“Some employers seem to be retaliating in this buyer’s market for the perceived arrogance of job seekers during the boom years,” said Janet Scarborough, a Seattle-area career counselor who hears countless horror stories. “Now that the supply-and-demand situation has changed, some employers are acting in unnecessarily callous or punitive ways.”
Paul Beard, 38, the former director of technical operations for Fizzylab, a now defunct Internet infrastructure company, says that he’s been looking for a job in I.T. since Jan. 19. “It’s pretty bad. There are so many layoffs, and so many people out at the same time, and nobody is doing much hiring. They’re taking a wait-and-see attitude. ‘We’re waiting until second quarter before we make any decisions.’ It’s a buyer’s market, and the buyers aren’t buying.”