Joshua Persky
Only the paranoid will survive
-Andrew S. Groove
Joshua Persky, 48, then an out-of-job investment banker caught the eye of the media in 2008 for not being unemployed but for resorting to a creative yet old-fashioned method in his quest for a job.
Persky, a father of five kids (rather large for a New Yorker) quickly became tired of the convention methods of e-mailing resumes and waiting for the headhunter’s call that was nowhere in sight. Like a man already down with nothing else to fear, he elected to toe the unorthodox line way of hawking (yes, hawking) himself on a busy New York street for weeks on end to the dismay of passers-by. He was no bum. Persky, an M.I.T. graduate was adept in the arcane details of financial valuation. He worked in Houlihan Lokey, a boutique investment bank before he was laid off in 2007 in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
With a sandwich board (read cardboard in Nigerian parlance) on which was scrawled: “Experienced M.I.T. graduate for hire” hanging on his best suit and stacks of his resume, he showed up on Park Arena in New York handing out his resume to passers by. Yeah, he didn’t forget-so I am quick to add-his name and contact information on the cardboard- outside- the-box thinking at its vintage best.
The reaction? At once predictable and inexplicable. He made primetime TV-FOX and MSNBC-and wait for this, he graced the front-page of a magazine in far away Greece. With fans mails from as far as South Korea, he went (I succumb to the internet speak) viral. He was interviewed and featured in major newspapers in America, was on a radio program in Bogota, Columbia and he soon became a fitting symbol of the mass layoffs that characterized the global financial crisis. Did his stunt (for want of a better word) pay off? Yes and No.
While it got him media attention, countless interviews and speaking engagements, it provided the inspiration to commence a blog – chronicling his out-of-job experience and thought-leadership on business valuation-that was soon to become the major attraction for a headhunter who subsequently recommended him to his current employer, Weiser LLP an accounting firm. But for some months after his ‘self-marketing’ joker, there was still no job was in sight.
Persky has become a by-word for innovative job search and not a few folks have drawn inspiration from him to hawk themselves in the open after they got the boot. The enduring morale of the Persky narrative is no lost on me. It has provided mulling fodder during flash moment of introspection. It is an inspiring tale of courage, perseverance and optimism. Even when interviews that followed his flooding New York street with his resumes didn’t translate into job, he had a good dose of smarts to piggyback on his hard-earned 15 minutes of fame. The blog he subsequently started fetched him a good following, ultimately standing him in good stead to land a plum job.The novelty of Persky’s job hunt continues to intrigue. He has gone ahead to become a speaker and he currently counsels the unemployed.
I have tried in vain to situate his experience in the Nigerian context. The possibility of a nattily suited young man with a dangling cardboard bearing his qualifications to boot handing out his resume, stalking denizens of our Broad street and Ajose Adeogun is one sight that I cannot fathom. Like, Persky, I am sure the individual would be the object of derision and the pity of passers-by. Perhaps, he would, in place of an invite for a job chat, get a plethora of invitations to church programmes where the anointing of the general overseer would break the yoke of joblessness in his life. Perhaps the media would consider an interview with him to fill their pages especially on days when there is a dearth of newsworthy materials. Perhaps not.
Nonetheless, I am sure that exploring the Perskian (my invention) approach is worth the try. It represents for me a break with traditional approach to job hunting that seems to be favoured by job seekers these days.
The abiding morale: in a sea of heads, you are lost unless you can break out of the mould. Follow Persky’s lead and do something daring. It will sure be worthwhile.
Eyinade Adedotun, blogs at http://tinwatinwa.blogspot.com/
