What happens when you have a business disaster on your resume? Maybe listing an Enron or WorldCom would not be so bad. Those companies are big enough that you may not be tainted by the corporate fraud. Unless you ended up in handcuffs.
As the company gets smaller, you’re more likely to get caught in the stink of corporate fraud. That gets even worse when you share the last name on the door.
The Wall Street Journal highlighted the lack of future job prospects with former Madoff employees: Not Exactly a Résumé Highlight: Madoff Work
The story focuses on the Madoff sons, Mark and Andrew, who are labeled as being “untouchable in any firm that deals with the public.” I am not surprised that they are unemployable. Would you hire a Madoff?
But the scar of the fraud falls farther down the corporate ladder. Eleanor Squillari, Bernard Madoff’s former assistant, has moved on to cosmetology. She knows she’ll “never get a job in finance.”
The trading business, which was not implicated in the Madoff fraud and was purchased by Surge Trading, Inc., has the challenge of convincing clients to do business with former Madoff employees.
I suppose the upside is that company schwag could turn into collector’s items.