7 Ways To Prepare And Survive A Tech Lay Offs

Before Tech, I was laid off 0 times but fired on two hands. In fact, it was being fired from both Lyft and Uber that propelled me into pursuing a cloud tech career. Then in cloud tech, I’ve been laid off twice in 4 years, so let’s just say I’m used to being let go for any reason.

With Meta’s recent layoffs of 11k of its 76k employees, along with other FAANG companies, I see too many posts on social media sites like Linkedin promoting fear and propaganda than reason, support, and resolve.

So, I’m going to give you 7 ways to prepare and survive a layoff in tech.

1. Layoffs are Normal in this industry but they make nice nest eggs for investing.

The average employee at Meta received a severance package. Most tech companies that conduct layoffs, pay out severance packages to their full-time employees that include weeks of continued salary, unused PTO, insurance benefits, and more than what employees of other industries don’t get. I met a guy who was once laid off from AT&T, used his severance package to start a design print company, and now has a profitable successful business of his own. The bigger the tech company, usually the more robust the severance package, plus you get to add that experience to your resume to give you leverage for your next placement.

2. Making connections at work, that connect off the clock

You won’t be liked by everyone, especially in tech where the personalities are as deeply strong as they are diverse. But you will make allies among different teams, you all may have something in common that you joke about in the slack channel or bonded more after solving a taught Jira task together. Either way, always be sure to secure those connections with employees you’ve befriended by way of getting their email, phone number or LinkedIn just so you are able to stay in contact for future endeavors. Trust me, in tech, you’re going to utilize your contacts at some point, from job references to even tips and advice on tech skills insight you should be abreast of.

3. Financial management is a necessity not an option

This skill is one that saved me when I was laid off the first time. Due to me coming from complete poverty and losing everything before as an adult, I always had this paranoia about losing everything and having to move back in with my mother while not being able to afford a Chick-Fil-A chicken biscuit sandwich (if you’ve followed my story, you understand how crucial that sandwich is to me lol). Until I started going to therapy and then I hired a credit coach who helped me not only get my credit scores above 700 but gave me the tools I needed to know how to manage my money. So when I was laid off, I was able to continue my lifestyle for at minimum 3 months with no changes while being able to continue to invest in my investment accounts. So please, hire a financial coach or attend a financial management seminar to learn the importance of emergency savings, the value of having good credit, leveraging credit cards for emergencies, putting money into investment accounts and etc. It’ll literally make your life easier during those storms that happen.

4. Take note of the resources and workload you’re configuring on a daily basis

If you touch a certain software or utilize a certain tech skill on a daily basis while employed, please make note of that and add it to your resume. You don’t have to be the best expert at using the software or skill, but you’ve proven to be good enough with it to use it efficently on a daily basis and therefore should use it as leverage on your resume. That’s a great mention when working for these tech companies is the exposure to enterprise-level software and skills that you can take with you as a knowledge gain to your next role.

5. Every 3 months, entertain recruiters who contact you about jobs

Every now and then you want to entertain recruiters in your email or linkedin DM’s who are contacting you about similar role opportunities. It’s not that you’re looking to jump from your current company, but you want to see how you match up with the current market to determine if you’re being valued enough where you currently are and to build report with recruiters so that you know of who to reach out to and the process if a layoff happens to you.

6. When the big layoff happens, don’t panic, chill then build

When I first got laid off, I took a week off to mentally release and refocus before getting back into the ring. Not that I was depressed from losing a job (I told you I’d been fired more than 5 times before tech lol) but that I was exhausted from working myself tirelessly for a company that laid me off anyway, having rarely ever taken PTO and never used a sick day. After a week, I started studying for my next certification, I got that certification and then started turning up the gear to interview and find my next placement which took about a month exactly. I’m suggesting the same for you, especially if you’ve been utilizing financial management of living beneath your means, so now during times like this, you don’t have to worry about how the bills will be paid for the next 2-3 months.

7. Focus on Reality Not Historia

The worst layoff to have ever happened was in 2014 by the U.S Army (respectively) which terminated 70k troops. The second largest was 60k by IBM in the early 90’s. In fact this year, there have been 52k tech layoffs so far while there are still 8.7M tech employees currently and 190k tech jobs available. Keep the perspective of reality in front of your panic that things are worst than they have ever been.

That’s all I have for you today, I look forward to your feedback and please share this with someone in need of advice. thanks for your time.

My name is Demecos Chambers and I’ve been a 6 figure cloud engineer for 4 years. I started off being fired from both Lyft and Uber, with a GED and my biggest concern when I got that end-of-service letter from Uber was “Man, I’m never going to be able to afford a Chick-Fil-A chicken sandwich again” lol. I’m super serious, while I was sleeping on my mother’s couch, after losing everything including my first house. www.bcloudengineers.com