February 2002

"Thirtynothing"

To those who joined the work force in the go-go '90s, it looked as if the only possible direction was up. The younger they are, the harder they fall.

By Matthew Boyle

First, You Have to Figure Out Who You Are

While Dietz is one of the lucky ones--at press time, she had just accepted a job--many high-paid workers who jumped from one employer to another found that when the wave finally crashed, they were beached. "The whole hypergrowth experience was great and traumatic," explains Robert Kernen, 36, a children's entertainment producer whose three-bedroom house in Darien, Conn., was paid for mostly by Microsoft options he cashed in when his former employer, WebTV, was bought by the software colossus. "It's like the first time you go to the gym. It feels great; then you wake up the next morning and feel like hell."

In the 1990s Chris Anderson was the consummate free agent, jumping from one phone system manufacturer to the next. "I was getting higher-paying jobs each year," he says. A gifted salesman, he cleared upwards of $160,000 a year--thanks to his hefty commissions--by the time he was in his mid-20s, letting him and his wife buy a house in the St. Louis suburbs. "We got ahead of the eight ball very early in life," he says. In 1999 he landed a regional sales manager post at 3Com. But in March 2000, 3Com laid Anderson off, handing his position to an employee with longer tenure--a mere three days after giving Anderson a sales award. He quickly got a similar job at Toshiba, but after six months he started hearing downsizing rumors and jumped to Ericsson, which bumped up his base salary to $85,000 plus stock options. In November, with the telecom industry spent, Anderson ran out of luck and was laid off.

Like a lot of others, Anderson seems lost. (In a posting on networking site igotlaidoff.com, he asks if there's a "miracle out there.") Having saved his pennies, he's not that worried about being out of work; in fact, he says, "The timing is good for me to reflect on what it is I want to uncover." But what will that be? Sure, he has enough experience to be a VP of sales, but it's not 1998 anymore. Anderson is still rather young, and those positions have either been restructured out of existence or filled by executives ten years his senior.

As bad as the economy is, there are jobs to be had. Why are the thirtynothings having such trouble finding them? Often it's because career expectations, fed by years of corporate kowtowing when the war for talent was raging, are patently unrealistic. (Fulks, the 25-year-old former dot-com CEO, thinks he can snare a director-level position at AOL Time Warner or Sony.) And just like a high-priced pro athlete who rolls his eyes at the coach, many career free agents never bothered to take anyone's advice. "They didn't want mentoring," says Allen Salikof, CEO of Management Recruiters International. "They thought they knew it all." Of course, employers shoulder a fair share of the blame. Says Michael Braun: "When you have an environment where you have to get big fast, the last thing anyone is thinking about is long-term development of personnel."

As a result, even when the economy heals, these people may not have an easy time. The Employment Policy Foundation predicts five million managerial jobs will need to be filled over the next decade. But getting hired will be harder than what our heroes are accustomed to. "Welcome to the real world!" sneers ExecuNet's Opton. "They're used to instant gratification. Now, the phone calls don't get returned, and they don't like it. It's amazing how many people still think they can put a resume on Monster.com and get a job."

Opton's derision speaks to another reason: Maybe, just maybe, the baby-boomers running corporate America are giving Generation X one final lesson in hubris before they retire. Jason Brancazio, a 28-year-old job seeker in L.A., admits that "people like us aren't in hiring positions generally. In ten years, this type of career behavior will be much more tolerated." But not everyone has ten years to wait.

They may not come out and admit it, but many of the maxed-out are preparing for a life of diminished career expectations. After getting laid off from a startup where he was CTO, Jeff Hawkins, the IT guru, spent most of the past year traveling the world, searching for silver linings. "I haven't had a relationship in three years," he says. "Being so focused on my career made me forget what I didn't have." Currently a freelance consultant, he knows he probably won't make more than $200,000 a year again. He drives a Chevy Malibu now, and he's in the slow lane. Maybe at least he'll be able to see where he's going.

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