Tech Companies Layoffs why?

over the past year, companies like Twitter, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and now Google have laid off a significant portion of their workforce, leaving many people in the tech industry. They worried about their current job security in the best case or stressed about finding their next job opportunity in the worst case as someone who has previously been laid off in the tech industry here’s some of the best things that you can do right now in this tough Market regardless of whether or not you’ve lost your job the very first thing you need to get right is your mentality companies need to do what’s best for their bottom line and you should do the same which means always put yourself first the reality is if something happened to you on Friday come Monday there would probably be an application online to fill your role you have an employee number for a reason and that’s because to most companies you’re just a number because of this it’s crucial to be thankful for your employer for the opportunity but also to remember that it’s actually a mutually beneficial relationship you provide value for the company and in return.

They provide you compensation nap pods massages ping pong tables and free food okay some of those benefits don’t relate to everyone but you get the point of your employment minute any company is largely a trade for your time and value for the company’s money and if that agreement no longer adequately benefits a single party that agreement tends to end so don’t be blindly loyal to any single company because if that agreement ends for reasons that you control or otherwise you will be promoted to the customer.

Now that you understand that your employer is not your life partner let’s move on to the next point which is to make sure that you update your resume while you have a job now I know this is probably going to sound pretty random but what did you eat for breakfast from quarter one of 2022 to quarter three of 2022. same I literally have no idea either so please for the love of everything that you care about in this world take time to write down what you’ve done at your job shortly after you’ve done that thing especially be sure to document the metrics if you’re allowed that you’ll ideally use to make those things sound as impressive as I’m sure they were remembering they do this frequently can be really hard so my best advice to you is just set up a quick recurring calendar invite that happens on every Friday so that you can quickly jot down found the things that you did that week and why they were important also make sure that.

Wherever you’re going to write these things down it’s a place that you can access that document anywhere in the world regardless of whether or not you work for the company I.E not on a company laptop because if you’re no longer employed by them you won’t have access to that machine whether you keep track of all this in notion a no tap on your phone or just using a txt file that you edit with them like a psychopath I don’t really care just make sure that you do it without having super important notes like this you’ve accumulated over time to remember what you’ve done your resume will suffer now that you have an eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper that succinctly describes in the fanciest way possible all your life’s achievements you’re ready for the next tip which is to always be interview ready and I know you’re thinking Kevin I just got a job I don’t want to lead code anymore but hear me out I’m actually not suggesting that you leak code or study interview questions or system design problems every single day instead what.

I’m suggesting is that you take the time to make sure that you’ve actually built a solid enough foundation so when you do interview it’s like riding a bike and I challenge you to name a single person who’s forgotten to ride a bike no one the way I see it building a solid foundation for interviewing even while you’re employed is kind of like having insurance if anything doesn’t sound like a big deal like you could probably just take a couple weeks and study up anyways but if you think about it in an environment like right now you’re probably competing against tens of thousands of incredibly talented engineers and actually being ready right away and getting yourself into the process with a company that’s hiring and has head count right now might be the difference between you getting the job and someone else getting it a couple weeks later plus staying interview sharp I think really is important for just helping yourself almost statistically have better chances of getting another job or getting multiple offers and let’s face it having multiple offers is really good leverage for whatever company you’re going to go to next and as much as it sucks to sort of pay the insurance hopefully you’re not gonna need it but if you do.

I really think the insurance in this case is going to be worth it and let’s face it everyone buys the insurance so now that you’ve added the 1999 warranty to your card and checked out it’s time to move to the next step which is networking and I know networking always sounds like a really hand wavy way of saying make small talk with a random stranger and then beg them to help you but that’s not what it should be and if you do crack you’re probably not even going to realize that you were or are networking ideally networking is really just something that you do organically and it’s kind of just finding common people who have similar interests to you that might be able to help you or you could help them in the future the older I get the more I realize how important networking is and it’s kind of funny because it really just feels like making friends as an adult I feel pretty lucky at this point in my career that if I were to lose my job I think I’d have a pretty good Network to help me find my next opportunity but let’s not test that hypothesis friends in your network typically help you find your next Opportunity by offering you a referral to their company and this is where.

I think people don’t actually realize the value that a referral provides you referrals are literally cheat codes because referrals literally put your resume at the top of the pile and that pile might literally consist of millions of resumes from different candidates at some of the largest tech companies that you could talk about and by using a referral a lot of times you’ll actually end up with an interview at that company which is as far as your friend can push you in the process once you have an interview every single person is on this same playing ground and has the same opportunity whether you went to Harvard whether you studied at boot camp you’re self-taught or you’re the son or daughter of the CEO of the company everyone has an equal chance once you have the interview all that’s left to do is simply perform the best way to get good at performing is to practice the repetition you will not feel good about your performance in every interview.

I’m going to repeat that you will not feel good about your performance in every interview why is repeating the same painful process over and over again absolutely essential for eventually succeeding well I challenge you to name a single person who’s gotten ripped by going to the gym once Checkmate and remember passing every single interview that you’re going to go through is not realistic and that should not be your goal because simply sometimes there are variables that you can’t control and then you can’t do anything about whether or not you pass or fail that interview instead what we should index on and what we should really focus on and try and improve is the probability that you’re going to pass any given interview interviews largely follow a recipe and a lot like baking if you follow the recipe you’re probably going to end up with a cake okay maybe not every single time I’m not very good at baking but you keep trying to bake the cake hopefully you’re gonna eventually get one I know I will and let’s face it who doesn’t love cake so practice hard and often in mathematically speaking it’s only a matter of time until you pass one of your future interviews and land a new opportunity as a quick last note I’m going to leave you something that I tweeted recently the sooner you separate your identity from your job the better you are so much more than your title your employer and the things that you do from nine to five so never forget that if you like cake and enjoyed this.