Layoffs

Many companies are now shedding their tech employees from different areas in numbers from 100s to 1000’s. My company is the most recent one. I feel pretty strongly that you need to continue to always be looking at your skills, your opportunities and your career no matter where you are in your career. You should never just network or review jobs or even skill up only when you are looking for that next job. You must continually consider your career as part of your day to day job.

Job Sites – Keep your resume current and available on job sites. If you feel like you don’t want to have people reaching out to you then set your status for that site in that way.

Setup job aggreagators to send you updates on the types of jobs you are looking for.

Glassdoor

Zip Recruiter

Indeed

Linked in

Companies now have an easy apply option so you can easily, on your phone, apply to jobs if you have your resume and a cover letter handy for the position.

There are many lists of companies. I suggest you make your top companys 10-20-50 and a separate list of benefits / Pay that you need. I think about the wait time to get benefits, the amount of vacation, the salary requirements, vesting dates and of course, remote work. That was critical for me an many people.

Current List: https://stillhiring.today/

List of Layoffs : https://layoffs.fyi/

Plan of action:

Again you should be doing this all along.

Training: Use all your resources. If you can – get linked in learning, Pluralsight or Udemy (pay by course). I paid for my own Linked In learning and have taken over 150 classes which vary. It helps keep me current on my skills.

Videos: Youtube is full of videos on any topic (you already know this). But you can learn about tools, or services or new skills that you want to improve /add to your list of thinks you can do.

Reading: You must keep current in your industry and skills. I often read articles and if I think they will be of interest to others, I forward them. It lets your teams and leadership know you are keeping current which is never a bad thing.

Redit/Linkedin/Facebook. My social media is almost all about my career now with membership in groups on these different platforms. My feed mostly serves up peoples comments in these areas and I am informed about things that interest me. I will admit to joining, art, history and dog groups but I enjoy seeing things of interest. I do not see what my neighbors had for dinner last night anymore and that is a good thing.

Groups to Join – I recently have been reading Product led Onboarding which helps with the product we are currently building. There is a whole company behind this series. They do provide some free information and collaboration (slack) platforms. If Product led interests you I would recommend joining there.

Podcasts – On apple or spotify. I will admit to getting my news from these sources as I, like you, only have snippets of time to listen to podcasts. The time I have competes with my audible books (so I have to switch off depending on what I am doing and where I am in my day).

This is a really hard time. Having a lot of company in the layoffs does not help. It makes you feel terrible. It makes you scared as you try to figure out how to pay your bills in the short term until you get setup with that next job. The best think you can do is get your unemployement setup, set a daily schedule to search jobs, network with friends and collegues, learn or improve your skills, and be positive. Take some time to go outside and take walks and put some time aside to do things you enjoy. That next company wants you and it will happen soon. Someone will give you a chance. You need to be ready.