have much of a chance. Page has pinned up her brown curls and applied her makeup subtly. She stands across from Bolaji Lawal, who comes from Nigeria and who also wears the pink bracelet of the jobless.

“I have a lot of Friends”

But Bolaji has an idea that Page finds interesting. He wants to start his own company. “I have a lot of friends,” he tells her, “who are rich professional basketball players playing in the NBA and the European leagues. I want to set up my own company to manage their money for them.” He sticks Page’s business card in his jacket pocket. “I could use an assistant,” he says.

Bolaji got all the right tickets punched. He got his MBA from the most prestigious business school in the world, and after that a New York investment bank immediately hired him. The only problem was, he picked the wrong year to graduate and the wrong investment bank: Lehman Brothers.

Bolaji’s first day on the job was Sept. 15, 2008; the day Lehman Brothers went bust. As Bolaji entered the skyscraper on 7th Avenue, a crowd of his new colleagues, all carrying cardboard boxes holding their belongings, shuffled past him on the way out to the street.

“Nobody spoke to me,” he recalled. “It was spooky.” One day later, the British bank Barclays saved Lehman Brothers from bankruptcy, and Bolaji was able to keep his job for the time being. But the final end came less than two weeks later.

“I always looked up to you,” Page said. “Your bankers didn’t seem to have any worries.” But times have changed. In this crisis, even the best and most qualified aren’t spared.

“Hardly anyone is hiring,” said Hillel Axelrod, one of the recruiters with a green armband. “And if they are, they take their time. If one candidate fulfills 80 percent of the job requirements, the personnel office would rather wait. The chances are very good that someone who fulfills 85 percent will turn up in a few weeks. And the week after that, somebody turns up with 90 percent. There’s a whole sea of talent out there.”

One example of that talent is Simon Curtis, a merger specialist who now gets by as a paparazzo.

“I know where all the stars live, where they shop, which restaurants they go to,” he said. When he still had his job, he often sat at a table right next to them. But the semi-nationalized Bank of Scotland let him go.

Or Randall Shaw, who made takeover loans for UBS and now spends his evenings staring at his Blackberry, refusing to believe that his office no longer sends him reports.

“We all knew that it would end someday,” he said. “We just hoped for a soft landing.”

Or Emily Chiang, the young financial engineer who bought mortgages for an investment house, bundled them and sold them on. What Emily was involved in was the cause of the whole financial crisis. Mortgages were bad, the commercial paper worthless. Investors screamed at her constantly.

“One day I said to myself, I’ve had it, and I went to New Zealand for two months.” When she returned to New York, her investment firm had done away with her job. “I don’t care,” Emily said as she emptied her glass. “I just want to enjoy life. The only reason I’m here is because the beer is cheap.” It only costs two dollars if you’re wearing a pink bracelet.

Then there’s Al Gomez, the ex-Marine who worked as a dealer in hedge funds until his boss decided to close up shop, saying he’d rather bet on horse races than on investment products. Al said he doesn’t find unemployment to be so bad.

“At least now I have time to read about history,” he said. What Al finds especially interesting is what the Germans think about their WWII General Staff. They were great strategists, he said.

Strict Regulation, New Laws and Safeguards

Great strategies can also have quite frightening effects, as Gomez should know. Those on Wall Street leveraged the entire world into a chasm using borrowed money. And, of course, they now know what will follow. There will be strict regulations, new laws and safeguards. The salary caps for CEOs recently enacted by the American government are just the beginning.

Many of the pink-bracelet party guests have no intention of returning to financial concerns. Regulation is still an emotive word on Wall Street and if the big banks are to be tamed, people would rather work at an investment boutique.

A Clear Conscience and Good Returns

Or perhaps just start your own company, as the Nigerian Bolaji considers doing. Ethical investments in Africa dance before his eyes. He wants to offer his clients both worlds: a clear conscience and good returns on investments.

“Africa is full of opportunities,” he said. “Many companies are having a difficult time of it, but there is great potential there.” Perhaps it will lure him back to Nigeria.

That might be the upside of this crisis, at least from an African’s point of view. Immigrants like Bolaji who were attracted to Wall Street from the farthest corners of the earth are now re-discovering their homelands. Suddenly they can imagine building a career at home, “creating something in reality,” as Bolaji says. But Page doesn’t want to hear that: Africa’s too far away for her. She looks at him skeptically and turns to look into the crowd once again, looking for her next opportunity.