The way things are going, the tech job market will be a sh-tshow by the end of year. I intend to spend the next three months looking for another job. At least I will not be panicking all the way till December that I will end up jobless. I’m hoping I will be able, maybe, somehow, to land a job somewhere where I can count on a regular paycheck for a while.
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Thank god I'm retired. Engineering, once a good career, has morphed into rats endlessly running on a wheel in a cage, desperately going nowhere.
If you can't find a job it's only because you're not qualified or you didn't spend enough time growing your skillset. There are plenty of opportunities out there if you look. You can always go out of state.
@2itl+1uG9j4cX
With most companies that practice prolonged layoff cycles, the severance packages begin to dwindle over time and eventually become nil. Volunteer or try to get laid-off if you want a decent severance.
Im not going anywhere without my severance package.
I was also impacted in Oct last year and managed to find something only in spring this year. A job with a lower salary, but I consider it a godsend nevertheless. The job market in tech is horrible. I interviewed after a decade and the interview process is borderline horrific in tech right now. It took me 4 months to figure out the 'game' - endless Leetcode grinding, oddball system design questions which have nothing to do with my prior experience or the job that I was applying for and vague behavioural questions which actually matter quite a bit for more experienced candidates.
I would strongly encourage people to start preparing in earnest. Most of the larger companies have a policy where you cannot apply for positions for a year or so if you fail an interview in which you reached the final round. So, do not interview with the bigger companies unless you are really well prepared. You cannot afford to have 'practice interviews' in this market. Be prepared for a decent pay cut. Do not hesitate to take up a contract or a temp position. It is absolutely dire and there are little signs of improvement. A few senior people who I talk to said that the tech job market is at par with 2008 and the dotcom bust cycle from almost 25 years ago.
I got laid off 12/2023 and was completely caught by surprise.''
One suggestion: Update your resume and Linkedin profile today while your tasks and duties are still fresh in your mind.
"Why wait?" - MG
QC has merged onto the Intc template, Highway Done. Last exit, Irrelevance. Many good people have left of their own volition because they could. Some good ones have been let go because of RTO mandates and other GTFO measures (low cost geos and packages.) The remaining folks are waiting to see where the boot will strike next, and how often.
If you hire mo--ns to lead, you fire people who actually can.
DO IT! Without spilling the beans, I wished I had woken up in Aug/Sep 2023 when Oct 2023 LR had started looming. I was impacted. It came as a BIG surprise. I was caught unawares badly. And then I was exposed to tech job market which is probably at its worst since tech came into existence. For almost 8 months, most of my applications didn't even generate a response and if it did it was a standard "we decided to move on with the other candidate" and for the very few ones where I did get interviewed, the result was the same. Luckily I landed a job recently but that was after going through he-l. It is CRAZY out there. And if anything, in the last eight months since my layoff, the market has tumbled exponentially. Imagine how saturated the tech market is gonna be when all the thousands of resumes from Intel, Cisco, Dell, Samsung, Microsoft, Google, Meta are gonna start looking. Your thinking is right on the money.
You are one of the few that sees the writing on the wall and taking action. Bravo! Many here call the voice of reason "fear mongering." Sooner or later they will find themselves given the boot and wished they had taken action. Remember, you should control your career path, not the employer.