Tips If I Were Laid Off (Solo Show)

Good morning, good morning. How y'all doing? We are live on all the channels this morning. Good morning, everybody. Welcome. Welcome, welcome. Happy Friday. We made it. The vibes are immaculate this morning. It is 74 degrees. I wish, I wish I could take my camera. It's 74 degrees. The office door is open. The office door is open. There are no bugs. There's no humidity. Got a great cup of that conference iced coffee. The the caffeine is flowing. We are live on all the platforms this morning: Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok. What's going on, everybody? Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Say hey, we'd love to hear from you. Uh, I had a Twitter thread that kind of went viral. I had about 60,000, 70,000 views. So I was like, you know what, we should probably talk about it. Um, I've been in my feels lately, obviously because of paternity break, coming back from paternity break, uh, you know, doing a lot of thinking. I was like, man, like, where, where was I this time last year? And, and, and, and this time last year, uh, I was, I was laid off. And I was on the job search for the first time in my professional career, right? I was at Vayco for 12 years and I was on a job search for the first time. So I was kind of thinking about it just in my head. I was like, man, it's crazy, one year later where I'm at. And so I wanna talk to you about today. I wanna talk to you about if I were to get laid off now, after going through a job search a year ago, what would I do differently? Maybe some things that I've learned over the last year. So I wanna talk about today. So say hey, we'd love to hear from you. Again, this is a live show. The reason why I do this live is I want this as a way to network with others, right? Especially on a Friday. The vibes are pretty good on Fridays in a sense that like people are a little slower and can obviously tune in. So say hey, we'd love to hear from you. I'm gonna talk about kind of some various things today. I have a lot of announcements, a lot of catch-up things to do, so I wanna go over some housekeeping things. But again, if you are tuning into this, this is a morning show I do every single day, Monday through Friday. Usually have a guest. Friday's usually solo to kind of talk about just random job search things. So again, so again, today I'm gonna talk about things I would do if I were laid off. So again, say hey, we'd love to hear from you. John, it's good to see you this morning. Um, and again, we are live on all the platforms, uh, this morning. Um, let's see here. So I want to give a shout out, uh, to a few, few things. Uh, first and foremost, again, I am drinking That Conference— I am drinking That Conference coffee. So, uh, if you have not heard of That Conference, they are a conference out of Wisconsin. Um, Clark is a good friend of mine, he's out of Chicago. Um, but they have a coffee line, it's actually really, really good. So I'm drinking that right now. So again, thank you, uh, Clark Sell. Obviously want to give a shout out to Gunio where I work. Listen, if you need tech talent, we got you for real. We got you. So let us know. Want to give another shout out. Jordan, it's good to see you. So Kelly Vaughn. So if you don't know Kelly Vaughn, she is she is she is a prolific Twitterer and she and I are giving a series a a session on Monday. I'm gonna try to pull up. I'm gonna try to. Pull this up real fast. I'm gonna post it. So yeah, it is on Monday, it is at 3 Central, and it's Communicate Your Impact in Your Next Job Search, right? So Kelly is a director of engineering, and of course I'm a 13-year kind of vet recruiter. Um, and so we are giving a conversation on, uh, basically how to show impact in your job search, right? One of the things— so Kelly is actively hiring for positions right now. at her organization. She's a director of engineering. And basically, and then obviously with what I go through day in, day out and seeing engineers on the job search, one of the things that Kelly and I've talked about is we feel like a lot of engineers and a lot of people in general, this doesn't even just apply. I would say even if you're not a developer, let's say you're an accountant and you're interested in what we have to say, I think it's gonna be really applicable 'cause the job search, like there's some nuances But at the end of the day, the job search is the job search for everybody, whether accounting, finance person, admin assistant, or CTO. I think there's a lot of similarities. So there's actually over 1,000 people RSVP'd for this on Monday, which is insane. So it's gonna be a heck of a time. It's gonna be a well 45-minute spin. But what I wanna announce is that Kelly and I are actually launching something community related that I think you're gonna wanna be a part of. And we're only launching it to the folks that are attending the Maven sessions first. So if you watch this now before Monday at 3:00 PM Central, I would sign up. We're gonna announce what we're launching at the Maven sessions. You're gonna get a week head start before we announce it to the public and it's gonna be pretty special. Again, Kelly's built an amazing community. I feel like I've built a pretty solid community. And so we wanna launch something to give back to our communities. And so again, it's gonna be pretty great. So hopefully I see you at the Maven sessions and yeah, it's gonna be a good one. Again, if you watch this on any other platforms and you're like, well, I'm not in tech, but I still wanna come out, I would highly recommend coming out. It's gonna be a great one. It's good to see you this morning. And John, I'm gonna have some hot takes on the subject. Yeah, 100%, John. I know you're on the search right now and so definitely have some thoughts. I'm kind of going through here. I wanna give a shout out to, oh, another thing I need help with from you guys and I need to announce this time and time again. I'm trying to speak at South by Southwest this year or in 2025. I went this past year. It was awesome. I wanna do it again. And so basically I need your help. So 70% of the way I get to speak at South by is just I have to have a panel pick me, right? But it's kind of like American Idol vibes and the other 30% is fan votes, right? Now, if you go to this panel picker thing, there's like 25,000 sessions, right? So I'm sure like A lot of them aren't even gonna get a vote. I would love your vote. You have to create a quick profile. Won't take too long. It would mean the world to me. Again, trying to speak at South by Southwest next year in Austin. And it was just such an incredible event and I'd be blessed to speak there, but I need your help. I feel a little salesy here, but again, if you have liked any of my content over the years, I'm asking for your help now. Go fill out a quick profile and would love to speak there. All right. So I think that's it in terms of Announcements. Again, I'm still trying to catch up from being out. I feel a little rusty still, to be totally frank with you, being out on paternity leave. So I'm gonna check this out real quick, see if I'm missing anything else. Oh, final thing. That's right. So I am hosting a panel. Nathan, it's good to see you, my guy. I'm hosting a panel Monday. Let me pull it. Well, I can't really pull it up. I'm hosting a panel Monday with Gun.io on Gun.io's LinkedIn page, 9:30 AM Central. So there won't be a Guidance Counselor 2.0. at 9:30, there'll be a live panel on Gunn's channel at 9:30 where I'm hanging out with 3 people. I'm hanging out with an engineering manager, a founder, and a senior engineer, all heavily leveraging AI, right? So that is on the Gunn.io LinkedIn. So go over there, subscribe, like. If you wanna go to YouTube, check that out too. But again, check that out. It's gonna be great. There's a lot of talk with people wanting to use AI or people who are kind of using AI. I handpicked these 3 individuals on the panel because of their involvement with an AI community. It's gonna be a great conversation. It's gonna be a great conversation. So hopefully we'll see you Monday on Gun.io's LinkedIn page at 9:30 AM Central. All right, enough of me running my mouth about just frivolous things. Let's kind of get to the nuts and potatoes. Nuts and potatoes? I don't think it's the same. Meat and potatoes of this conversation. So again, I was laid off a year ago around this time last year, right? And it really got me in my feels when I was on paternity break. I was thinking, I was like, man, what would I do differently? I have a year of experience under my belt, not technically in the staffing world, so what would I do differently? So I put this thread out on Twitter and it spread like wildfire. So I wanna talk about Kind of some things I would do differently. So first off, I would immediately DM all the hiring managers I spoke with last year while I got an— whether I got an offer from them or not to see if they were hiring. So I probably interviewed last before I got the job at Gun.io for about 10 to 15 people or 10 to 15 companies. And I made pretty good relationships with all those hiring managers. Yeah. Yes, I didn't get an offer from all of them, but I developed a really good rapport with a lot of those managers. And so basically what I would do is anybody who you interviewed last go-around when it comes to job search, I would hop on and message them like, hey, so-and-so, I think I'm getting laid off or I just got laid off. Would love to chat. Let's talk about it. And so I absolutely do that. I think you'll be able to resurrect a lot of opportunities that you didn't think you would have because it's all about timing. It's all about timing. Again, one calendar year has gone by for me if that would happen to me. I'm sure the people I'd message a year ago, that wasn't the right time and/or like we just couldn't, like it wasn't quite the fit. It may be a fit now, right? So please message the people who you obviously spoke to a year ago. Taya, it's good to see you this morning. All right. The second thing I would do is there would be a lot of— so I would again do the outreach on LinkedIn, do the outreach on Twitter, do the outreach on whatever platform that you're on that you think basically your target market is. And I would take as many calls as possible. Now, one thing I remember from last year is that a lot of people would go, hey Taylor, I'm not really hiring right now. We're not in a position to hire right now. I think the common thing that most people do when a hiring manager says that, they'd be like, okay, all right, no worries. No, no, no, no, no. The reason why you need to have every single conversation, even if the company says they're not hiring, is because they don't know what you've been up to the last year or 2 years or however long it's been since you've been laid off last interview with them. Like they still have a framework in their mind of who you were a year ago, 2 years ago, 3 years ago. And so when you message them like, hey, Garrett, Garrett's tuned in, let's just say Garrett's hiring, man. You're like, hey Garrett, interviewed with you 2 years ago, didn't know if you're hiring right now, would love to chat with you. Garrett'd be like, well, I'm not really looking to hire right now. I'd be like, that's okay, let's still chat. You get on the phone with Garrett, then you talk to Garrett about what you've done the last 2 years and Garrett goes, Oh shoot, you actually could be a fit because you've developed these skills last 2 years. I didn't think of you that way 2 years ago. You could actually be a good fit either on my team or somebody else's team, right? So have those conversations, right? It's all about activity. The job search is like, again, the job search is like being a recruiter, right? If you wanna know what the job search is like, like as a job, that's what a recruiter does. And so that's why I tell people, activity, activity, activity, have the conversations. Even if a hiring manager just is like, hey, we're not looking to hire right now, that'd be like, hey, that's totally fine. Let's talk. Again, reengage people from a year, 2, 3 years ago when you got laid off, ask them for a conversation. Even if they're not hiring, have the conversation with them anyways. Jason, what's up, buddy? It's good to see you, man, this morning. All right, next bullet point. Third one, iterate on your resume. You probably haven't touched your resume like me in at least a year. So there's been a lot to add and my resume is getting kind of long, right? So I mean, like literally, like when I was on the job search at Vayco, my resume was already pretty long, right? So if I were to go on the job search again right now, like I would have to condense it, right? So like with Vayco, if you put out all the things I've done at Vayco, it was 3 pages. If I were to go on the job search right now, we'd probably be on 4 pages. That's too much. I don't care how senior you are in your career, like 3 pages in my opinion is the max you need to do, right? So, but I like, I haven't touched my resume in a year. I haven't had any excuse to touch my resume in a year. Like I know I say, hey, touch on your resume, add things to your resume, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Listen, at the end of the day, I'm human, I don't do it. One of the reasons why I do this live every day is to keep myself accountable, right? So you probably have not touched your resume in a year or 2 years or 3 years or whenever since you've been laid off. So iterate on your resume. If you're getting a little long from a resume style perspective, make sure every single bullet point drives the needle. Words are hard. I did not sleep well last night. My newborn was up all night. So move the needle, move the needle, drive things forward, right? So again, if you read a bullet point and you're like, if you read the bullet point and you kind of go, Take it out, take it out, right? Every single bullet point, especially in this market right now, everything needs to show that you move the needle in some way, shape, or form. Jason, I know, dude, I know, I know. So basically make friends, talk lots, be— yeah, almost annoyingly present. I mean, I mean, I'm gonna be honest with you, this is kind of the job search. Make friends, talk a lot, and be almost annoyingly— and be almost annoyingly present. I mean, I would, I would say that's basically the job search in and of itself, right? Get on as many lives, get as many Discords, have conversations, engage, engage, engage, engage, slide into the DMs. Hey, are you hiring? No, we're not hiring. That's okay. Are you willing to have a conversation? Have the conversation, right? Eat, sleep, rinse, repeat, right? I mean, that is literally it. All right, next bullet point here. Um, start DMing folks that you've recently met at meetups, conferences, or even within the last year. This is why going to meetups and conferences is a big big deal because most likely you will have rapport with that person immediately. So when I was on the job search, when I got laid off at Vayco, where did I go to? I wonder if I— I don't think I have the list immediately present. I think I'm making these numbers up slightly, but I messaged around like 15. I had about 15 to 20 job leads when I got laid off at Vayco. I would say out of those, let's just say 20. Out of those 20 job leads, I would say 15 of them were because of conferences, meetups, in-person relationships. 15 out of 20, right? Listen, you go to the meetups, you go to the conferences, not necessarily for the present, but for what it could be in the future, right? Like, are you gonna get a ton of ROI of going to a meetup on a Thursday night talking about some technology that you have no idea about? No, but you could meet somebody at that meetup That would be a huge game changer for you if you were to get laid off a year later, right? So like again, I mean it that is the type of stuff that you have to keep in mind. What I would do, so I was I was having a conversation. I was I was having a conversation with somebody and they brought up a really good point. When you go on LinkedIn, when you go to your friends or connections or followers and you open that up, LinkedIn basically. Um, uh, like revert it. Your connections are sorted based off most recent, right? So like when— so when I go to a conference, like when I went to Render, the latest conference I went to, Render ATL, when I got home I could pull up my LinkedIn followers or connections or whatever, and in order, the ones at the top are the ones I connected from Render, right? So again, like use that to your advantage. The, the connections at the top of your LinkedIn are the ones you connected with recently, so reach out to them. Let's see here. Jordan comes in here. We have a quarterly performance review. That's a good reminder what you— yeah. I mean, listen, if you have performance reviews, quarterly performance reviews, I would use that time to update your resume for sure because if you're gonna meet with your manager, you're gonna need to know how you move the needle on a consistent basis. So I think that is a great one. All right, what else? Let's see here. Number 6, which is the final one. Again, this is a Twitter thread. that I, that I put out. Start to create a list of places and people you've spoken with, interviewed, that are solid leads, and keep them close and keep checking in. Those things that will fuel the start of your job search. Yeah, so, so again, start to create a list of places and, and people you've spoken with. So one of the things that I did, um, is when I was on the job search last year is I had an Apple Notes, uh, an Apple Note, and I had Hot, lukewarm, meh, right? Hot, lukewarm, meh. And every conversation that I would have, I would categorize. Is this a hot opportunity? Is this a something's here? Or is this like a is meh? Like this probably won't go anywhere, but let's just write it down just to keep that in the back of my brain, right? What that allowed me to do is every morning, every morning when I was on job search last year. The opportunities in the hot is I would check in with those people every day, every day. Again, with the job search, you gotta understand something, y'all. The job search, like while you think it's all about you, it's very rarely just about you, right? The hiring manager's trying, I mean, literally Kelly Vaughn, right? Who I'm giving that presentation with on Monday, she texted me today. Hold on real quick. She texted me today and goes, so she put out a job 24 hours ago and got 2,500 applicants. 24 hours ago, 2,500 applicants. She had to close the opportunity in 24 hours because she got so overrun, right? Listen, you've got to cut through the noise. Follow-up's incredibly important, right? One of the reasons why I like working with Kelly on a lot of things is she kind of sends me some communication stuff. Like, there are people There are people sliding in our DMs like, hey, hey, hey, I just, hey, I just applied my— submitted my resume, here's my background, right? And like, you have to stand out right now, but also know that people are overwhelmed. So the follow-up, the follow-up is everything. Nobody ever annoys me with too much follow-up. If you follow up with me once a day as a recruiter, you will never annoy me. Now, I may not respond to you every day, But you're gonna be top of brain for me, right? So again, be aggressive. The reason why I have a job at Gun.io is because they told me, hey, we're gonna wait to hire somebody. I knew in the back of my recruiter brain that, hey, it's not gonna take that long. You know, it's either gonna be a yes or no. So what they told me to follow up at the end of the month, this was the beginning of the month at that time. What did I do? I followed up the next week and then I got the job offer, right? I mean, the follow-up is everything right now. Let's see here. John comes in here. Had to switch my phone. Switched to my phone, might have missed it, but reach out to old coworkers. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yep, exactly, John. Yeah, this is what we talked about. Also reach out to your most recent coworkers. Yeah, most recent coworkers are great. Again, you're most likely gonna find your job through your network, right? I'm gonna say that one more time. You're most likely gonna find your job through your network, right? I'm all about outreach, right? Send the DMs, slide into the DMs, do the thing, right? Like, like, like, like, I'm, I'm all about that. But I think right now in this market, the power of the referral is going to be huge. Like, I mean, it's just, it's just everything right now. The power of the referral is, is absolutely everything. So, uh, reach out to people who you worked with. Like, if I were to get laid off now, I'd probably still reach out to people at Bayco that I worked with, you know, a year and a half ago. Like, again, definitely keep your nucleus tight when it comes to job search. Um, if If you do wanna be kept up to loop with kind of, I know I'm plugging it, but if you do wanna be kept up to date with kind of my job search tips, would love to have you subscribe to my newsletter. I'm gonna throw it in the chat here. Basically, if you just go to gc20.beehive.com, that is that. But I include a bunch of tips and tricks like this. Let's see here. Nick, it's good to see you. Cool, that's it. Short, simple, to the point. I just wanted to share this Twitter thread, talk about it briefly because it got so much traction on Twitter. So I was like, ah, I probably should share it from a live perspective. So again, biggest thing, again, to recap for those of you who maybe have just tuned in, the kind of the 6 stages, 6 steps I would do if I were to get laid off. One, immediately DM all the hiring managers I spoke to when I was last on the job search. Number 2, take every single call, even if a hiring manager or a person goes, Hey, we're not hiring right now, still take the call. Most likely it's because they've developed a narrative in their minds about who you were 2 years ago, 3 years ago, 1 year ago when you're on the job search. You've maybe developed some skills that may trigger in their brain where they may have a job for you. Iterate on your resume. You probably haven't touched your resume in the last year, 2 years, 3 years since you've been laid off. If you are creeping on a long resume like mine, like right now mine's at 3 pages without including my current gig. Every single bullet point needs to move the needle. If it is a vague bullet point and it's just kind of meh, take it out. Take it out, please. Start DMing folks you've recently gone to meetups or conferences. So if you've been like, if you went to Render ATL this year, message the people that you met at Render ATL. If you've been to a local meetup a few times this year, message the people at the local meetup. Again, the in-person connections are the thing that's gonna get you through in this job search right now. Next thing, Oh, I totally forgot this. I totally forgot to talk about this. Take some time to nail down your about me statement. So my current role has taught me a ton of new skills even in just a year at Gun.io. So I would have to sit for a minute and figure out how to work my past role into my current role and what my value offering could be for a next company. So again, like my thing is, is just like, you know, The about me statement. Like, hiring managers right now, hiring managers right now is like, be focused on what value you can add to the organization. So make sure you nail down your about me statement. And then finally, create a list of places, keep your hot opportunities to the top, check in every single day. Check in is everything. So that's it. Thank y'all again for tuning in, hanging out with me Friday morning. I appreciate it for a few minutes. Go check out my newsletter if you like this information. Again, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram. Appreciate y'all. Hope you have a great rest of your Friday. We are back live next week with a great bunch of episodes and guests. Again, Monday, 9:30 AM Central, Gun.io's LinkedIn page, talking about AI with people who are actually using AI. You guys have a good one. Take it easy. Peace. Peace.