Navigating Layoffs — A Recipe for Rehab
By: Saurabh Shanbhag
Tags: LinkedIn, Technology, Interview, Layoffs, Job Search

2020 has been a very interesting year.

Every kind of global crisis has knocked on our door. From world war III scares and wildfires to a global pandemic that caused the economy to plummet and cause a national shortage of toilet paper; we’ve been through a lot. Humankind had its hands so full that UFO sightings and asteroid threats were deemed insignificant. Although all this impacted everyone everywhere, it personally knocked on my door on May 7, 2020.

Okay, don’t look away. I did not get the virus. But I was impacted by a chain of events caused by it. I used to work at Uber in the JUMP bikes team. Due to the pandemic induced lockdowns, JUMP bikes stopped operations in 90% of their markets and Uber’s entire business was down by 80%. Uber decided that it was best for the business to merge with Lime, a competitor. This meant that there would be redundancy in the teams, and since the operations were going to be handled by Lime, around 80% of the workforce in the JUMP team was let go. I wasn’t lucky enough to be part of the remainder. But here’s something I have learned about luck in the recent past; you can only tell which way it went in hindsight. More on that later.

JUMP Bikes Being Squeezed up like a piece of Lime </3

The month of May was nothing less than a roller coaster, both mentally and emotionally. I remember the night of May 6, I was on a call with my parents, discussing my career plans for the next few years. I shared my ambition of possibly getting promoted in the next cycle at Uber, and then moving to the UberEats team to solve a different set of technical challenges and grow as an engineer. The next morning, I woke up to an email from Uber’s CEO announcing the merger and what it meant for my team. That email was followed by a bunch of HR meeting invites. I knew my time was up.

My dreams, aspirations and goals were all snatched away in one quick second. I used to thank my lucky stars that I had an excellent manager and found passion in my work. When I realized that this ride was coming to an end, I hit rock bottom.

The journey

The primary intent behind sharing my story is to help someone who is going through a similar phase. If you find yourself in a challenging spot right now, I hope my episode helps you find some inspiration and spark confidence within yourself.

My overall journey from being laid off to starting my next adventure lasted 4 weeks. Needless to say that I had already started preparing for interviews a couple of weeks before the layoffs, as had all other Uber employees, thanks to the plethora of rumors. It was tough, trying to get things done whilst your career hangs by a thread.

Since the lockdown, it wasn’t uncommon to see people losing their jobs. I used to empathize with them. It was only now that I could understand their real agony. I was battling myself contemplating what to feel — sad, betrayed, nostalgic, scared, nervous, thankful, or uncertain. On the day of, I had to sit through multiple meetings going over the consequences of the layoff and the next steps for the separation. The fact that one day, you are fully invested in your work, team and company and the next day, you are given badge returning instructions, was a hard pill to swallow. I was heartbroken; realizing that I won’t get to step into that office ever again and meet the people I loved working with so much.

The primary culprit in this story was definitely the uncertainty. Firstly, the pandemic induced recession had caused a lot of companies to let go of their employees whilst others had decided to freeze their hiring operations. To add fuel to the fire, my visa situation ended up in a messy state which added a strict timeline for me to find a job within a month, before my US work authorization expired. Honestly, I thought my days in the US were numbered.

Week 1

Following the status quo, I brushed up my resume and put up a LinkedIn post asking my network for leads. That was followed by an entire day of phone calls, most of them from my friends and well wishers consoling me with words like “everything will be fine, it is a blessing in disguise”. Soon enough, I had a few initial recruiter calls lined up. A lot of friends, relatives, connections and acquaintances came to my aid as they connected me with people who were actively hiring. The fact that I was getting responses and attention from recruiters was a great sign. I only have Uber and its brand name to thank for it. Some faith in the universe was restored.

I scheduled phone screens with every recruiter or manager that reached out or responded to my messages. My calendar for the entire week already looked quite full. I had to juggle these interviews with HR webinars and immigration attorney sessions. I received positive feedback from these initial phone calls, which boosted my confidence. I invested my day hours into interviews and used up any extra time for reaching out to more prospective employers. My evening and night hours were fully dedicated to practice and prep. I believed that going full force was the best strategy for me.

Week 2 and 3

The following two weeks were full of second rounds and virtual on-site interviews. After clearing the initial technical screens, I managed to schedule a few final rounds of interviews by the end of week 2. I followed my mantra — Interview by day, practice by night. On Friday, 5/22, 2 weeks into the process, I finally heard the golden words — “We would like to extend an offer”. It was a moment of tremendous relief, which can’t be put into words. I somehow managed to keep calm through the call. After hanging up, it was time to celebrate!

Gratefully, my week 3 schedule was packed with more final interviews. I wanted to try harder to land a better offer at a bigger company. I thus continued interviewing. By the end of the week, I received a couple more offers. From being confident and relieved, I was now spoilt for choice. It was truly a great feeling.

My Calendar for the Month of May

Week 4

After finishing up on a couple more virtual on-site interviews in week 4, I put my pen down. That’s right, no more interviews. I was now in a better place as my calls were now about discussing offers and negotiating. That, for me, was in itself a success story.

My key takeaways

As you can imagine, going through this struggle helped me realize a lot of important things about myself, my career goals, the tech industry and life in general. Some of my beliefs were shaken to the core.

Visibility matters

I frankly do not know the parameters behind the decision of my layoff. But I can’t stop wondering that if I could’ve built stronger relations with the senior managers, I possibly could’ve been held back from the layoff. I now realize that being vocal about your contributions and actively participating in more meetings and team events helps you stand out. Positive interaction with the higher management and being known by as many people as possible as a valuable team member has its perks.

Suspense is scarier than reality

I still remember the two weeks before the layoffs. General news had been confirmed by the CEO, and rumors about my team’s merger were floating around. I could not sleep. Every morning I’d wake up to check my inbox to see if it had the dreaded HR email, only to realize that it’s just 3.30am and I need to go back to sleep. On D-day, it was the same morning routine. Only this time, my inbox had that email. Among the thousand feelings that I felt in that moment, I would be lying if I said that relief wasn’t one of them. I said to myself — “Okay. This is the reality now. No more suspense, I have a direction to think”. I slept that night.

I now realize that the suspense was way scarier than the reality. Take roller coasters for example. Are you more scared when you are on the ride or when you are waiting in line anticipating how scary it is going to be? I love how Will Smith explains this theory sharing his encounter with skydiving. To quote him, ‘God placed the best things in life on the other side of fear’. So do not worry about anything until you have to.

True value of Friends and Family

As soon as they heard about it, all my friends immediately extended their helping hand for me. Many acquaintances also came to my aid, reaching out to people for me and informing me about companies that were actively hiring. There were a few juniors that I had previously helped. I now realized the importance of having that connection as they proactively tried to help me. My parents and my sister tried to make sure my mental state wasn’t too terrible. My friends tried to make sure I was not alone. My girlfriend helped me through each step of it, and didn’t let anything hurdle my motivation. I owe it all to them, big time. I now realize the true value of their love and friendship, and I would never make the mistake of taking these for granted.

Moving out of the US isn’t really the worst option

Previously, I was fully invested in the idea of the American dream as everything was going according to my plan. Now that I was presented with this debacle, I had to consider all possible future outcomes. I was scared that if nothing works out, I would need to go back to India. Slowly, as I considered this a bit more seriously and weighed a few parameters, I realized that it was not necessarily a bad option. I agree that the US is the leader in technological innovations and research, and the value for work here is unparalleled, which is why it is the best place for someone in tech. But that does not mean great things are not possible elsewhere. India is currently a fast-growing harbor for tech, with many companies expanding operations there. Although I got back on my feet pretty quickly, this realization was important for me to think about my future goals.

How to land a job: My $0.02

I wish to share what worked for me, so that someone going through a similar phase might find these tips useful. I know how clueless it feels to be in this situation, so I hope to give any such wanderer a sense of direction.

LinkedIn is your best friend

I can’t stress this enough. LinkedIn is by far the best resource in such a time. It is hard to accept, but online applications take a lot of time. They cannot be trusted to help you land a job quickly. Being proactive on LinkedIn is your best bet. You’d be amazed at the number of people struggling to find good employees for their teams out there. You just need to find one such person.

Start by updating your LinkedIn headline. I put the following: Ex-Uber | Actively seeking full-time Software Engineering opportunities. Refer to this checklist to build a profile that stands out.

Ask your manager or colleagues to leave recommendations on your profile. When the people you work closely with share positive things about their experience working with you, it testifies to your value as an employee and has a positive impact on your prospects as a candidate.

Create a killer resume

Remember, all your experiences, skills, life learnings are going to be judged through that one piece of paper (.pdf). So make sure you do thorough research to understand what works best in the industry and follow that. These are a few links I found useful for the tech industry.

One easy way to make your resume stand out is to make it look different by focusing on the aesthetic aspect along with the content. Adding a color instantly helps you make it pleasing for the eyes to read, compared to the generic template. Make sure your resume is concise and covers all details, with impact verbs and numbers. Get your resume reviewed by a few people in your network. Good or bad, feedback is always valuable.

My Final Resume (Draft no. 9972921 lol)

Get on the radar

Once your LinkedIn profile is ready, turn on the ‘Open to work’ switch. That would help the recruiters shortlist your profile easily. Get a LinkedIn premium membership if you can, it surely helps. It supposedly puts your profile above other candidates and gets more eyes on your resume.

Uber had a talent directory for all employees that were laid off. A lot of recruiters and managers that contacted me shared that they found my contact through this resource. Try to find one for your company, if it exists. If not, definitely check out other talent directories like layoffs.fyi and parachutelist.com.

Reach out to the network

Start from your friends and relatives. Ask them to reach out to their recruiters or managers, submit referrals or just pass on your profile to their network. Then you can start targeting the masses.

Tip 1 : An easy first target would be people who have posted that they are actively hiring for relevant positions. These can be found on LinkedIn by searching for the keyword “Hiring Position” (eg. Hiring Software Engineer)” in ‘Content’. These people are trying hard to fill multiple positions in their team and are possibly desperate for good talent. They will act fast and schedule an interview right away, if they find your skills to be a good match.

: An easy first target would be people who have posted that they are actively hiring for relevant positions. These can be found on LinkedIn by searching for the keyword “Hiring Position” (eg. Hiring Software Engineer)” in ‘Content’. These people are trying hard to fill multiple positions in their team and are possibly desperate for good talent. They will act fast and schedule an interview right away, if they find your skills to be a good match. Tip 2 : One thing I realized was that managers are way more responsive than recruiters. They know what their team needs and if they like your profile, they will push for it and expedite it. Their positive bias towards your candidacy will help you get the offer. So try reaching out to hiring managers directly with your resume.

: One thing I realized was that managers are way more responsive than recruiters. They know what their team needs and if they like your profile, they will push for it and expedite it. Their positive bias towards your candidacy will help you get the offer. So try reaching out to hiring managers directly with your resume. Tip 3: Make a list of companies that you know are recruiting and another list for companies that have frozen hiring. You can channelize and track your efforts better that way. Do not waste time on the companies that aren’t hiring.

Track everything

One way you can excel in such an overwhelming time is by managing it. There will be hundreds of things happening each day and the only way to get through all of them successfully is by being prepared. I maintained my google calendar and spreadsheets since day 1 and made sure I put each and every task, big or small, high priority or low, on it.

Practice, Practice and more Practice

There’s no shortcut to practicing your technical skills. There’s no way around it. All the other tips won’t help if your technical preparation is subpar. I had already started practicing a bit before the layoff. But the couple of weeks after the layoffs were the ones where I actually pushed the pedal. I spent as many productive hours as humanly possible practicing.

Mock Interviews

A good practicing technique is doing mock interviews with someone else who is in the same boat. Luckily for me, I had teammates who were going through the exact same thing. We did mock interviews almost every evening. They proved to be super helpful to get back in the groove and get constructive feedback about the interview performance.

Author a Script

To be and seem more confident in the interview, being clear with your words is extremely important. For this, I created an interview script document where I put my entire professional history into eloquent words. Think deeply about every experience, project, decision, idea that you’ve contributed to and are proud of. Think about the skills involved, expertise gained and the impact created. Practice narrating this story in the STAR format — four sentence anecdotes to cover each aspect of your professional life. This script can help avoid pauses and stuttering, and help create a better impact in the interviews by keeping your answers to the point.

Crack the Interview

Although it is not necessarily a factor you are actively judged upon, looking presentable is extremely important. An interview is not only a test of your skills, but also an opportunity for the interviewer to determine if they’ll enjoy having you in the team. So turning up the charm is equally important. As for video interviews, the frame and the lighting should be suitable. Strong hand movements can be used to display a positive body language.

You increase your chances considerably by just being yourself. You can’t just fake it till you make it. Trusting your gut and believing in your skills will help you create a great impact in the interview. Definitely feel free to joke around and lighten the mood in the interview. People love someone who can make them laugh.

Accept and Recover

Although the situation might seem painful, the best thing you could do for yourself is to accept it. If you get stuck on it, you won’t be able to focus on the tough task ahead. There’s no option but to recover fast and put all your focus on the future than the past.

Like everything else in the world, this shall also pass. Have faith in the fact that this is a temporary situation and it is only going to get better. There are millions of people dealing with worse things. We cannot stop the pandemic, but preparing well for a job interview is well within our capacity. So take it as an opportunity and believe in the fact that the next gig is going to be way better than the last one. I got a lot of “it’s a blessing in disguise” consolation, but trust me, I now know that it is up to us to actually turn it into a blessing. Have faith in your abilities. You were good enough to do well at the earlier job, right? Once you believe that you are indeed a good employee, the only challenge left is to make the interviewer believe so, and that’s it, you’re in.

This is a feature, not a bug

To end this long read, I just wish to share how things have panned out for me since. I started working at Amazon and the last two months have been quite amazing. My visa situation was completely taken care of. By the end of my job search, I had multiple offers to pick from. I got offered positions higher than my prior level at Uber with a salary hike. With that, the new job came with a joining cash bonus. To add to that, Uber offered severance packages for employees that were laid off. These are great perks if you think about it, at the cost of some mental breakdown, of course. Now, I get the benefit of experiencing a new culture at Amazon and the opportunity to build a diverse career and try out more things than I would have otherwise. The interview process gave me a chance to make really good connections with managers, recruiters and people from many great companies. I moved in closer to my grad school friends in the Bay Area. Overall, things fell into place pretty well, better than I ever expected, I guess. To put a cherry on top of the cake, since last week, I am the proud owner of a new Tesla Model 3. This process rewarded me with my dream car! Now that I look back, it was indeed a ‘Blessing in disguise’!