Needing to seek employment during this horrific (and annoyingly avoidable) economic climate is a jarring and unwelcome addition to anyone's day. It does seem to have spawned something of an ostensibly festive networking fad, though.....the Pink Slip Party! In reality, you don’t need to reveal your undergarments and you don’t even need to be wearing a slip to get into a 21st century pink slip party.
We all know about the mythic 1929 crash, with the Dow Jones industrial average losing 23% of its value. But it wasn’t until ‘Black Monday’ of 1987 that the pink slips & the pink champagne actually started to dance. That’s when the employees of Jordan Marsh in Miami, newly unemployed as a result of the Canadian company Campeau’s takeover, took to partying, literally, in pink slips. Full slips, one would guess. The historical record is unclear if this attire was required also for the newly unemployed males.
That very fashion forward frenzy has spawned a nationwide phenomenon that has been resurrected in times of true economic distress, when bubbles burst and geese that lay golden eggs are mortally wounded…a phenomenon that has morphed into the 21st century version playing itself out around the country today. In the current incarnations, the party-throwers have moved 180 degrees from their predecessors. These parties are no longer devil-may-care events thrown by those who are suddenly unemployed. The sponsors now are representatives of the recruiting/hiring side of the equation.
A sampling of the ‘parties’ that have occurred across the country this past year reveals creativity and a great deal of regional variation. For example, a Wichita, KS party was small in a job market that has been difficult for awhile. In San Diego admission is only $5 but, wait a minute, 'self parking’?!? Straits are obviously dire in southern California! Perhaps that's why admission in Beverly Hills is free, with $5 martinis. Organizers there ‘…don’t feel right when other pink slip parties charge people who are unemployed…’. Now THAT'S almost more refreshing than the Pink Stimulus Cocktail, made with pink vodka, plum and ginger.
Cut over to Baltimore, where they are all business: $10 for early registration, but $15 later. No walk-ins…ouch! In Columbus, OH, you'll catch a break by pre-registering too, saving : $5 of the $25 at-the-door fee. Your $10 admission in Fort Lauderdale will get you one free drink. In Toronto, your $20 cash at the door gets your business card to the recruiters, but they don't want any resumes (?!?)
In NYC, arguably the spot where the boulder of leveraged chaos struck the sea of finance, from which the ripples of economic destruction first emanated, well, the suggested donation was $20 (for a charitable cause - the newly unemployed NOT being said cause), the buds were two bucks and the gin was cheap. True to tradition, the job seekers wore the pink. For a retro revisit to the fin de siecle 1990's, the recruiters sported ‘show me the money’ green. Contrast this with the Washington, DC Party, where recruiters were identified by their big ‘ole dollar sign ($) necklaces. . The featured libation there was the ' Screw Manhattan AND Wall Street'...which is a Manhattan with a twist. There was no entry fee and no need to register in advance. But, the $8 or $10 ‘Drink Specials’ might be steep for the unemployed.
Partly out of curiosity and partly out of job-search necessity, I attended a 21st century Pink Slip party in the Spring of 2009. The attire was devoid of pink slips and music and dancing were not on the agenda. The “pinkness” was manifested in the attendee roles. At the event I attended in Edison, New Jersey, after signing-in and dropping off a resume, everyone got a colored glowstick necklace. The recruiters donned pink, while the job-hunters/networkers chose colors to represent their fields: IT was green, marketing another color, healthcare yet another, etc. For this particular Pink Slip Party, the venue was a bar/restaurant in a shopping mall. Admission was $10, even though the venue was open for ‘regular’ business and not exclusively to those attending the networking function. I wondered what exactly the $10 was for, as I purchased my lone tap beer. I parked that thought and waded into the fray, frosty mug in hand.
The first ‘pink necklace’ I approached informed me quickly that he was authorized to make offers to ‘hardcore developers’ only. Next! Encounters with other pink necklaces revealed that most were representing recruiting firms rather than hiring firms. As one recruiter glanced at my resume, he recognized my name…had seen my resume online. He was collecting resumes and had perhaps two or three positions for which he was recruiting. One of the pink necklaces was actually a representative of an insurance company, recruiting potential insurance agents.
A woman motioned me towards a seat and I joined a table of folks talking and nibbling on some of the finger food located in various chafing dishes (my $10 in action, obviously). The motioner was on both sides of the equation: a recruiter branching off from the firm where she was currently employed. She was seeking contacts that she was hoping to place via her fledging recruiting services. Another women at the table was also a pharmaceutical industry recruiter and the other two women had been laid-off after 20+ years at one the giant telecoms.
None of my encounters with the pink necklaces were particularly in-depth, all seemed cursory and none was fruitful. Of course, I can't speak for those seeking positions in represented industries other than IT. Although I didn’t land a job offer, on the up-side, I got to browse the shoe selection at Nordstroms and Armani Exchange…so the evening couldn’t possibly have been a total loss.
From what I can gather, the last "Wall Street" Pink Slip Party took place in June 2009. Now, at the tail end of the year, I'm receiving details of another such event in Northern New Jersey....I'm still deciding if it is worth $25 to determine if they have evolved away from party and fluff and gotten down to business....
