Former high-flyers of the internet revolution may have fallen to earth with a bump, but all the more reason to network.
As companies announce job cuts with monotonous and depressing regularity, London is now chock-a-block with former twenty-something vice-presidents. Once, they proudly sported entrepreneur badges at networking events such as First Tuesday and Wap Wednesdays, swapping tales about stock options and exit strategies. Now they are out of work.
Some of these casualties from the internet boom have taken matters into their own hands by forming a network group with a difference. Calling themselves EFF Club (every fucking Friday), they meet to commiserate with each other and trade job tips at venues in west London such as Café Med or the Liquid Lounge.
EFF started off as a joke. Sabrina Geremia and Alex Congdon, freshly axed from Swedish wireless company Incirco, were reading the job ads, sipping cappucino and bemoaning the lack of a really effective networking event for down and out dot.commers. So they decided to set up EFF complete with the motto of "We may not have jobs but we still have our dignity".
They jotted down some guiding principles for EFF: "Take the 'wanker' out of the new economy; organise coffee afternoons to scour the Times and Guardian; and provide self-help advice and share success (and failure) stories of the job hunt.
These are clearly not your normal down-and-outs. Despite being on the losing end of the internet boom, they remain fairly loaded and are relentlessly upbeat. Sandwiched between Congdon, 31, and Geremia, 28, one evening as their EFF event was gearing up was akin to having two megaphones blasting out positive messages. They are not kidding when they describe themselves as high achievers.
For Congdon, who was a managing director, getting laid off was a novelty. "This is the first time I've been in this situation. In the past, I've always chosen the next move," he said. Putting a brave face on enforced leisure, he asserts that unemployment can be liberating for someone who has laboured in a high-pressure environment for so long.
Geremia thinks this setback will be character building. "I think we will be better people because of this, we are challenging ourselves in a different situation and anyway, it's not the end of the world," she asserted. In between sessions with headhunters and sending out CVs, EFF members cheer themselves up with outings to the British Museum and to the cinema. Others have taken French lessons, cooking lessons, or swanned off to Guatemala for a couple of weeks.
EFF has been going for two months now and membership has grown to about 30. As Congdon put it: "Unemployment can be a lonely thing so this makes it a bit more fun. We said 'let's help each other', and dispel the stigma of being out of work."
He and Geremia say the issue of going for the same jobs does not really arise, as there is such a different mix of skills in the group. The networking element comes into its own when someone hears about particular jobs for which they are not qualified, that information is then passed on.
The expats in EFF face particular dilemmas. Sabrina says those from the US are in a quandary, wondering whether to stick out in the UK or take their chances back in America. But the barrage of job cuts in America's IT sector, from hi-tech powerhouses such as Hewlett- Packard and Cisco, must make the case for staying in the UK pretty persuasive.
EFF members are confident that the market will pick up again. Founder member Marshall Couper, 29, a former vice president at a venture capital firm, points out that venture capitalists now have more money than they know what to do with. "Some are going back," said Couper, a New Zealander, "and there are still quite a few looking for new startups."
That confidence may not be misplaced. Couper has just started work as a business development manager at Virtual Village, an e-services company, while Geremia has found a new job as a marketing manager with askjeeves. co.uk, the internet search engine. But there is no question of disbanding EFF yet.
"The EFF club will certainly continue," she says. "We're all in it together until the bulk of us are sorted out, at which point we'll probably keep it up out of habit. Ex-EFF club, who knows?"
You can contact EFF at effclub@hotmail.com
