The Unemployment Guide
Guys, you blew up my last two blog posts hahaha. I’ve never had that many texts or DMs, but the Facebookers are alive and well. It’s such a privilege to have so many of you to lean on and give me advice and just rooting for me — it’s a special feeling, so thank you.
Okay, so let’s get down to business. I know what you all really want to know about, and that is, how was my first week at the new gig. Let me tell you, it was exhausting. I mean before I started, so many people asked me if I was nervous for the job and I truly wasn’t. I feel like one of those fiancés or brides that say “when you know, you know” but I really feel that way. What I was super nervous about was staying awake for a full day without napping, navigating Grand Central terminal at rush hour, getting lost in the office or not liking any of my coworkers. You know, the important stuff. No, but all jokes aside, it has been the most fulfilling weeks in a really long time. I hate when people say oh “it’s a blessing in disguise” because it’s so cheesy and corny but this is the most “blessing in disguise situation” I’ve ever experienced. Lets be serious, it didn’t fucking feel like a blessing when I was going through it but I totally feel like a new person. So, with this new chapter, we are switching gears. We are entering the next season of the blog and now we will shift to the pink era (not that you care in the slightest, but its important to me). This pink era is really going to be about finding the good in the bad and creating new things with what I have - you’ll see what I mean, eventually.
Anyway, even though I didn’t “announce” that I got a job til like the day before I started, I actually knew for quite some time. I was just waiting for something to go wrong, but to my surprise it never did. I got a variety of messages - a lot of congrats, obviously — but I got some messages that seemed very fake (you know who you are) and some very sweet, genuine messages — but I also had a lot of people reach out asking how tf I landed a job so quickly after being laid off. Instead of repeating the story over and over, I figured I would compile all of the tips and tricks into one blog post to share so that maybe it could help someone else, struggling or looking to make a change. I’ll just preface this by saying that just because it worked for me doesn’t mean it will for you, but here we go.
Embrace your situation
I was so deathly afraid of being asked about the layoff. What was I going to say? How do you spin that news in a good way? I thought I was less than what I was because I was impacted by something that is very normal (unfortunately) in today’s world. But the key here was to use that to my advantage. Before interviewing, I was planning on not telling anyone about the layoff and only addressing it if they asked. I cannot recommend that you do not do that enough. When I actually started getting into conversations, I decided not only to not hide it, but to get ahead of it. Very early on, I decided to make sure that it was part of every first round interview I had.
No, I didn’t do it so that they would pity me. I did it for two reasons, the first being that I wanted to see how they perceived layoffs based on their reaction because I don’t want to work for someone who views me as less because I got impacted by a very normal thing. The second reason was that I wanted to show like strength and ownership. The layoff was fucking horrible and humiliating but I’m still good at what I do but I knew my last role wasn’t working for me anymore either, even before the layoff. The layoff was not going to make me feel like I didn’t deserve to have a good job — I just decided that and somewhere along the way, my mind believed it.
I did not have a single interviewer react negatively when I brought up the layoff, which like I was kind of surprised about. I just knew that I didn’t want to go through an interview process and ultimately get hired and then have them find out that I was concealing a big part of my history even though they didn’t ask. I don’t know if this is true or not, but I really believe that people respected that I brought it up and that I held my head up high when speaking about it. Did I cry countless of times in those months? Yes. Countless. That’s not really saying a lot because if you really know me, you know I love to cry and I cry all the time lmao.
Own your situation.
Hustle. Hustle really hard.
Yes, it is a tough market out there and yes, I am very lucky that I landed something, but no, it wasn’t just luck. It wasn’t even that I was super qualified for any of the roles that I landed interviews for. I worked my ass off to get them. I can count the number of days in one hand where I didn’t apply to a job. It became my full time job to find a full time job. Even more than a full time job. I was obsessed with it. Every morning when I was eating breakfast or when I had switched over from my bed to the couch (lol), I was on LinkedIn sort of shortlisting jobs that I was interested in. Instead of scrolling Tiktok, I started scrolling LinkedIn. LinkedIn has an algorithm and I’d be lying if I told you that I knew any of the technical details around it but I know enough about algorithms to know that they need your input to learn from you. I started searching and setting search alerts for certain keywords and I made them quite generic at times but other times I would make them hyper-specific. I clicked the “save” button on any job that I felt fit the description that I had in my mind of something that I could potentially be interested in doing. A lot of these were in industries I didn’t necessarily care for but I knew I had to train the algo to work for me so I had to tell it what I wanted. Teach it, in a way. And that worked. The recommendations started becoming more and more specific to what I was looking for so eventually, I didn’t have to go looking and searching for keywords, they were being sent to my inbox. I don’t know if this matters to the algo, but hopefully it does because it’s expensive, but I paid for LinkedIn premium.
As you saw and read, I traveled a ton and I did so many things throughout my days. Ah, it’s nice to reminisce about unemployment as the good ole days hhahha. But my point is, you can look on LinkedIn from anywhere. You don’t need a desk or a computer or workstation to do this and it doesn’t have to be for hours on end. You can literally do it when you have 5 minutes when you’re waiting for your train or whatever. I’m a firm believer of getting what you put into things and this is a prime example.
Stop being so picky.
Hahahah isn’t it ironic that I, the picky queen, is telling others not to be picky? I wanted to find my dream job but I also knew that I needed any job before long because the money was going to run out, especially the way I spend it. I narrowed things down to my interests in terms of industry - I was either switching and going into sports or I was doubling down on financial services. Anything else, I didn’t really entertain as much, though I did have a lengthy process with a tech start up. Anyway, you know how in marketing its better to target like a niche audience rather than making something so generic that no one really resonates with the ad? Well it was kind of like that. I wanted to have one or two categories to really focus me efforts on and that made it easy for me to use really one resume that was tailored specifically to highlight my financial services background. In retrospect, I probably should have used a different one for the sports applications but I couldn’t be bothered to maintain multiple resumes.
While I had these two categories to focus on, I still kept myself open to other companies even if I didn’t want to work there or couldn’t really see myself working there. Again, this was key to training the algo, but you don’t know what you don’t know and meeting all these people through interviews was fruitful in the sense that I met people in different industries and had good rapport. Because I work in tech and data and the way every company is structured, I could end up working in almost any industry. If I had to ditch the financial services search and go to a different company, I now had relationships with people that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.
I gave it my all in every interview, even if I didn’t think it was the best fit. First, it was because ya girl was desperate for a job because I was super panicking. When I finally chilled out, I still gave it my all because I hadn’t interviewed in ages. I needed all of the practice I could get for when Mr. Right Role came along. The best part about accepting all these interviews was that I got to learn about how these other companies were thinking about data and technology when it came to their industries. So it was like a little research experiment or project and I got to become more knowledgeable, build relationships and practice my interview skills for free. Hello??? She’s a frugal queen.
There’s one more point I want to make here and it’s that sometimes I found a great company but not the right level role. I mean, some of these companies I would have been happy to lick the floor clean for them so I was just lucky to have the opportunity to talk to someone with hiring power there. Most of the time, I found more junior roles, which I would have been ok taking had I not had success in other VP or manager roles, but the money and company was really important here. For example, I got an interview with the head of recruiting for one of the biggest sports leagues but the role was more associate level and it was more than half the pay less than what I was making. I was not in a position to accept this role and I knew that. Shit, even the head of recruiting knew that and that was one of the first things she brought up. You might think that this is a waste of my time and a waste of hers but it wasn’t. When we got to talking, I told her that the role did seem a bit more junior than what I was looking for but that if they ever had a position open up that was more senior, that I would be willing to re-apply and have a conversation. She was so happy that I even accepted the interview and I recommended other people to that role. Sometimes, it's just about getting your foot in the door and if they like you, they’ll recommend you for another position, especially at these massive companies.
There was another instance where I was referred to a role I had zero interest in doing, but at the time, it happened to be the only active thing I had going on. I mean it was during the holidays, so it’s fine. I went through and had like 5 interviews for this one role. I was exhausted and I got to a point where I didn’t even really want the role anymore because it was not the right fit for me. During this time, I had constant communication with the recruiter that was internal to that company and we built a great relationship. She told me that if I wasn’t interested in this role, that she had other roles that she knew I’d be a great fit for. I now work at this company.
This would have been more limited or not even possible had I been overly selective.
Referrals, referrals, referrals.
When I got laid off, I instantly posted it on LinkedIn and my other socials. People thought I was crazy, and maybe I was. Maybe I am, but I had been applying to jobs for over 6 months before I was laid off and guess how many interviews I had? Yep, zero.
People didn’t know I was looking and so it limited how I could leverage my network. To be fair, I didn’t want people to know because I didn’t want to lose my job…. HAHAHHAHA. Anyway, when people saw the post, it got thousands of impressions and tons of comments. I had my entire network on LinkedIn reaching out asking how they could help, sending me referral links, etc. Idk the numbers on this, but almost every single time I was referred I heard back, whether rejection or interview, but a lot of companies don’t even bother sending rejections. Out of the referred roles, I think all but 3 times they resulted in at least a first round interview.
You have to build good relationships while you have a job because most of the time, your next job comes from a referral. For my case, I had a former colleague who I had a great relationship with send my resume to their neighbor, who works at my company. I had never met them and I didn’t even ask my former colleague to send my resume but they did, unprompted. This referral put me in a different pool of applicants and even though I didn’t get hired for the initial role they submitted me for, it ultimately got me many more interviews at the company.
Do whatever you can to get someone to refer you. Set up coffee chats, ask your network to introduce you to people in their networks — the point is to not be afraid to put yourself out there a little. For example just this week I liked a post that my connection had reposted on LinkedIn. Their boss posted a position on their team and I liked it for better reach so my network could see it. An hour later I had a text from a friend asking if I knew the hiring manager. I didn’t, but I connected them to my other friend and now they are setting up time to speak. I don’t know if they’ll get hired or even an interview, but at least I brokered a conversation. Use your network, they want to help you.
Work smarter, not harder.
I mean, I know I said to hustle earlier, but you know what I mean. If you guessed I was going to talk about Chat GPT, you would be correct. This thing is so powerful! Now, don’t abuse it. Recruiters have systems and can read and tell if something sounds like a robot. The way I used it was for my resume to clean up some bullets and to organize the flow of the bullets, and then for the cover letters. I didn’t want to manage 100 different resumes so I decided to personalize and change up the cover letters. Once my resume was good enough, I didn’t touch it. For the cover letters, I fed it bullet points and rough thoughts and had it write cover letters using my tone. Again, you have to train it so I even fed it one of my blogs so it would get a vibe of how I write but asked it to make it more profesh. Now you’re probably wondering if I even write this blog! Ha, no you’re not wondering that because I never fix my shitty typos. #lazyqueen
Obviously, do not copy and paste verbatim. Use your noggin to tailor it to you and do what feels right. It was a very helpful tool that allowed me to apply to jobs at scale. Because let me tell you, I applied to over 200 jobs. It’s a numbers game, gotta increase your odds.
Be yourself.
This is corny as fuck but it’s true. Don’t bamboozle hiring managers because then you have to keep up that fake version of yourself when you start working and who has the time or energy to do that? You should be interviewing these companies too. I always say this but it’s like dating. You have to see if it’s a good fit for you because you’re going to be spending a hell of a lot of time doing your job. It has to work for you and your lifestyle and know that not every role or company is going to be a good fit.
I applied to my current company more times than I’m even comfortable revealing. Maybe after a few tequilas I’lll throw in a screenshot of my application portal so you can see how many times I was rejected by my company before I got hired. I knew early on that I wanted to work here but I just had to find the right role. It was discouraging and honestly a little embarrassing hahah but it worked. So who’s laughing now!?
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That’s really it. It’s not that difficult. Your time will come. Enjoy the time if and while you have it - God know’s I miss working out in the morning and watching Harry Potter all day every day! Anyway, I have to go to dinner now and I really want to post this tonight so I’ll leave it here. Again, thanks so much for the support. I literally could not have done it without each of you, even the haters. heheh
Also, I am too tired to proofread so ignore the typos xx
Marn
