David Boyd worked as a high-flying banker until he was made redundant by ANZ during the global financial crisis in 2008
David Boyd applied for 10,000 jobs in the 10 years after he was sacked from his high-flying role in banking and in all that time was granted just 11 interviews.
On Monday he began work teaching international students English, after the twelfth prospective employer to bother interviewing him saw something worthwhile in the 58-year-old.
Mr Boyd was earning $500,000 a year, had the same in savings and was living in a beachfront home in Sydney’s eastern suburbs before a messy marriage breakup and the 2008 global financial crisis hit.
Over the next decade the man who had lent billions of dollars to businesses and helped make clients multi-millionaires found himself with no job, no money in the bank and barely any food in the fridge.
When Daily Mail Australia interviewed Mr Boyd last month he was receiving $1,050 a fortnight from Centrelink and living in a two-bedroom unit in the city’s south with his 10-year-old daughter Kali.
‘I was living in fear that I was going to be evicted,’ he said.
Today father and daughter are still in the same cramped accommodation but Mr Boyd has found work and Kali has just one request from his first pay cheque.
David Boyd, pictured with daughter Kali, 10, applied for 10,000 jobs in 10 years before finally finding work. The 58-year-old was a high-flying banker who lost his job in 2008 during the GFC
‘My daughter asked, “Does that mean we can order in Thai takeaway?”‘ he said.
‘Of all the things a child could want and she was like, “Daddy, can we buy Thai takeaway?”‘
Mr Boyd has another treat in store for his daughter, planning the only birthday party she has had in nine years.
On Monday Mr Boyd completed his first shift teaching English at a college in Parramatta in Sydney’s west earning $40 an hour and expects to work three days, or about 20 hours, a week.
‘It’s a great opportunity,’ he said. ‘I’m really so stoked to get it after all this time.’
Until now Mr Boyd has been left with $75 a week for groceries and all other expenses after paying rent, internet and mobile phone bills, as well as medicine for himself and Kali.
His tale of going from riches to the poverty line comes as polls show that cost of living is set to be one of the key issues in both the NSW and federal elections.
He believes people like him have been forgotten by both major parties and sees no real improvement in his circumstances regardless of who is elected.
Mr Boyd had long ago given up returning to banking and saw a real future for himself in teaching.
‘I’ve been up for these other jobs in the past and there’s no longevity to them,’ he said. ‘This is a career job I’ve scored which can take me through for the rest of my life.
Mr Boyd has been volunteering as an English teacher to migrants on Fridays each week. ‘If I stayed here all the time I’d go crazy,’ he says. ‘It’s the most rewarding job I’ve had in my life’
‘It’s really getting that first teaching experience. This is like a full-on class room gig. I won’t be unemployed anymore.’
Mr Boyd said his successful application was no different to all the thousands that had failed. ‘It didn’t stand out in that regard,’ he said. ‘I had about 40 or 50 that were current at this time.’
However, he had stopped looking for work through online employment marketplace SEEK some months ago, instead trying his luck with the job website Indeed.
‘I’ve probably had just as many nibbles on Indeed in the last six months as I have on SEEK in the previous nine and half years,’ he said.
‘I’ve learnt a few tricks of the trade. My resume has gone through so many edits. It’s all about putting the buzz words in.’
Mr Boyd has a graduate certificate in applied linguistics as well as a degree in commerce and graduate diploma in applied finance and investment; he had already been volunteering as an English teacher to migrants.
‘In this instance they’re looking that I’ve got English teaching experience,’ he said. ‘I know I’ve got the qualifications there and this gets me higher up the tree.’
‘I had to look for a sector that has longevity and teaching has got that. I’ve got out of the banking lane and I’m into the teaching lane.’
Mr Boyd’s resume was once loaded with corporate financing deals he arranged in the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars.
‘I have lent billions of dollars over the years,’ he said last month.
‘I’ve made guys multi-millionaires. Here I am now and I can’t scratch two bloody cents together.’
When the global financial crisis hit in 2008 he was retrenched from his role as associate director of corporate banking for New South Wales at ANZ.
Since then, Mr Boyd had tried without much luck to get full-time work, despite sending out his resume up to 30 times a week.
Former banker David Boyd receives $1,050 a fortnight from Centrelink and lives in a cramped two-bedroom unit with his 10-year-old daughter Kali. After paying rent, internet and mobile phone bills, as well as medicine for them both, Mr Boyd has been left with just $75 a week
‘I applied for 10,000 jobs over a 10-year period and nothing came through,’ he said last month. ‘I’ve only had 11 interviews out of 10,000 applications.’
Mr Boyd had unsuccessfully applied for jobs from being Australia’s consul-general in Frankfurt to driving buses and sweeping streets.
His last paid employment had been three months’ work in 2016 as a casual receptionist at Breakfast Point Country Club in Sydney’s inner-west.
He understands there had been 75 applicants for the teaching job he has now won, which was narrowed down to five by the time Mr Boyd learnt he was in the running.
There was a telephone interview then some days passed before he heard from his prospective employer again.
‘I said to my daughter, “I think Daddy didn’t get the job again”,’ he said.
Then came a congratulatory text message. Mr Boyd felt ‘fantastic’ and Kali was ‘over the moon’.
Mr Boyd has extensive health problems – he needs back and knee surgery and suffers from conditions including diverticulitis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease – so the 20 hours a week is suitable.
‘I used to do 70 and 80 and 100 hours in the bank – I’m not about that any more,’ he said.
Mr Boyd said his first piece of advice to people in his position was to not give up. He had been in tears when he had missed out on jobs he thought were his.
‘You should take a day to grieve about losing out the job but then the next day you’ve got to pick yourself up,’ he said. ‘You can’t ever give up.’
Mr Boyd may not be financially comfortable for some time but barely a month ago he was terrified of receiving his next electricity bill.
He expects to take home about $600 a week from his new job, which is $150 a fortnight more than he was being paid on Centrelink.
Mr Boyd’s daughter Kali had only one wish when she learnt her father had finally found work. ‘Of all the things a child could want and she was like, “Daddy, can we buy Thai takeaway?”‘