Making Bold Career Moves in a Tough Job Market

This is a very difficult market for those looking for a job. But some manage to grab opportunities and move to better ones. This is a story of my friend who made a brave and successful move.

When he decided to leave his investment banking job to join a start-up hedge fund last winter, I felt very puzzled. I almost thought “starting a hedge fund” at such turbulent times sounded a bit like an oxymoron. Unlike many, he was one of a few friends managed to get an offer in London as an associate with an investment bank that still exists today. Who is brave enough to let go of a job that pays more than £60,000 when everybody is struggling to secure any job possible and when employers are looking to sack people because of poor businesses and uncertain economic outlook? To me, his fundraising plan also seemed mission impossible because investors were extremely risk averse.

But my friend made a bold bet. He simply said this: The market just sucks. No deal. He gets no work to do. No bonus but he will have to keep slaving for the bank.

So he left. In December last year, he became a fourth member of this new hedge fund as a junior partner. The fund uses equities and derivatives, especially to invest in commodity and energy companies. Following a handsome gain in Q1, his fund saw a 13 percent return only in April, riding on the wave of stock market rally.

More importantly, he is a lot happier. The role is exactly what he always wanted. Since the firm is so small, he has a huge amount of responsibility but he creates his own work. He gets time to do yoga after work.

A fairly tale with a happy ending? What I learned from him was that he was smart enough to know what he wanted in life and this was followed up by a bold action.

When I first started my MBA in 2006, pretty much everyone thought of only these four career options: Banks, consulting, industry and others. Those were the happy and greedy days that we thought we would all end up securing high-paying banking or consulting jobs.

But good times are bad times, and the vice versa. Thanks to the financial crisis and economic downturn, the class of 2008 and 2009 have been definitely pushed to think outside of the box and are really pondering what are the right jobs for them. Well, I don’t want to sound too idealistic. But I am saying that this is a perfect chance to really figure out what you want from your life. Then you can perhaps turn adversity into opportunity, just as my friend did.