First, there were pink-slip parties, gatherings where newly downsized victims of the dot-com bust mourned lost jobs while snacking on pretzels, beer, and wine.
Then old-fashioned networking sessions popped up as the layoffs widened and members of the Internet generation struggled to find work in a labor market battered by a slowdown in the high-tech manufacturing sector.
Now, there's the Layoff Lounge, the brainchild of Los Angeles entrepreneur Jeremy Gocke.
Gocke's goal? To merge the pink-slip parties that began on the West Coast with the traditional networking sessions held on the East Coast, but with a twist: Instead of commiserating over drinks all night or handing out business cards, Layoff Lounge participants share leads and tips that could help a fellow job seeker find work. In return, the Lounge provides a form of one-stop shopping for professionals that includes career counseling and resume-writing tips.
The 28-year-old Gocke is betting the Lounge is an idea whose time has come.
Over the last six months, for example, 74,199 job cuts have been announced nationally in the dotcom sector alone, according to Challenger, Gray and Christmas, a Chicago outplacement firm that tracks layoffs. Dotcom downsizings are just a tip of the jobless market, however. Challenger reports the telecommunications sector has shed more than 27,000 jobs in June, increasing its six-month total of positions lost through actual layoffs, retirements, and buyouts to 130,442.
Those numbers could spell opportunity for the Layoff Lounge and its founder.
"Everybody thought the boom would last forever," Gocke said. "The money was there, the enthusiasm was there. But the bubble has burst along with a lot of egos, and a lot of people are now realizing that most jobs are found through networking."
Gocke launched the first Layoff Lounge on the West Coast five months ago, several weeks after he closed his fledgling mobile communications company and began attending pink-slip parties himself.
The Lounge reached Greater Boston in May. Since then, two meetings have been held in Massachusetts. Nationally, 50 companies in 10 cities including San Francisco, Dallas, and New York have sponsored monthly Layoff Lounge events after paying a fee of US$500 to US$2,500. An additional 300 employers simply have attended the events, each of which aims to attract up to 250 job seekers who pay a US$10 fee.
Gocke is planning events in five more cities by September, including a Lounge event in China.
How lucrative is the business? He won't say.
"Right now, we're just trying to get the business off the ground," he said.
Part of the Lounge's allure stems from the services it offers. Job hunters receive free teleclasses from Delta Road, a corporate and career coaching service; one free resume critique from Resume.com; job search advice from Headhunter.Net, and, from Resumesion, help in creating and sending an interactive resume without attachments.
At one recent event, about 200 professionals filed into a dimly lit room at Pravda, a club in Boston's Back Bay. There, job seekers with yellow tags searched out blue-tagged employers and recruiters with the precision of bloodhounds primed for the hunt.
After listening to a guest speaker from Headhunter.com advise them on how to best launch an online job search, professionals in power suits separated themselves by industry and sat around several tables for theKarma Club, which requires that each participant give a brief personal presentation including job search details and the position sought.
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