Mortgage Brokers Need Not Apply

Tar Babies of the Apocalypse:

The pop of the housing bubble has hit few groups harder than those in the mortgage industry.

...As mortgage companies continue to fold, employees are struggling, largely without success, to find jobs with comparable pay.

...Lori Cook of Scottsdale worked as a loan closer for more than 15 years before getting laid off in February. Now, she's using Corporate Job Bank in Tempe to find an income to support her three children, two still living at home.

"I need the energy and self-esteem that come from being part of the workforce," Cook said.

...Brian Hamerla said every time he goes to an interview, the employer asks for financial advice not about his skills.

"Interviews that I have been on, they treat us like we have the plague," he said. "There's a reputation out there of mortgage brokers being untrained."

Hamerla said he's earning about a third of the six-figure salary he was making a few years ago as a mortgage broker.

He still runs his business, Hamerla Mortgage, but he works part time selling timeshares to pay the bills. It's been more than a year since his firm was earning enough money to support itself, but he's hoping to keep afloat.

"I'm not going to give up what I've worked 15 years to have," Hamerla said.

He is looking for a management position but hasn't had any offers, even though his girlfriend runs an agency.

"The biggest struggle is the stereotype put on mortgage brokers," he said.

...Denise Arana, 30, was making $80,000 a year as an account executive at First Magnus before it went under in August 2007. After a two-month stint with IndyMac Bank, she found herself unemployed, again. Living on savings and her 401(k) for a few months, she began looking for a new career. "I never thought it would be so difficult," said Arana, who has a master's in business from the University of Phoenix and a bachelor's in justice studies and policy from ASU.

She is earning $12 an hour at a data-entry position she found through AppleOne employment agency in Scottsdale.

"I basically live to pay my bills now," she said.

...Besides competing for jobs with other Arizonans, people from a mortgage background battle their lack of experience in other industries. While many were proficient in their previous positions, staffing agencies say not all job applicants are familiar with Microsoft Office, a skill required by most employers.

Staffing agencies say employers want to hire people with experience, not people they'll have to train.

...She said many people got into the mortgage business with high salaries because the industry needed people to keep up with the workloads during the boom.

Now with the large pools of job candidates, employers can be pickier about whom they hire and what they pay them.

"Companies want to hire someone who has experience," Sanguine said.