The Wallstrip Blog

Joshua Persky is extremely pitiful. The guy was laid off from his job as a valuations consultant 6 months ago. He still hasn’t found a job.

That’s not the pitiful part. It’s understandable, in this economy, in this era of increasing unemployment, it makes sense that Persky is out of work.

It’s the sandwich board that’s pitiful. The 48-year-old decided it would be a good idea to walk around midtown with a sandwich board over his power suit. It reads: “Experienced MIT Grad for Hire.” Persky’s phone number and website follow the text.

The weird thing is, it’s working. Just not exactly the way Persky wants. And this is why there is no sympathy in this post for “poor” Persky. He’s gotten job offers in Boca Raton, FL and Singapore, but he wants to stay in New York. Never mind the fact that he’s living with a friend while his wife and kids are in Omaha, Nebraska with family. Sure, Boca Raton HAS to be worse than what’s going on in his life now.

Here’s more, from Reuters:

• he paraded around midtown Manhattan, a key location for commercial banks and investment houses.
• He was also just blocks away from where he worked for two years as a valuations consultant for Houlihan Lokey, a mid-cap investment bank, before he was laid off.
• “I chose that area because that’s where the money is. There is always people strolling outside around lunch time. I’ve handed out a lot of resumes and gotten some leads but no offers yet,” said Persky.
• The job seeker has encountered many well wishers, and offers of potential jobs across the country and the world, but nothing concrete in New York yet.
• “Yesterday, I received a phone call from a recruiter in Singapore, who was looking for a quantitative hedging specialist for its Tokyo office. I’ve also been contacted by a hedge fund in Boca Raton, whose looking for someone to value derivatives,” he said.

Read the full story here.