After the gold rush

Frances Dorrian was not worried when she heard the news about boo.com's closure in May 2000. She was working as a technical pre-sales manager for Karna Communications, advising clients on how to deploy the company's internet software, and she and her colleagues laughed at the newspaper reports of boo's founders splashing out on designer desks and flying on Concorde. "We just didn't see it as having anything to do with us," she says.

Unfortunately for Dorrian, it soon did. The dot.coms continued to topple, and Karna saw its customer base disappear. "There were so many closures, and customers were going out of business before they could pay us," says Dorrian. Karna tightened its billing policies and put the brakes on recruitment, but it was too late. In April last year, Dorrian joined the 500,000 workers made redundant in the hi-tech sector in 2001.

Fellow victims included Rob Fegredo, an IT consultant with 25 years' experience, and Amy Robins, a web designer with the one-time dot.com darling Moonfruit. Then there was Mike Carey, an experienced IT project manager who left his job to join an e-business consultancy that never got off the ground. For these workers, and thousands like them, redundancy meant the end of their careers in technology. According to the Department of Trade and Industry, the re-employment rate for redundant workers aged 25–50 in the hi-tech sector is now just 20 per cent.

When she first lost her job, Dorrian filled out applications and attended interviews. But after three months she began to realise the chances of finding work were remote. "There was me and 20,000 other people in a market where there were no jobs," she says. She began spending days at the stable where her horse was housed, even riding competitively for the first time in 20 years. Taking the exam in riding instruction was a personal challenge. But when Dorrian passed, the stable owner offered her a job. She accepted and hasn't regretted her decision. Thanks to a generous redundancy settlement, Dorrian was able to pay off a chunk of the mortgage on a cottage near Newmarket and that, together with a supportive husband in full-time emp-loyment, has cushioned the effects of earning a 10th of what she once did.

Rob Fegredo earned a six-figure sum as an IT consultant for Cable & Wireless at the height of the internet boom. But when he was laid off in December 2000, he struggled even to get a job interview.Fegredo had always helped out friends with DIY. Now those friends began paying him for small building jobs. Word of mouth led to more work. Pretty soon, Fegredo was working full-time. He's unlikely to make a fortune, but what matters is that his new work is steady. "I miss the camaraderie working with the guys on a project. There's also something thrilling about knowing what the future looks like," he says.

It's the same kind of thrill that persuaded Mike Carey to leave a secure job to lead a start-up e-business consultancy owned by Eurodata – a company which offers IT advice to small enterprises. Carey spent much of 2000 building a team and devising a winning formula to take to market. When boo.com closed, he convinced himself that the downturn wouldn't affect Eurodata. By the end of that year, it was clear Carey was wrong.

"People suddenly started talking about numbers, how much it cost, and how they weren't seeing returns from their early investments in internet technology," he says.

Eurodata's bankers eventually warned it that unless the consultancy was closed, the entire company could go under. Carey's final responsibility in April 2001 was to make his team, and then himself, redundant. Five months later he co-founded the Change Manifesto, which helps counsel individuals and businesses through career changes and redundancy.

Amy Robins, a web designer at Moonfruit until June 2000, now runs her own photographic agency. "I've done the 'charm the investors' thing, I can chair meetings and devise business plans," she says. At 28, Robins also has impressive management skills, having recruited and managed a team through growth and financial collapse. Being made redundant was the prompt for setting up her own business, and that, Robins says, is the best thing of all: "I know now I'm never going to be stepped all over by some corporate middle manager ever again."