If school doesn’t beckon, most out-of-work developers seem to end up consulting, trying to scrape together what they can to stay in the business while also bringing in much-needed income.
“For the first year or year and a half [after the recession started], they all started their own companies or consulting groups,” says Rohit Anand, a principal of Irvine, Calif.–based architectural firm KTGY Group.
Cretal is still doing that. He has also been looking for investment opportunities in the Washington, D.C., region, while also consulting. In the past three months, he’s focused on consulting.
Jeff Roblyer, former chief marketing officer for Birmingham, Ala.–based Capstone Building, gave consulting a try as well. Like McKellar, Roblyer saw the handwriting on the wall. When Capstone’s new work dropped to unsustainable levels in late 2008, Roblyer asked to be bought out and purchased a consulting franchise.
“I did it [ran a consulting business] for 18 months,” Roblyer says. “I helped small businesses try to steer their way through the bad economy. I couldn’t get enough customers.”
Seeking a Full-Time Gig
After 18 months trying consulting, Roblyer realized it wasn’t going anywhere. So, in March he decided to start looking for a full-time job, sending out more than 500 résumés. This is a realization a lot of development pros have come to in the past year. So they seek full-time work. The problem—there’s a lot of competition for jobs in multifamily right now.
“When companies are looking for construction and development professionals, they’re getting lots of responses,” says Ernest F. Oriente, CEO of Park City, Utah–based PowerHour, which provides business coaching, executive recruiting, and investment banking services. “Those responses are coming from those who were in traditional multifamily. They’re also getting responses from those who have commercial and home building skill sets. So the bottom line is the marketplace for those who are looking for a position has gotten tremendously more competitive.”
That’s what Roblyer discovered. At first, he wasn’t getting responses on his résumés. He thinks employers were spooked by his age and what they thought would be high salary requirements. “Anyone can do the math [by looking at your résumé] and figure out you’re over 50,” he says. “The reality is that people aren’t going after the over-50 crowd.” After tweaking his résumé, to remove positions he filled over two decades ago and the dates he served in the Marine Corps before then, Roblyer got more bites. He talked with a recruiter about a job in Indiana but didn’t want to uproot his family, which had been in Connecticut for 20 years. He talked to another firm that would require him to commute 90 minutes each way to Rhode Island. Finally, in July, he found a job 20 minutes away with Seymour, Conn.–based Haynes Construction. He sees growth potential and likes the organization, but there’s one downfall—he had to take a 70 percent pay cut. “It’s not paying as much as I’d like, but it’s a job,” he says.
Roblyer puts himself squarely in the underemployed category. So does another 25-year industry veteran in the D.C. area who wouldn’t be identified for this story. This former director of development lost his job with a national company in 2007 and has had to settle into the affordable development world taking a 57 percent pay cut in the meantime. He’s been looking for new jobs.
“I’m talking to people, responding to things, talking to search firms, and not having a whole lot of luck,” he says. “I’m wondering if I’ll ever get a productive job in the industry again.”
