Richardson, 40, has been working remotely with her favorite team in Raleigh, N.C., for the past four months and found her breakthrough when she and nearly 11,000 of her colleagues lost their jobs.
“I just started shaking,” she said. “I’ve never been in that position before. … ‘Oh my God, what if I don’t get a job?’ I started thinking.
Richardson joins hundreds of thousands of tech workers in the same boat — out of work unexpectedly and hunting for the next gig. Twitter, Meta, Stripe, Lyft, and recently Salesforce and Amazon are among the most prominent companies that have cut their workforces.
Many out-of-work tech workers are finding jobs, but they say they are few and far between and have to fight for new top talent. Roles. Many workers say the layoffs aren’t keeping workers out of the tech industry. And they still see technology jobs as opportunities for professional growth and increased income. But the cuts are causing them to look for roles that can offer more job security in the long run.
The data shows that the outlook is not so bleak just yet. Employers added nearly 223,000 jobs in December, and the unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Friday. The tech layoffs aren’t entirely a reflection of economic conditions, Rand Guyad, LinkedIn’s head of economics and global labor markets, wrote in a recent blog post. They are partly a movement to return to formal employment.
Richardson posted on LinkedIn a month after he was fired to let her network know she was open to new opportunities. When you start applying for a job In December and January, she noticed that she was competing against hundreds, if not thousands, of similar positions in her industry. (LinkedIn shows how many candidates are at the top of a job posting.)
“The competition will be tougher,” she said. “For the jobs I applied for, I got more rejection notices than I ever had before,” she said.
Hiring in the tech, information and media industry is at its lowest level since July 2020, according to LinkedIn member data. Still, 40 percent of LinkedIn members who held jobs in November remained in the industry. Others are out for professional services, such as legal or accounting firms or the financial services industry. According to data from ZiPRecruiter, tech workers may not have much longer to wait to land their next gig. Among tech workers surveyed, 37 percent found a new job within a month, and 79 percent were hired within three months.
For Megan Moaks, being fired was an unfortunately common experience, but this one might have come at a worse time since her husband had just been fired two days earlier. Moaks, 37, of Dallas, has been fired four times in her career.
“You’re numb by the fourth time,” Moax said. “We went from a two-income family to a one-income family in 48 hours.”
Moaks says her problem is in stark contrast to her husband, who seems more in-demand as a video game developer. But as someone who has worked in client relations roles for tech companies large and small, she’s often applying to jobs with 350 to 3,600 other candidates, many from Big Tech companies, she said. As a result, she begins to doubt her own abilities and achievements.
“I feel like I’m lost in a sea of numbers,” she said.
Vahan Terterian has applied for at least 150 positions since losing his job in December, but only a handful have responded with interest. The 26-year-old Denver resident was most recently a product manager at rental technology company Nomad, where he worked for seven months before his legs arrived.
“I had a sinking feeling in my chest,” he recalls thinking about his impending resignation.
After taking a few days to recover from the shock of losing his job, Terterian said he’s also starting to realize how much people are up against him for the current vacancies — a much different reality than when he quit in May.
“The market is flooded with high-quality talent,” he said. “So it seems slower than when I first got this job in May. He was getting stronger. [back then]He said.
Terterian said he is asking employers more specific questions about financial stability, employment and their outlook on hiring other layoffs.
For 36-year-old Amber Adamson, the strategy is to hone her coding skills to make her more employable in technology. Adamson, a resident of Norristown, Penn., transitioning from her teaching career, started her first technical job as a junior email developer for veterinary services company Covetrace in June but was set in September.
Barriers to new entrants to the industry are many, she says. First, the prerequisites for entry-level positions often require years of experience, she says. Then there are the hundreds of eligible candidates she is competing against. Laid-off workers from Big Tech companies are increasingly posting their job offers.
“I’m hoping to make myself more available to employers, so they can help me,” she said. “You really have to be ready to sell yourself because the market is saturated.”
Some workers are finding that the best route to a new job is through professional networking. Charel Starr, former head of brand media, social media and partnerships, who has worked in marketing for the past 20 years, was part of Meta’s layoff in November after working at the company.
The Maplewood, NJ, resident was four months into her five-month maternity leave. It was the second sack of her career.
Starr said the best leads are coming from connections who heard about her layoff or saw her post on LinkedIn. She’s getting tips on unposted jobs or roles that haven’t yet been created, and some of her hiring connections are turning employers over to her. Therefore, she says, people who are being laid off are creating a sense of community despite increasing competition.
“There’s a friend we go through here,” she said. “I advise people to start networking and connect with old contacts…you never know where an opportunity will come from.”
Richardson, a former content designer at Meta, says she’s finding creativity in her job search. She has a fashion background and is finding her big dream jobs in media, fashion, retail, entertainment and technology. How big is it? She said she met with the head of human resources from Parkwood Entertainment and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter’s company and was approached by the Obama Foundation.
“My advice is to have a positive attitude, and don’t be afraid to take your shot,” she said.
Five quick tips for job seekers
- Include a summary: All professional profiles and resumes should have a summary at the top, which highlights a job seeker’s most marketable skills and gives employers a sense of their personality. This is even more important for candidates who do not have direct work experience for the position they are applying for.
- Use keywords: Professional profiles, especially online ones, should be peppered with keywords to get the candidate past the computer systems that first review their credentials. Experts say that job seekers should research the most common characteristics and skills required for the job and include them if necessary.
- Highlight achievements. Job seekers should avoid relying on job descriptions to explain their previous experience. Instead, they should highlight their achievements in as much detail as possible.
- Connect with experts online. Candidates’ professional networks can often lead to the next job. Experts say job seekers should connect with people they know in industries they are interested in. But they should ask friends, family, and colleagues for introductions, and send messages to people they have no connection with.
- Post on social media: To increase your chances of getting hired, experts say job seekers should post on their personal social media accounts to let people know they’re looking for work and provide details about what they hope to find.
