I landed my new dream job two weeks after getting laid off due to COVID: here are my top tips
On day one, April 6th, hour one of getting laid off from Hopper, I cried. Probably for the whole hour. I’m not a person who cries much, but losing your dream job and not knowing if you’ll be able to find something half as good while it feels like the world is ending is the kind of thing that I think would make just about anyone cry.
Two weeks later, I’m here writing this article 22 informational calls and interviews, 3 amazing offers, and 1 decision later feeling pretty on top of the world again. I accepted my new dream role, leading growth marketing at Cash App. But I’m not here to brag, I’m here to pay it forward and give my top insights of how I made it happen in case they can help anyone in this process.
Quickly, before I get into it, if you’re reading this and are fortunate to have a job, here are the top 3 things you can do to help.
Let’s start with the easiest. As often as you can, go on LinkedIn and like ANY post you see about someone getting laid off. Read the next section to find out why, but trust me, it’s free for you to do, and you are making a positive impact. If you have something nice to say, comments are even better. Your engagement helps that person’s post get in front of the eyes of your connections, and in turn perhaps your connections connections. Someone along the way may be able to help.
If your company is hiring, update your title to say (position/team) @ (company) — we’re still hiring. Still will help differentiate from old statuses. Or you can update this in your profile in your bio. Many job seekers are seeing that companies look like they are hiring as reflected by job postings and people’s profiles.
If you have time or connections in a particular industry or position, look at positions and flag some for your friends where you can connect them with someone.
Now, for job seekers during these tough times. This is very different than a normal job search. Normally you have to sneak around, be low key, not alert your employer you might be looking. In this case, take advantage and do the opposite. Treat this as a PR exercise, make yourself as visible as possible, and therefore maximize your opportunities.
I will admit I spent a day deciding if I wanted to announce anything, to get over my pride and say to the world that I was laid off. But consider this: people have never been more compassionate to those laid off than they are today. I feel you truly have nothing to lose by putting yourself out there and so much to gain. The key is to do so deliberately with a plan. Here was mine:
Make a LinkedIn post. You might wonder if it’s worth it, why add to the sea of posts and bad news. But at least in my experience, it got a lot of eyes and exposure. I can trace at least half of the calls I had back to the post I made. Here are some numbers that might convince you:
Here’s my post on LinkedIn. You’ll notice it got some good engagement, but the more important thing is how many views it got, clearly far beyond my own network. Below that, I have the graph of my profile views, which clearly spiked to a 3,504% increase week over week. I do not normally post a lot on LinkedIn.
My LinkedIn post and engagement
The resulting profile view growth
If you do this right, you can get some great eyeballs on your profile who might be hiring. Don’t be afraid to nudge a few people to get some initial engagement (DM me! I’ll like it for you). You will truly exploit the network of your network by doing this, as even just someone liking your post gets it very easily surfaced on your connection’s first connections.
2. If you’re able to get LinkedIn premium, you can see who has viewed your profile — use this to see who you reached with your post and reach out to them if there’s anything available at their company. I know some LinkedIn employees have been giving out free trials of premium (that’s how I got mine!). Try checking the hashtags #linkedinpremium or #inittogether to see if you can snag a premium subscription for free.
3. Update your LinkedIn “open to opportunities” section with any relevant titles, AND make it visible to all LinkedIn members. This will help you get surfaced by recruiters, but also helps others contextualize whether you might be interested in a role they have at their company they can refer you to.
4. Update your headline to reflect that you are seeking new roles, but keep your old title. This provides context for potential referrers, recruiters, or hiring managers to know that you’re looking and if you could be a fit for roles they have as you comment on things, post, or come up in searches.
5. Don’t be afraid to reach out to anyone for a referral. This is a nightmare overall, but people are more open than ever to helping each other out and paying it forward. Reach out to whoever, even if it’s someone you haven’t talked to in 10 years. My referral to Cash App was a someone I went to high school with for A YEAR like, 10+ years ago and he was so gracious and happy to help me out!
6. Ask your former boss and or co-workers for meaningful recommendations. My former boss was kind enough to write me a great recommendation for my LinkedIn, and he and a couple co-workers commented kind things on my announcement post. Several times, these recommendations were mentioned as reasons that people reached out to me. People want to assume the best of everyone who has been laid off in these tough times, but social proof of how awesome and valued you are by your team never hurts.
7. For any positions you find yourself, ALWAYS look for a 1st or 2nd connect. This is a golden rule in recruiting generally, but particularly in these times this is key for two reasons. ONE: there are more applicants than ever and less jobs than ever. Getting a referral gets your resume read, period but also will help expedite your process. TWO: you can get insight into how the company is faring through these time and if they are truly hiring.
8. Post on other social media. You never know who missed your LinkedIn post or -gasp- doesn’t have LinkedIn whose company is hiring, or might know someone who is hiring. Spread the word! If nothing else, doing this led to a lot of really kind outreach from people I haven’t talked to in a while and some rekindled friendships.
9. Set alerts on LinkedIn, AngelList, Google jobs, for your keywords that match your open to opportunities titles. Seeing what comes up every day is helpful, and is a good reminder that believe it or not, there are jobs being posted every day.
Originally published 04.22.2020 on Medium