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I graduated in 2009. I didn't bother looking for a serious job for about a year. I did work during that year but just bartending and whatever small stuff I felt like doing. The recession was certainly a motivating factor although I had a lot of personal stuff going on as well. I lost my brother my junior year in college (car accident). After I decided to look for a "real" job I didn't have much trouble getting one. Nine years later I think my career is a little "below" me, but I'm still hesitant to blame the recession for it. I have a better career than a lot of my peers but I also attended an elite college so hypothetically I should hold myself to a higher standard than that. Realistically I'm afraid of working too hard and stressing myself out. I'm okay with being normal and valuing family over career. Maybe in a few years I will try to challenge myself.
My H died. He was laid off from his job as an engineer and lost his health insurance. He knew he was sick but he was more afraid of bills he could not pay than dying. I will never have another job making even close to what I was paid before.
We will never make up the difference. It cost us too much.
Looking back at previousw work and employment threads from years ago, my outlook was extremely pessimistic, because my work situation was awful.
I graduated in 2010. My area went into the recession a little later than most places, so I probably came right out in my local trough. The best job I could find was out of field making $14/hr, and I had to commute a hundred miles per day roundtrip for that.
It took four years and two moves to get my "first professional track" position. I've held two positions of increasing responsibility since then. At 32, I'm about where I thought I'd be at 27 or so if you'd asked me when I was 20. The career damage was significant, but not permanent.
How badly did the recession damage your career and have you recovered?
Man oh man, what a question. But first, a commercial interruption with what I consider usual history that applies to those of
us who graduated in the late 60s or 70s. I graduated HS in 72 and was in the market in IT by 76.
I wasn't damaged by GWB's recession. By the time it really hit (during the mortgage and subprime lying era), I was over 50. So, I interviewed in info tech and immediatellly felt the discrimination. I had a degree that was
useless (it wasn't from a top-tier school). By 50-55 didn't look like I did when I was your age (young
and pretty). We were also going through the massive influx of H1Bs with the advent of two Y2Ks. They came in and our jobs were going out. It was the law of cheap from corporations making billions off of us. I was a hiring manager and the salaries
were horrible. If any of y'all understand this, kudos: system/integration tester contractors got 45-50/hr - no
benefits. Then I was handed the extra job of acceptance testing and that paid $25/hr. To do acceptance testing you better know English and the people didn't. Heck, I'd do a phone interview and found a lot
of bs on their resumes. They said they knew HTML. No, they didn't. They worked on platforms that used it.
I was under the gun to put together two cheap teams. It was atrocious. Not everyone I hired was bad and I helped people out but not knowing our language and bs'ing on resumes (how do you verify schools... don't know) made for a horrible project.
I saw our demise written on the wall by the late 1990s. With the influx of foreign workers then the outsourcing, American workers couldn't afford to work at the same pay rate. If you were older as I was,
we all heard a gazillion excuses. During the republican-created (sorry, political ...), jobs were tough to find.
But some were really simple for me. I dropped my salary @20k and heard the excuse that I'd jump to a higher-paying job. THERE WERE NO HIGHER-PAYING job, the manager wasn't stupid and didn't want me working with "kids". I had not many years before and did really well (thanks, Rodale alas, they sold out).
The depression didn't hit me. Age discrimination did.
Looking back at previousw work and employment threads from years ago, my outlook was extremely pessimistic, because my work situation was awful.
I survived 2008 fine. 2002 was my nemesis. Awful really sums it up. I lost my job and it took nearly a year to find a replacement job, looking to work anywhere in the country. There ended up being no permanent damage career-wise, but there were certainly times when I had resigned myself to never again working in my field.
Getting up day after day and making contacts for months without getting any serious leads is really depressing. I did give myself one "mental health" day a week to just try and relax a bit. I'd go for a hike or a bike ride and try to de-stress, but it wasn't easy.
Financially won't recover. Didn't lose my job, but lost essentially eight years of income growth, plus the hit to my retirement savings/investments. If I were younger, I'd probably be able to fully recover and even pull ahead. But at my age, I'll never recover before retirement. What hurt the worst was this recession was deeper and more prolonged than it needed to be.
I was working for CPAs in 2008. The Great Recession barely got my attention. I knew not to sell investments during a downturn, so no harm done there, either.
But during the mid-80s in Denver, people lined up around the block to apply for minimum-wage jobs.
I lived in Colorado Springs in 1990, back when it was the Foreclosure Capital of America. Work was hard to find and didn't pay much, but it was available. My apartment manager said her father was a CPA during the Great Depression, and they drove a new Cadillac. That had a little to do with my decision to work for accountants later on.
The loss of income growth and resulting damage to my pension was permanent. I still managed to retire on schedule, last month, but I had expected to do it with a higher pension. I stayed employed through the recession and continued to fund my personal retirement accounts. My house had already been paid off by the time the recession hit. I just sold it a month ago at a sales price above the pre-recession value...so I realized a full recovery there.
How badly did the recession damage your career and have you recovered?
It did not damage my career at all. No impact.
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alas, they sold out).
