Looking for Work? Expect a Lower Salary

Working on Wall Street always meant great pay, fabulous perks and year-end bonuses that would make you feel as if you'd won the lottery. But that was before the Great Recession. Now, unemployed traders and bankers are finding out that high-paying jobs are nearly impossible to come by, as layoffs and slow economic growth continue in the finance sector.

Karen, a New York-based fixed income trader, knows this firsthand. She recently spent six months searching for a job in the finance sector and ended up accepting a position that pays 40 percent less than what she was making.

"You don't have the upper hand anymore," she says. As a vice president at her former firm, she says she was accustomed to base salaries ranging from $110,000 to $150,000