As it’s nearly the end of summer and the days are getting shorter, we will be running a series of cheering tales over the next few weeks. Presented as Q&As with persons who lost their jobs and faced the despair of daytime TV before being gainfully re-employed, they’re intended to offer hope to anyone out of the market: it really is possible to get back in again.

Current role

Quantitative analyst, market & counterparty risk management

Previous role

Financial engineer/quantitative analyst, front office (credit derivatives)

When the axe fell

Officially, in January 2009. De facto, in November 2008.

When the light came

I started my new job in May 2009.

Why the job was lost

Official reason was redundancy. My employer scaled down structured businesses, and structured credit correlation trading was one of the first to go. I survived two rounds of cuts, but not the third (and biggest) one.

How the new job was found

I used everything available: personal contacts, recruitment firms, eFinancialCareers, and direct applications. My former employer paid for outplacement consultancy as part of the redundancy package – that was rather useful as well.

The low point

A few months into my job search I realised that it was not likely that I could do a career change without a radical loss of income.

The financial strain

The problem was the uncertainty: I was reasonably sure that I would get a job eventually, but the timing was unclear. If I had to go on till the end of the summer, my mortgage would have become too much of a burden. Fortunately, it did not go that far.

The green shoots

I found the market picking up end of January, when I started to get calls from agents, first really long shots, but then more and more realistic. By March time there were a number of options one could pursue.

Lessons learned

Looking for a new job is very dependent on the state of the market. I don’t think I had a lot of choice back then, really, given my expenses. Front-office jobs were not available at the time, bonus perspectives were pretty grim. In the end, I had three offers to choose from, but staying in banking was the only practical option, really. Now, of course, the job market is a lot more optimistic. If I had to look for a job now, I would be silly not to adapt to the new realities.