You can go home again. And, often, with a far better compensation package. Take Zsolt Bessko, a 31-year-old Squirrel Hill native who graduated from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 1996.
A quartet of local law firms tried to do so.
Mr. Bessko, now an associate at Buchanan Ingersoll PC, reentered a far different market from the one into which he graduated.
And he returned as an especially desirable property in a hot job market.
Mr. Bessko, after all, was hired upon graduation by New York-based Sullivan & Cromwell, one of the nation's largest and most prestigious law firms. He had also worked on some high-power deals, led by the massive merger between San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. and Iowa-based Norwest Financial Inc.
He and his wife, also an attorney (at a different firm) were at "that time and place of our careers when it's leave and go elsewhere or stick around and make partner."
The Besskos were thinking about quality of life and where best to raise a family. And they also realized that four short years had initiated serious changes in Pittsburgh.
"Pittsburgh's economy has been doing very well, it's on the upswing, especially in the high-tech area," Mr. Bessko said. "It's evolving at a much faster pace and that really made an impression on us."
Though Mr. Bessko admitted he had his heart set on New York when he graduated, he also perceived that Pittsburgh's legal community in the mid-1990s was in something of an industry slump.
"In 1996, it was depressed, people weren't looking to hire that many at that time, it was a very tough market," he said.
No longer. Lori Carpenter, who heads Carpenter Legal Search, a recruitment firm based Downtown, said she has never seen a market like this one "and I've been in the business for 14 years."
Read More:
All's fair in law and war - by Patty Tascarella, Pittsburgh Business Times