OXFORD – An unexpected layoff sent an Oxford Academy graduate on a six month job search which took him from Arizona to St. Louis before finally finding a job back in New York.
After Dan Dain graduated from Arizona State University nine years ago, he stayed in Phoenix. Working as an architect in his old college town, he had a good-paying job, a nice apartment and had just bought a new luxury sports car.
That all changed on October 6, 2008 when he and seven of his co-workers were laid off.
“I never thought that would be me,” said Dain, who had worked for his employer, the Butler Design Group, since 2004.
For months there had been signs that the construction market in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area was softening, Dain said, describing the area as overdeveloped.
There was still development work, one of his areas of expertise, but less of it. For him, it meant a little more time on the golf course, but not much of a concern. Then in May, his firm laid off eight architects. In October, they let eight more go, including Dain.
With extensive contacts in the industry and a well-rounded resume, not to mention degrees in both architecture and construction management, Dain didn’t think he’d be out of a job for long.
“I thought I’d get one right away,” he said, but the reality was much different. “I couldn’t get a single interview in Arizona.”
By Nov. 1, Dain had bought out the lease on his apartment and had packed his bags for St. Louis where his girlfriend, Lindsay Poole, was finishing up her graduate studies in deaf education.
“I could completely start over,” he said. Once Dain arrived in Missouri, however, it didn’t take him long to realize the job market wasn’t much better than the one he had just left behind.
“I sent out resumes to every firm I could find in St. Louis,” said Dain. Those resumes went not only to prospective employers in the construction and design fields, but in other fields as well. “I really tried to extend myself,” he said, explaining that some of the jobs he applied for were something of a stretch for his resume.
Dain even tried to make use of contacts he made through professional organizations of which he was a member. “You have to get yourself out there,” he explained. Despite his efforts, he still wasn’t able to even land an interview with any of the firms he contacted.
Then in January, his luck changed. It started when he contacted a firm in the Syracuse area which had offered him a job a few years before. As it turned out, they were still interested.
On Jan. 21 Dain flew to New York for an interview, his first in the 3 1/2 months he’d been unemployed. He stayed with his parents, Lew and Sandy, in Oxford while he first waited to hear from the Syracuse firm, and then, when it didn’t work out, to continue his job search. Being surrounded by family and friends, he said, made dealing with the stress of being unemployed that much easier.
For the next two months he continued to send out resumes and landed several more interviews. “I was definitely persistent,” Dain said. All told, he said, he sent out more than 100 resumes during his job search.
But that all paid off in the end. By March, he had received multiple offers. The one he accepted was a project management position with the Keystone Associates, a Binghamton-based architectural, engineering and surveying firm. His first assignment is a multi-million dollar capital improvement project for the Elmira City School District.
Dain has kept in touch with his friends from Arizona. Through them, he has heard that another 11 of his colleagues have been laid off, bringing the total to 27. As far as he knows, only one has landed a new job in the field besides himself.
As he settles into his new position and re-acclimates himself with upstate New York, Dain said he feels fortunate. Being out of work for nearly 6 months, he explained, was a humbling experience.