I have been let go three times in almost 30 years and I’m on my 10th job.
The first time was at a struggling startup. We all knew they were struggling and the company was very honest with us and kept us abreast of all the companies that our VC backers were pursuing. I was in some of the interviews with potential acquirers.
Our backers promised all of us that “we would get paid for every hour we worked”. Of course they couldn’t promise us we would not get laid off.
All of us stayed until the bitter end. That day we all got laid off after being acquired for scraps, we went to lunch together and hung out in the office just joking around until the end of the day.
We all had something in our back pocket anyway and from looking at LinkedIn, everyone found a job that was either as good or better within a month. This was 2011.
Our largest customer arranged for me to get contract with them to finish out a project, the acquiring company gave the customer access to all of their code and gave me permission to keep my work laptop and waived my non compete.
They gave everyone a month severance. I was treated fairly and have no ill will toward anyone there.
The third time it was a shit show of a company last year. But this is where I have problems with the author
> How do you succinctly summarize and highlight all you’ve done there?
I keep my resume and longer form career document up to date at least once per quarter. I list out the details of major accomplishments in STAR format while it’s still fresh. I have both a technical summary and a business oriented summary for non technical people.
It looks like he learned that lesson too.
> I was being selective and only applying for places I’d realistically want to work
He has a newborn baby. His first priority is to work for any company that will allow him to exchange labor for money to support his family. Even if you do have savings, no need to use it unnecessarily.
I got a 3.5 months severance from Amazon the year before last and my stretch goal was to get an offer before my paid out PTO of 9 days was over let alone dip into my severance.
Of course I reached out to my network first and targeted outreach to companies specializing in my niche (strategic cloud consulting emphasizing app dev). I also spammed my resume to any CRUD enterprise app dev job as a Plan B.
I could always keep interviewing while working. I was working remotely.
I did end up getting a Plan A job offer within 9 days of leaving AWS. But I knew three months in that it wasn’t going to be a long term job.
When the end did come, I was already in the early stages of interviewing for my current job and had an offer three weeks later. But again, I wasn’t going to let the perfect be the enemy of getting any job and I kept applying for Enterprise CRUD jobs until the offer was finalized.
I did work on a side project in 2023. But I got paid for it. A former CTO had some work he needed done.
> I keep my resume and longer form career document up to date at least once per quarter. I list out the details of major accomplishments in STAR format while it’s still fresh. I have both a technical summary and a business oriented summary for non technical people.
I have a bookmarklet that opens a new gmail compose window, with the recipient being "me+journal@employer.com", and the subject being today's date. As I'm working throughout the day, I jot down what I'm working on.
I also used to review these every Friday, and type up a summary, and every few months - or as I'd remember to - update a "hype doc" that's basically like an internal resume that my manager can use to help argue for a raise for me, or whatever.
I also copy this data, without any stuff that might be considered company property, to someplace local I can access if I'm fired.
As a consultant working full time for a consulting company, I usually can’t mention the client. It’s always “a healthcare startup”, “a state government”, etc
These posts are so badass. Thank you to share. Please keep writing. We need more of these.
Literally, your handle "scarface_74" says it all. When PIP comes through the door, you raise your automatic rifle and shout: "Say hello to my little friend!"
The first time was at a struggling startup. We all knew they were struggling and the company was very honest with us and kept us abreast of all the companies that our VC backers were pursuing. I was in some of the interviews with potential acquirers.
Our backers promised all of us that “we would get paid for every hour we worked”. Of course they couldn’t promise us we would not get laid off.
All of us stayed until the bitter end. That day we all got laid off after being acquired for scraps, we went to lunch together and hung out in the office just joking around until the end of the day.
We all had something in our back pocket anyway and from looking at LinkedIn, everyone found a job that was either as good or better within a month. This was 2011.
Our largest customer arranged for me to get contract with them to finish out a project, the acquiring company gave the customer access to all of their code and gave me permission to keep my work laptop and waived my non compete.
They gave everyone a month severance. I was treated fairly and have no ill will toward anyone there.
The second time it was Amazon in 2023:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38474212
The third time it was a shit show of a company last year. But this is where I have problems with the author
> How do you succinctly summarize and highlight all you’ve done there?
I keep my resume and longer form career document up to date at least once per quarter. I list out the details of major accomplishments in STAR format while it’s still fresh. I have both a technical summary and a business oriented summary for non technical people.
It looks like he learned that lesson too.
> I was being selective and only applying for places I’d realistically want to work
He has a newborn baby. His first priority is to work for any company that will allow him to exchange labor for money to support his family. Even if you do have savings, no need to use it unnecessarily.
I got a 3.5 months severance from Amazon the year before last and my stretch goal was to get an offer before my paid out PTO of 9 days was over let alone dip into my severance.
Of course I reached out to my network first and targeted outreach to companies specializing in my niche (strategic cloud consulting emphasizing app dev). I also spammed my resume to any CRUD enterprise app dev job as a Plan B.
I could always keep interviewing while working. I was working remotely.
I did end up getting a Plan A job offer within 9 days of leaving AWS. But I knew three months in that it wasn’t going to be a long term job.
When the end did come, I was already in the early stages of interviewing for my current job and had an offer three weeks later. But again, I wasn’t going to let the perfect be the enemy of getting any job and I kept applying for Enterprise CRUD jobs until the offer was finalized.
I did work on a side project in 2023. But I got paid for it. A former CTO had some work he needed done.