So Fed Charimen Ben Bernanke says the recession is over. And while many many critics dispute this (especially the unemployed) it may be time to assess the job market for those interested in Finance. [googles "careers in finance." Looks around. Shakes head. sighs.] Ok, it sucks:

Over the past 20 years, finance grew faster than almost any other sector of the U.S. economy, offering rich pay and luring a growing share of bright minds to trade securities, make loans, manage portfolios, engineer mergers and turn mortgages into complex derivatives. Now the finance bubble has deflated, forcing hundreds of thousands of employees to search for other work and sending new graduates looking elsewhere for careers.

The job losses in finance extend far beyond the money center of New York. About 3,400 people in Seattle lost their jobs when a stumbling Washington Mutual was suddenly sold to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. last year. Charlotte, N.C., headquarters of Bank of America Corp., is down 9,000 finance and insurance jobs, or 14%, from its peak in May 2006, according to Moody's Economy.com. The firm counts 23,000 lost finance jobs in Chicago, 47,100 in Los Angeles and 437,700 nationwide, a 7.1% drop.

It certainly looks like we're moving into a post-finance job market ... something that has been addressed by The Washington Post's uber-blogger Ezra Klein. I covered this before, but just to reiterate, Ezra worries about where all these talented grads are going to end up. Which may be the same question you are asking right now if you're a finance major.

Well, the same Wall Street Journal piece from above sites Harvard University as a model of what the future may look like. 20% of 2009 grads are entering finance as opposed to 47% in '08, while "Fifteen percent this year planned to go into education -- up by half from last year -- and the proportion going into health care doubled to 12%."

So maybe this post-finance job market isn't such a bad thing. The article goes on to note:

Even a modest of shift of talent could have an effect on society. When smart people become entrepreneurs, "they improve technology in the line of business they pursue, and, as a result, productivity and income grow," said a study by economists Kevin M. Murphy, Robert W. Vishny and Andrei Schleifer in 1990. By contrast, they said, allocation of talent to professions such as finance and law -- where returns come from distribution of wealth from others rather than wealth creation -- leads to lower productivity growth, fewer technological opportunities and slower economic growth.

Obviously - and as the article states - if you were already entrenched in a career in finance you are probably in trouble. If you are still in school, or even fresh our, it's not too late to turn your career in another direction. And as the study above indicates, it could even help out the economy ... so long as you don't go to law school.

Let's hit the Links ...

Alison's Job Search Blog Details Poor Interview Clothing: "'[W]hat not to wear' interview clothes include dirty t-shirts, skimpy tank tops with bras showing in all the wrong places, a nice suit with not much underneath, bright green shoes, and flip-flops. The flip-flops, by the way, are on the list even if you're a teenager who never wears anything else on your feet." It's a little sad this even had to be written.

Career Hub Has Resume Advice From Voltaire: Just what you need, snotty advice from enlightened dead thinkers: "The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out." I'll admit, that's good advice. Try not to ramble on and on about every single experience you've ever had ever. Keep it short, sweet, and most importantly, punchy.

Ezra Klein Contemplates a Post-Finance Job Market: "If the financial sector is somehow shut down, or radically shrunk, they'll just go to the next most profitable industry. Doctors get paid a lot, but there are sharp constraints on supply, so you'd just have more competitive medical schools, as opposed to more doctors. We'll have a lot more lawyers. Many more management consultants. Potentially more engineers and researchers, though those gigs require specialized graduate education -- frequently in the hard sciences -- and I'd imagine there's not too much overlap between college kids interested in organic chemistry and college kids who end up in finance at 23."

Cheezhead Thinks Niche Job Sites Should Band Together: Diversity Groups have seen larger layoffs in the recession, and Rathin Sinha thinks niche sites could better serve these groups if they collaborated. "Essentially, the market needs a destination where these groups can come together. It needs a place where the right jobs for the right audiences can be searched. It needs a place where employers who want to reach all of these audiences can do so with a single click of the mouse."

Twenty Set Reveals the Secret of Young Entrepreneurs: It's Education. "When people ask me how to become an entrepreneur, I ask them, “What is something you can do this week to take the first step?” If you can’t answer that question with a tangible, actionable item, the answer for you is probably that you should get more education."

The Thin Pink Line Looks at Office Etiquette: Carol Frohlinger points to a study that shows 25% of employers have fired an employee for violating the company's email policy. She then gives some advice about how to avoid becoming one of those 25%.

Ben Casochna Makes Some Career Corollaries: Ben says the career advisers obsession with "passion" is similar to writing instructors fixation with "voice." "As with careers and passion, I don't disagree with the fundamental point here, but I do worry about the intensity with which this advice is dispensed to aspiring writers. How, exactly, are you supposed to improve the "voice" of your writing? How do you know whether the sound of the words on the page are most true to you? What is "aliveness" and can not writing have bounce in its step but still lack a singular voice that would be familiar if you heard it again?"

Welcome to the Daily Roundup. Each day at the ThinkTalk Blog we will post some links that we find informative, interesting, or just plain funny. The goal is to let you know what else is going on out there, and ultimately help you with the development of your career.