Stock-market plunge
ANDREW Juhasz believed that a job on Wall Street was the ticket to the good life. The former West Islip, LI, resident landed a position on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange when he was 23. Not long after, he was taking home $200,000 a year.
“I thought I’d be one of those people who retired rich in their 40s,” he says. But then came algorithmic trading, and he began to see his colleagues lose their jobs. Out of the 350 traders at one of his former employers, LaBranche & Co., there were 26 left when Juhasz was recruited to work for another firm.
“I thought I was safe,” he says. But two years later, he was laid off. “It was a shock,” he says.
Juhasz left the financial industry and New York in 2007, and things for financial-industry employees haven’t gotten much better since. Sure, the stock market keeps rising to new heights, but job growth hasn’t followed in kind; in fact, there are 11,900 fewer jobs in the industry now than there were in 2007, according to the annual Wall Street report from the New York State Comptroller’s office. Not only that, but post-2008 financial-crisis regulations have also done away with enormous bonuses, while artificial intelligence and machine learning are taking over some of the workload that has always belonged to humans.
“Wall Street is not the high-paying, glamorous place it once was,” says Sameer Syed, a 32year-old Hell’s Kitchen resident who started his career at JP Morgan and now works at Google.
Although money and power weren’t Syed’s reason for leaving the industry, Rob Schlackman, a former executive director at Morgan Stanley, shares his sentiment.
“At one point I worked with the smartest, most passionate people in the industry, and by the time I left [in March 2016], no one cared,” says Schlackman, 49, from Dix Hills, LI.
Schlackman’s job was not in any jeopardy, but when some of his startup friends raised enough funding to hire him as the chief technology officer for Orangenius, a NoMad based company that runs a LinkedIn-like Web site for artists, he jumped on it.
“I didn’t see my future at another bank,” he says.
Syed took a slightly different path when he left Wall Street five years ago.
“I knew I wanted to work at Google, Facebook or Twitter, but that I probably wouldn’t even get an interview with an investment banker’s resume,” he says.
So he plotted a plan to get to his goal in a few small steps — and even then it wasn’t easy.
“I couldn’t easily network with the tech community, because 99 percent of my connections were in finance,” he says. He also didn’t get callbacks on interviews because he had trouble articulating how his Wall Street experience applied to tech.
Success was elusive until someone at a Meetup-type event introduced him to the CEO of a startup who had also worked on Wall Street earlier in his career, and Syed made inroads.
“I had to stop talking about my accomplishments in finance and learn to talk about my skills as they applied to a media-tech company,” he says.
Syed first landed a job at Genesis Media, an advertising and marketing startup in Chelsea. From there he moved to Tremor Video in Midtown, and finally to Google, where he works on strategic partnerships.
Syed also runs a “passion project” called Wall Street to Silicon Alley that holds quarterly panel discussions during which finance professionals who made transitions to the tech industry share their experiences.
“There is no single way to make the pivot,” he says.
Juhasz took another path. He high-tailed it away from the city to Charlotte, NC, where the cost of living is lower and he and his family could live off their savings until he figured out his next step.
While he considered buying a franchise or becoming a home inspector, Juhasz ultimately picked up a small vinyl cutter and began making signs in his garage.
Today, he owns Signpost, a thriving 10-yearold sign and graphics business that creates vehicle wraps, banners and commercial signage.
“When I got laid off, I was terrified because I understood that a career in equities doesn’t translate to anything else in the world,” he says.
But in hindsight, he is almost grateful for what happened. “Maybe it was God’s way of telling me to plant new roots and to move on to the next season of my life.”
Here’s what the experts recommend:
If you’re going to go, get out early
“Try making your move sooner rather than later,” says Carolyn Betts Fleming of Betts Recruiting, noting that initially you may have to take a pay cut. In time, top performers can find new heights, according to Betts.
“People who go to work for startups sometimes get equity,” she says, which could mean hitting the jackpot if the company goes public.
Have a plan
“Decide where you want to go [and] understand that there will be roadblocks,” says Syed. He warns that unless you are 100-percent committed, you probably won’t be successful.
Be honest
“Explain why you want to change industries in your cover letter, at networking events and in interviews, because you will be asked,” says Dan Schawbel, best-selling author of “Me 2.0” (Kaplan) and partner at Midtown advisory Future Workplace. He suggests being enthusiastic about how much you’ve learned at your previous jobs and how you want to be challenged and apply those skills to a new industry.
Make new connections
Says Schawbel: “Search the companies you want to work for and then spend time connecting with people who work at those companies on LinkedIn and in person, if possible.”
Go to events
“There are so many in New York,” Syed says. He recommends that you put your hand up at meetings and lectures and ask questions. And while huge meetups are great for energy and information gathering, smaller ones are better for engaging with people, he says.
Tweak your online profiles and resumes to reflect where you want to go
“You want to play up your ability to generate sales or on the growth you had in your previous career to show that you are a high performer and can be one again,” says Schawbel.
Take classes taught by industry professionals
Syed taught a class at General Assembly, where he shared his knowledge with attendees who worked in different industries. “It’s a great way to make new connections,” he says.
Wall Street jobs are dwindling, so where do finance workers go now?