Finding Adventurous Jobs for Bored Bankers

Rob Symington and Dom Jackman weren't loving their jobs at consulting firm Ernst & Young in the City of London. "It felt like the work we did, crunching spreadsheets, just didn't matter to anyone, including to our customers or employers," says Symington, 27. Reasoning that they might not be the only young people in the City having second thoughts about their chosen careers, in 2009 Symington and Jackman, 28, quit and founded Escape the City, a website dedicated to helping bored finance workers shake up their lives by taking jobs with Mongolian venture capital firms, African charities, and other far-flung employers.

More than 30,000 people have signed up to view the listings at Escape the City in London—registration is free—and now Symington and Jackman plan to open a branch in New York this month. "Escape the City was created specifically to help talented people escape from unfulfilling corporate jobs after we realized that our own feelings of misery and frustration at work were shared by a lot of people," says Symington. "We stumbled upon a business opportunity by following a hunch about job dissatisfaction to its logical conclusion."