Job Hunt Poses New Challenges Beth Healy There are two kinds of people having a particularly grim time on the high-tech job hunt these days. There are those who need to make money and are still adjusting, sullenly, to the reality of the 2003-style shrunken paycheck. And there are those who don't need the money, but whose egos are in tatters. The first group, veteran recruiter Mike Ahearn says, is "rapidly getting very real" about job prospects and pay scales. But members of the latter group, Ahearn says, sometimes need to be reminded that being rich and unemployed is "not exactly tragic." He notes: "I could assemble a group of the people I grew up with in Dorchester, and very few of them would have a lot of sympathy." Ahearn has witnessed the highs and lows on the job front for more than two decades. He recruited for Apple Computer in the 1980s and early 1990s, for Intuit in the mid-'90s, and for a big agency after that. He even rode the hiring binge of the bubble years himself, joining Charles River Ventures as a human resources partner from 2000 to 2002. The Waltham venture capital firm got out of the recruiting business when the market plunged, and Ahearn has landed at a new recruiting firm in downtown Boston, Conley & Co. If becoming a partner at a venture firm didn't work out long-term, Ahearn says he has no regrets about the experience."It was relatively painless to try it," he says. He handled hiring and consulting on compensation issues to boards for about 70 portfolio companies, he says. And his own job shift coincides with a change in the market. While everyone wanted to work for venturebacked, "pre-IPO" companies a few years ago, he says, "people are quite willing to go back to public companies now." With thousands of displaced technology workers out looking for jobs, the competition for all positions has become intense. Companies post a job opening and are quickly flooded with hundreds, even thousands, of resumes. It's a buyer's market for employers, after the drought of the late 1990s. But the abundance of candidates vying for jobs creates a different kind of challenge, recruiters and company executives say. It's that much more work to wade through the prospects and find the right person, even as the pressure to find highly talented people is mounting. Says Kevin Conley, founder of the firm Ahearn has joined: "There's a lot of noise. With all the people around, you've got to get through the clutter." Conley says the same kind of career rehabilitation is going on in financial services as in hightech. Some of the famous mutual fund managers of the last decade, who made and lost fortunes by betting heavily on technology stocks, may never work in the industry again, Conley says. Either their egos are too big to take a less prestigious position, and they've launched (and quickly folded, in many cases) hedge funds, or they're still searching for a post that pays the million-dollar paycheck they'd grown used to. A few, especially those who need to make money to keep up a newly swank lifestyle, are dusting off their self esteem and taking lower-profile jobs at investment firms. For people in investments or tech who've been out of work for 12 to 18 months, Conley says,
a lot of their energy is now spent trying to pick themselves up off the floor. At a recent outplacement seminar in Worcester, Ahearn says he encountered many talented people who were simply unlucky in the latest round of technology layoffs. Lots of folks were on strong career trajectories until their last job move, he says, when they took a risk on a start-up that didn't fly. "It's painful," Ahearn says. "Did those people become dumb overnight? Absolutely not." If they can keep their spirits up, such workers will eventually find jobs, Ahearn says. The people who'll have a more difficult time in today's brutal environment are those whose titles looks good on paper, but whose experience is superficial. In the bubble, a start-up would call him about an ex-employee of Apple, Intuit, or another technology giant, and a discussion of the person's qualifications would last a few minutes. As with venture deals, due diligence in hiring has increased dramatically. Such reference conversations now last over an hour, Ahearn says. No longer is it enough to say one was present for the IPO at company A and the product launch at company B. The question is: "Really, what did he or she do during that period?" At the same time, job hunters are being much more cautious about their next moves. Says Conley: "They're being much more strategic about their careers." (The Boston Globe, 2003-02-03)