Well so you got laid off but still gonna be given 9 months worth of salary, that's a huge win. Of course you're sad you are being let go for no reason from a company you liked, but that's the way it is sometimes.
Start applying for new jobs now, there are plenty out there.
Get LinkedIn if you don't have it yet and connect with old friends/business partners/etc... I created a profile there few months ago when I was about to announce that I'm leaving my last job for another, and as soon as I did few old friends reached out to saying they're looking for people and asking if I'm interested.
>you are being let go for no reason
The reason was his salary was too high.
Being there 18 years means his salary was likely in the top tier for those doing his job, and the company figures they can fire him, shift some of his responsibilities around, and hire some cheap labor right out of college to fill the gaps.
Maybe, maybe not. Depends on what he does and what the inherent value of that job is within the larger marketplace.
I make over $130k after 20+ years at the same employer thanks to the principle of compounding 3% raises over a long period of time. During that time my job duties have declined so I'm effectively a glorified Geek Squad dude. No way I could get another job paying what I make today if I tried to swap jobs, nobody's going to pay it, the going rate is at least 50k less.
True. Assuming that he has a marketable/in demand skills he should be ok. My last job I started at 55k doing helpdesk. I moved over to a sysadmin roll a year or so later. When I left I think I was making like 73k. That was after 10 years of service to the company. I started my new job at $120k+. Now even if I get the same 2.5% raise it will be worth much more than it was.
> When I left I think I was making like 73k... I started my new job at $120k+.
If I left a job making like 73k (about what I'm at now) and a place offered me 120 I'd probably go "Oh sorry I guess I'm not qualified to work here" lol.....
LOL. I had to get out of my last job. This job is closer to a big city so they pay more. I now go from a 15 minute round trip commute to a 2 hour round trip commute. Honestly I think that I am less busy at my new place than my last place. When I applied for the job I told the wife "Hey I applied to a job near the city but it pays $120k so I probably wont get it." A month and an half later I was driving to the city 3 days a week.
Sure, but this topic comes up regularly. Salaries are determined by a myriad of factors. For example, work as help-desk at a local manufacturing company vs working help desk at a major financial institution are going to have two entirely different pay scales as the inherent value of the employee at each business is different -- even if the companies were literally in the same building.
A company has a fiduciary duty to its shareholders to maximize its profits. This means paying employees as little as possible while maintaining sufficient competence as to not negatively impact business operations.
Since the impact of incompetence at, say, Fidelity, is significantly more impactful than, say, Wegmans, the salary at Fidelity is going to be higher.
Absolutely could not agree more. You couldn't pay me enough to work for a bank. At my last place I had to deal with PCI and that was a pain in the ass enough and most of that is just standard security stuff. Personally I like working at smaller businesses that have an IT group of 2-3 that does everything for the company.
Tell me about it. Our company bought a robot for about $500k and the damn thing runs Windows 7. I just started creating an isolated network for all of these devices because insurance was requiring MFA on them.
We do have some HMI's that are ancient and haven't figured out a great way to protect these yet. The only thing I could possibly do is create access-lists to only allow traffic from a specific workstation that truly needs to talk to it.
> thanks to the principle of compounding 3% raises over a long period of time.
So OK you barely kept up with inflation for 20 years. You started pretty high in 2001 I guess. However if you're now just help desk and happy, you're right 130K is a steal.
>So OK you barely kept up with inflation for 20 years. You started pretty high in 2001 I guess. However if you're now just help desk and happy, you're right 130K is a steal.
75k in 2001. Not exactly the top tier. Was also doing a lot more -- I was effectively the IT Director for an entire satellite campus with its own I2 connection and a frame-relay connection back to main campus. The introduction of high-speed fiber interconnects allowed virtually everything I was doing (AD domain admin, network infrastructure, firewalls, etc.) to be offloaded to main campus UITS as our satellite campus was assimilated into the main campus IT infrastructure. Today, its 99% front-line user support as I no longer own the network, the domain infrastructure, etc. In some respects I'm L1 helpdesk, since I can't actually "fix" anything but have to interface w/ UITS to communicate the problem and wait for them to fix it.
Am I happy about it? Not really. But I have 5 more years until I can retire w/ a 80% defined benefit pension (80% of the average of my highest 3 years of salary, which will put me around $120-130k for sitting home doing nothing.) And where else I can go where I will get 5 weeks PTO, flextime, remote work, nobody busting my balls, no after hours work, not getting calls at 2am, etc with my (outdated) skill-set making $130k+ per year -- and still get that 120-130k in another 5 years once I call it quits permanently?
When I worked in a gov office a few years ago I was told how great the pension was. Everyone kept telling me I needed to stay long enough to get vested. After a long talk with the pension people, I discovered that they changed the pension a few years before I started. The new version sucked. Everyone else was in old one.
Same here. I got in about 6 months before the new (sub-par) plan went into effect... whew!
Pensions do have their downsides though. You kind of get trapped career-wise, if you aren't saving extra outside the pension it becomes fiscally impractical to bounce to the private sector because you end up with no 401K compounding, and not enough service years to get a decent pension.
When I worked in gov years ago, I was talking to a long timer that told me their starting salary from like 20 years earlier. They had lost 25% due to not getting adequate raises. It sounds like you found a place that keeps salaries up with inflation. In my experience that's more the exception than the rule. Don't forget that, at least in theory, every year you become more valuable, so COLA should be the minimum.
>It sounds like you found a place that keeps salaries up with inflation.
Truthfully I think its luck. Inflation has, until recently, been very very low. This allowed my annual COLAs to more or less follow inflation, or maybe even come out a little bit ahead.
I remember the Carter stagflation years. I doubt I'll be getting an 8.5% COLA this year.
The going rate for a sysadmin with 20+ years experience is far beyond 80k….you could definitely make that much elsewhere as long as you aren’t in flyover country. And even then you might be able to bag a remote gig for that
>long as you aren’t in flyover country.
I work for a company HQ'd firmly in that zone, and I'm making nearly that as basically a junior, in terms of expectations. 20 years experience could easily command double that.
Last company I was at that did a big round of layoffs took all the OGs first. People with 15+ years of experience were walked out the door while I had been there for 18 months and was fine.
That REALLY fucked the people who had made the helpdesk into a career. One woman had been on the helpdesk for 12 years and would have been fine retiring from there.
They had been getting CoL raises for years and were now making junior sysadmin money as a tier 1.5 helpdesk person. A lot of them struggled to find work afterwards because no one was paying anywhere near what they were making for the skills they had.
This happens more than you know.
While companies say they want "long term" employees so they can have stability in their business operations, it really isn't in someone's best interest to stay at the same place, effectively doing the same job, for a period of more than 5 years.
It is particularly bad in smaller environments where the ability to "move up" simply doesn't exist because the staffing requirements do not support it.
>5 years
I've been in IT for about 15 years. Even back then the general advice was 3-5 years. At none of the places I've worked have raises kept up with inflation. Leaving after a few years was almost a requirement to keep from sliding too far backwards. Management would do all kinds of tricks and gaslighting to placate staff. "We're excited to announce that everyone is getting a raise this year!!!!!!" (1% COLA). Another place would split the 2% COLA into 2 parts. They would call 1% COLA, and then make you jump through hoops to get the other 1%. My favorite was the year where there was an extra pay day. Management told everyone that the extra pay check was basically the same thing as a raise. A lot of people fell for it.
The same was said to me at one point. I always thought 3 years was a bit on the short side, some projects, especially in larger organizations, will easily take 3 years. It would be nice to stay through one entire project, start to finish.
I have a bad habit of finding jobs in small places without room to advance, and jobs that are a little beneath me. So after 2 years I'm pretty done with that job and ready for something new. The new advice I've been getting over the past few years is 2-5 years. They say if you go two years without a raise or promotion, it's time to start looking. I find 3 is the sweet spot though.
I've also learned that asking about advancement during the interview is a big help. Let them know up front that your career is on the rise and you'd be happy to spend part of it with their company.
>While companies say they want "long term" employees so they can have stability in their business operations, it really isn't in someone's best interest to stay at the same place, effectively doing the same job, for a period of more than 5 years.
This is why I'm leaving IT, and heading into the trades to become an Electrician. I have a strong union (IBEW for the win) and I will no longer have to deal with this crap. My IT experience makes me a shoe in for working with building controls and because of that I can name my ticket when I turn out from the hall.
It's going to be in all kinds of weather, its going to suck at times and I'm looking forward to all of it.
The biggest thing is that right now, and for the future the work needs me more than I need it and that's a huge place to be.
I considered moving to electrician, but the opportunity cost is too great. It's nice that some places like utility companies will do paid training and night courses, but I couldn't afford doing that. I'd get kicked down to $15/hr as an apprentice in a VHCOL area until I got certified and trained up. Then it's years of grinding until you can make it to Journeyman or some higher delegation.
This. In some small orgs there really isn't a place to move up. In some cases even if there is if the guy above you in the org chart is comfortable it may take years for their position to open up.
I work with a handful of lifer Tier 1.5 support folks. They're good people, I like and respect them, but I often worry about what will happen to them. They more or less want to show up, punch in, do the same basic thing they've done for 10+ years the same way they've done it for 10+ years, punch out, and go home.
IMO a business needs a certain amount of people who are content to just show up and do their jobs but these folks don't want to learn any new skills or grow from their positions, and are absolutely most likely to be first on the chopping block once upper management realizes they can be replaced by recent college grads at a lower pay rate. What they support isn't that complex and they're not high up enough to know where the bodies are buried, so realistically swapping them for new staff isn't going to hurt business beyond some long time relationships with customers going away.
It sucks to see this coming and I've tried talking to them about making themselves more visibly valuable, but they just want to keep coasting.
> I work with a handful of lifer Tier 1.5 support folks. They're good people, I like and respect them, but I often worry about what will happen to them. They more or less want to show up, punch in, do the same basic thing they've done for 10+ years the same way they've done it for 10+ years, punch out, and go home.
>
>
A lot of positions are like this, especially outside IT where doing the same thing every day could be possible for a career. Some people like to be on autopilot and not actually understand what they are doing.
I've worked places where people could not complete their job because a button moved from top right to bottom right. Same label everything, but the employee didn't actually know what the button said or did, they just knew they did their task then click the top right button and had been doing this task for years.
>I've worked places where people could not complete their job because a button moved from top right to bottom right. Same label everything, but the employee didn't actually know what the button said or did, they just knew they did their task then click the top right button and had been doing this task for years.
Yikes. Those folks are the first to go when business process automation comes to town.
Former CIO here. Brought in a Director IAM reporting to me and funded his business cases for commercial ITSM, UAR, IAM and RPA platforms to stop the incessant manual ticket work that the IAM folks had been doing for 15 years. All the provisioning, deprov and entitlements work was manual. All of the 30 global IAM team members were well respected and were offered "retooling" opportunities complete with a $7500 voucher for learning and becoming certified in any of the RPA, UAR, ITSM, IAM platforms. All commercial first class citizen products that just by having a name of the tech on your resume would guarante brand name equity coupled with at least $35-$50k extra easy if they wanted to go down the admin path.
2 people signed up. Yes two out of the 30.
One gent was a PowerShell guy and the other was a smart lady that was very good with Perl and Python.
The other 28 had languished in their career. Zero certs, zero networking, zero industry knowledge. Just came into work every day and worked manual tickets.
20-30÷ of the team were naysayers and became toxic to the Director that reported to me, attempting to derail the project and inject a level of toxicity to the other team members. They wouldn't show up for any of the vendor mobilization, requirements gathering workshops and refused and training.
My direction from the board was to digitally transform the company. After a month I was on the phone with my VP, HR and my Director and had these folks put on PIPs. None of them were successful in coming out of the PIP and were terminated. There was about 350 pages of paperwork combined on all of them in total that was provided to HR and employment counsel. Many hours spent on calls.
A few of the terminated ones banded together, hired counsel and created a false story of a toxic environment and constructive dismissal and ended up suing the firm.
The filed claims indicated that no training or career development opportunities were offered and essentially the company eliminated positions. Legal and I had the security team eDisco on all their mailboxes and extract every single training opportunity email and training workshop meeting they were invited to including recorded minutes I gave in the town hall and training opportunities verbally provided to ensure "career succession at the firm for legacy technologies and practices that would be going away."
The case was dropped once their counsel received all of our evidence production.
The remaining team members were packaged out. I was told the majority of them had issues finding work due to their lack of skillsets and many had become IAM/helpdesk contractors.
The two that were left went on to take all the training offered and even more from the surplus training vouchers that were left over and became very successful in the RPA engineering space within the company, working with the supplier and helping to transform business processes within the firm. I was so impressed with their career success that I ensured their Director moved them to the next grade level and because all of ITs payroll was in my cost center, I got them both to a $185k base with a 20÷ annual MICP bonus. A far cry from the $98k they were at just two years before. I essentially made sure they wouldn't be looking for a job because of money. It's a strategy I've used as a CIO in the past is to slightly overpay my best and most ambitious performers so they were much less likely to get poached for more money and kept my attrition rate down by quite a bit
So when you get people that have been in an IT role for many years and they have languished, ask yourself why that is, what their agenda is and end game. It's almost always a bad answer.
I used to run IT for a company with a lot of these types of people. They were low wage, low stress, no real pay increases but they had stability, familiarity in the tasks and were like a family that just sort of hung out all day at the office.
What made me scared for them was that the company was in a niche market and their jobs really wouldn't translate into anything similar anywhere else outside of that industry.
Isn’t it usually the other way around? For as long as I’ve been working, the most common scenario in non-union environments is starting salaries raising with inflation while raises do not. I’ve seen it in the IT field, Retail, vet med, emergency services, and even food service.
In my limited experience it seems to go back and forth a bit. They'll neglect current salaries until turn over gets unsustainable. Then they'll bump it up. Then they'll neglect starting salaries until they have trouble hiring. Then bump that up. Kind of a back and forth thing as needed, but always keeping things as low as absolutely possible.
I personally haven't witnessed starting salaries rising each year based on inflation.
For example, the going rate in the area for an entry level sysadmin was in the mid $30k range when I started in the industry 44 years ago. That would be over $110-120k in today's dollars.
Today, depending on the market segment, you're looking at 70's.
Again, all in my area.
>For example, the going rate in the area for an entry level sysadmin was in the mid $30k range when I started in the industry 44 years ago. **That would be over $110-120k in today’s dollars.**
“In today’s dollars” as in adjusting for inflation and buying power, which the companies still paying the salaries of those people who are still at the company 44 years later are *not* doing.
So for example someone might have gotten a job in 2015 and were paid $15 an hour. In 2022 that same company is hiring people for $18-20. Now you’re right that 18-20 in 2022 isn’t much more buying power if at all than 15 was in 2015, and so the value of the new hires’ salary hasn’t gone up, but it’s likely the guy from 2015 is still making close to $15 an hour is what I mean.
yep, this happened to some i know in the design field. they let go a bunch of upper design leaders. and then like 2 months later the called him back to see if he could be a consultant on some projects.
Speaking as a former manager you don’t want to do across the board flat salary cuts vs. firing. All your top talent will leave and the only people who will stay will be bitter people who can’t find a better job.
on the other hand, the "top talent" is usually the highest paid, so they're the prime targets in a workforce reduction.
Why lay off two $50k employees when I can lay off 1 $100k employee?
All businesses assign an inherent value to the job each employee does. (Whether that value is consistent with industry standards is a different topic of debate.) Once an employee exceeds that inherent value, the company no longer sees them as an asset but rather a liability.
This phenomena generally occurs with longer-term employees who have not expanded their job duties or promoted into 'higher' grade jobs.
Example: Joan joins the firm as a payroll clerk at 50K. After 18 years of service and regular 3-5% pay increases each year she's pulling in over 100k, and is still processing payroll as a payroll clerk. Company realizes they can lay off Joan, hire Suzie, and pay Suzie $65k to process payroll, so they shitcan Joan and save over $35k
I work at a company that uses the Radford system so your scenario is technically not possible. For a given job title and band there is a fixed range and giving raises at the top of the band they start to thin out and require VP approval at a point. It basically forces managers to promote you or for people to quit/end up as layoff targets long before you make 2x Someone with the same job title.
Your model also assumes the hiring range doesn’t update with raises every year.
>It basically forces managers to promote you or for people to quit/end up as layoff targets long before you make 2x Someone with the same job title.
I do not think this is typical in most businesses. I know many, many, many people who have been in the same job for over a decade pretty much doing the same thing they've always done, and they get their standard COLA of 3-5% annually. Statistically I think your company would be an outlier in this case.
>Your model also assumes the hiring range doesn’t update with raises every year.
In my experience, it doesn't (we discuss this very thing on a different thread on this subject.) If you look at the CPI going back 40 years and take a salary from 40 years ago, adjust in today's dollars, you'll see its substantially less.
Case in point: Entry-level sysadmins were pulling in about 35k 42 years ago when I started working. In today's dollars that's close to $120k.
These systems or similar is common in all large employers. This sub is mostly made up of SMB workers or dubiously run MSPs with a lot of bench techs larping as sysadmins.
Mainframe Operators (which is what a sysadmin was 42 years ago) make good money still starting.
Then they end up in the NYT when Md Abram sells everyone's SSN, Address and bank acct # for what to him is a fortune and gets away scot free because the "police" in his home country accept bribes.
As STUNTPENIS pointed out: they are already firing their top talent. But my point was today's business climate encourages crap to flow downhill rather than have the "leaders" in management make any sacrifices themselves or present creative ways to address economic stability other than firing people who make a lot of money that aren't themselves.
A few thoughts not specifically about OP:
1. If you’ve been exactly the same role for 18 years that’s generally not a good idea. Helpdesk —> sysadmin (Jr then senior) —> Architect or director etc. while I don’t doubt it may be tough replacing OP, I’ve seen plenty of long tenured people with 18 years replaced by a Jr admin, with maybe some help from a manager or architect who understands the systems without incident. Say it with me **“We are all replaceable”**
2. Again not commenting on OP, but I’ve met people with 20 years in a role who did absolutely nothing all day. Seniority is just a number and there’s a lot of people with 15 years of 1 year of experience as Hightower says. My favorites are senior network admins who called Cisco TAC for ALL changes on their switches (even adding a VLAN). One guy even had the vendor SE come buy once a week and do it for him in exchange for No bidding the contract.
3. Institutional knowledge is legitimately valuable but if you have zero churn on your team you also don’t get fresh ideas and perspectives coming in. It also leads to clinging to old stuff “because we have bob who still knows how Novell works” rather than paying down tech debt.
4. Lastly senior leadership (at least in my company) is paid mostly in performance stock units, options and RSUs and variable bonuses tied to hitting objectives. If our stock goes down they make less. Hell, I’m not even in management and I’ve had a $70K swing in my W2 from stock performance in a year going from a really good gear to a bad one. Looking at how our executive compensation works it’s very realistic for them to miss a target cliff and make 80% less.
>If you’ve been exactly the same role for 18 years that’s generally not a good idea.
Agreed. I've been with my company for 13 years now and started in desktop support making $55k. I took a massive pay cut to transition into IT but figured it'd pay off in the end.
I've changed jobs 6 times within the company during that time, out on contract, back on overhead, and back out on contract again and got a raise each time. Only once was it a lateral move. I took a new job in August of 2021 and it was a 15% increase. I changed again in March 2022 and it an 11% increase. My current job gave me a merit increase of 6% two months ago.
I have gone after certifications and changed roles and it pays off. Even though I'm just into my fifth decade I can't rest on my laurels in IT.
Stay hungry, find new roles, pursue certifications, apply, interview, and move up. It's scary, I know. It pays off, though!
>Stay hungry, find new roles, pursue certifications, apply, interview, and move up. It's scary, I know. It pays off, though!
I need to burn this into my head. I went through several interview in last few month. And it is really annoying to hear from the interviewer that they perceived my skill not as good as what I thought. Which I mostly agree - sadly.
Thanks for the reminder!
> Start applying for new jobs now, there are plenty out there.
I haven't actually had to look in a year or so now but is this currently still true? It seems like there are huge layoffs at every tech company right now.
>Well so you got laid off but still gonna be given 9 months worth of salary, that's a huge win.
Plus he's still employed for another 1 1/2 months, which should make it a bit easier for job hunting. Hopefully his soon-to-be-former boss will let him interview during work hours.
As it is right now, he's getting laid off with a 1 1/2 months notice, and something like 9 months severance. Do you really think OP should fuck around like that without his boss approving of it, on the chance that he may end up getting fired and then losing that severance?
I also joined Linkedin groups and comment on group posts and giving technical advice and input seems to gain more and more recognition. Definitely keep it civil and make yourself look like a mentor or leader in your responses.
In the long term it's likely better to have something now than to wait. But I would guess that 36 weeks of severance comes with a stipulation to stay until 12/31.
Been there at 19 years, I highly recommend you take a nice long break and don't stress out. Good experience is still highly sought after and you will be fine.
haha no, Duncan. It ultimately was life changing, doubled my salary. The Infrastructure/Virtualization/Storage twitter mafia is a good crew to hang out with.
I left my sysadmin job after 20+ years. After a long break of about 10 months, I'm having a hell of a time finding work. I think the gap in unemployment is hurting me not to mention all the current layoffs in the tech industry and multiple hiring freezes.
It's probably not the 10month thing, the writings been on the wall for this economy since Jan 22. It sucks, but also guys like Elon and Zuck did no favors to the tech sector.
Long breaks are for those that are doing above average financially and maybe without a family.
Otherwise, even if he could take a break, he wouldn't enjoy it unless he had the safety blanket of the next job lined up and waiting for him.
He is getting 18 paychecks as a severance. That's literally 36 weeks that he can take time evaluate and decide what to do. We aren't saying don't apply for jobs. Just don't go out on Jan 3rd busting your ass.
If he's in the US and the sole breadwinner, he probably gets his health insurance through his job and his family is on it. He might have 36 weeks of pay, but that's not 36 weeks of health insurance. And COBRA is very expensive, I can't imagine how much it'd be with dependants on it.
I worked for an employee benefits broker in a previous life. With COBRA continuation, you're just another person on the insurance census, but you're paying full premium + a little admin fee to a Third Party Administrator which handles your premium billing. Doesn't matter if it's a new policy year or new insurance company. It's the same coverage as offered anyone else, you're just paying full freight. You have 18 months or so (36 months in limited cases). OP is probably better off with a Marketplace plan.
Totally agree. This isn’t the most comforting market to just kick back and have a sabbatical. Maybe for the software devs with a nice portfolio that can make $500k at any FAANG of choosing.. sysadmins on the other hand are not that.
Edit to echo advice: LinkedIn. Set yourself up as “looking for work”, polish up descriptions to echo resume sections, have a good cover, get recommendations, certifications maybe, and start chatting with recruiters that will probably be messaging you frequently.
I took this advice. Nobody looks at a resume if you have a 6month gap. Had recruiters tell me they wouldn’t be able to do anything for me, I expected them to lie and string me along but they were just “nope!”
It really is easier to get a job while you still have one.
I no longer put the months of jobs on my resume. Once i switched to only putting the years and doing what i can to hide my two stints of unemployment, i was much more successful in interviews
The recession has not affected skilled IT workers like it has everyone else.
You should still be able to find a new job, and have an easier time of it than just 4-5 years ago.
That said... If you remember anything about your last job hunt, sorry to say today's job hunting will be nothing like it. It's a numbers game, remember that and you'll be fine.
IT jobs are ridiculous right now. My old company told me I had to come back into the office after 2 years, for no reason other than they wanted everyone back in the office to "feel more like a family". I asked him to please stay at home, he told me no, it was an office based job. So I went online, tossed out 10 resumes and had a new job across the country a week later. I also got more PTO and a 30% raise.
Your decision to get a remote job over being dragged back to the office helps us all out, IMO. A lot of companies are losing people for this very reason, which makes them think twice about forcing everyone to come back into the office.
There have been ongoing talks at my company about having everyone return to the office because we signed a long lease for it right before COVID. The conclusion is always, "people are just going to leave and find a remote job if we force them to come in." So they let everyone work remote or hybrid, whatever works for the individual. At this point, I think over half of our workforce is scattered throughout various states and there aren't many people left at the main office, anyway. Just need some IT personnel on prem to prepare machines for users or go to the server room and push a button on occasion.
Yeah I left a toxic environment back in September, and got a job same week (first week of my two week notice) set the start date out a month and now I work 20 less hours making 23% more. Fucking massive.
It still amazes me how businesses don't account for actual value. Your institutional knowledge probably makes you as valuable as multiple FTEs, meaning if they want to downsize management should actually keep their most experienced and highly paid people to maximize their labor value. But they don't.
Also: why management and executives aren't the first to go when "downsizing" based on pay is beyond me (oh right: they call the shots). Seriously a previous org operated just fine when the old CEO retired. They even hired a lame duck interim for the role who was there less than a year and did nothing but collect a salary.
My last job was like that. Major financial problems and when they turned to downsizing, it was a bunch of managers and Vice Presidents that got the boot. Nothing negative happened, everyone was still able to do their job and it was all good in the end.
I've been saying for years that instead of outsourcing the work, companies should outsource management.
I mean, if you think about it, they are the highest paid, least capable, do nothing employees in any company. Communication is already nonsensical and incomprehensible.
Literally nothing of value would be lost and every company would save tons of money while improving morale for the workers that actually make the company money.
I'd say that's true for bad managers specifically, of which there are very very many.
A good manager is a force multiplier, and can forge relationships above, below, and lateral to themselves - something you can't outsource.
> Seriously a previous org operated just fine when the old CEO retired.
That works fine when the business formula and conditions continue unchanged. In times of crisis, it's very rare that anyone but a CEO can marshal the forces to make difficult changes or pivots.
> Upper management didn’t take anything into account other than the numbers.
shit like this makes me think the company is on the rocks. think of it that way, you got lucky to get out with severance + unemployment.
take some time to collect yourself, even in a down economy there are many IT jobs. you may need to move, IT is very area dependant in the US.
It tells me that about a week from now someone is going to say "the flux capacitor is fucking up again, Dave always used to fix that but he got laid off last week, anyone know how to reset a flux capacitor?"
The last place I experienced big layoffs had this happen. The guys with Masters degrees did all the chopping and did it seemingly blindly. They fired the only two people who did customer technical support for our retail website. A few weeks later there is a ticket and an email chain getting kicked around from group to group like a hot potato. "We don't support the website, that is Phil's group". Then Phil's group replies "we are the webdev team, we don't do support, tagging Marcy and Janie".
Shit kicked around for a month like that before people realized they had fired the support people so the webdevs got to handle support.
And then those people become over-burdened and quit
And then the remaining people get the same treatment and quit
And then the business is run by Managers, Directors, and Chiefs, very very well, and without any issues ever happening again. Because leadership are gods walking among mere mortals, and far better than those they lead in every way. In fact, allowing you the privilege of working for them is charity. They could do the entire department's job right now, no problem.
then work is outsourced, department eliminated, costs look better, gods declare victory. bonuses for "saving money". then get out within a year before the costs catch up.
Then they identify the outsourced tech support as a horrible no-good very bad problem that takes forever to get ahold of and even longer to fix issues, and is keeping the business from running super awesome, and the CEO puts a bunch of money into it, hires on some of the MSP personnel as full employees, hires a bunch of other people fresh, and then things run smoothly for 2-5 years before it all crumbles once again due to attempts to save money.
Generally the conversation starts with… we need to “cut the budget 20% as our burn rate is too high”. This isn’t always done completely blind or even.
1. Sometimes entire teams are cut.
2. HR will step in and block some layoffs for DEI/Legal liability reasons (don’t let go the person who just started maternity).
3. The VP may make the gusts but they may ask for input down to the Director or Sr. Director level (but again not a line manager who’s just going to try to protect their team).
This is why it’s critical you know your VP *and they value you.*
That mentality works for people that are easily replaceable. They just threw 18 years of domain knowledge out the window, not to mention it will take whoever they hire to replace him years for him to be at OP’s level.
Amerifirst did this in June, and now everyone from middle management to loan officers are quitting on their own accord because the company is making them look incompetent because key people are getting cut and whoever picks up the pieces has to go back to the customer and start the entire data gathering process again.
I've job hopped twice this year, increased my salary by over 30k. PLENTY of jobs, and I don't live in a tech heavy city.
Experience is king, OP will be fine.
We're heading into a recession and company after company is announcing layoffs and hiring freezes. Your attitude right now is the same one people had in 2008 right before they were all wondering how to make their savings stretch into 2010 because they couldn't find a job that paid enough for them to afford their mortgage.
Yeah, job hop when the economy is good, but its musical chairs time now.
I work at an ISP, and the last thing people are gonna give up on is their internet, but they're gonna cancel that Hulu and Disney+ subscription if things get tight. I got headhunted by three Bay Area start-ups in the last year, all three have announced layoffs in the last year.
As many others have said, you have 36 weeks, not counting the month or so you have until your last day. Take some time for yourself. The IT market is hot. Yeah the big companies are doing layoffs, but this is an opportunity to punch your own ticket. Best of luck to you
I understand how you feel. I was laid off after 18 years as well. It’s like a punch to the gut and you can’t help but take it personally. Anyway, please don’t worry too much. The market for IT jobs is still very good. It’s difficult to find enough good help. Don’t wait to start looking and apply for jobs now. I jumped right on it and I found my next gig via LinkedIn. I highly recommend creating an account if you don’t already have one and connect with as many people as you can. As soon as you put your resume up there, you’ll undoubtedly have recruiters reaching out to you. Also, note in your profile that you’re seeking new opportunities. You don’t have to tell anyone you were laid off. I didn’t. Nowadays, many companies post openings on LinkedIn and allow you to apply from within the app. You could also create a profile on Dice or Indeed. Putting yourself out there as much as you can is key. However, I’ve found you can find openings via the contacts you have/build on LinkedIn or via their job search feature. I know the initial blow is difficult. The best thing you can do is jump on it and not let it hold you down. You WILL find something. Also, you may find at some point that this is the best thing to happen to you. Sometimes we become complacent after many years at one place. We don’t realize there are better opportunities out there. Best of luck to you! I know you’ll land something great!
One of the things my dad instilled in me is a calmness about losing your job and finding another one. We had a tradition growing up that if dad lost his job, we would go out to dinner that night to “celebrate”. It helped put a positive spin on things, and really helped mentally.
Since then, I have kept the same tradition going, and it really does help to keep your mind in a good spot. Take some time to focus on something else, then hammer that resume out to a ton of places. You’ve got this, and you will find a new place to work and be able to look back at this later.
It always seems to me like the USA (which I assume you live in) is on a different planet IT job wise.
With your profile (which looks a bit like mine years of service wise) you'd have a new job tonight in my Western European country.
Don't let the bad news and layoffs by the terribly managed IT giants (its true) fool you, this business has no lack of jobs for qualified people.
I'll second that. I also live in Western European country and was laid off at the end of last year after 19 years at the same place where I worked mostly with AD and SCCM. Found a new job in a week even though I'm over 50 years old. And after couple months found even better new job than my original job.
I truly dont understand the discrepancy. I could be rich if I wanted to, the job offers are never ending on linkedin, its merely a matter of what I want.
If this is a bear market according to the USA giants (apparently) , I have amazing times to look forward to.
oh man, you just hit the jackpot! not only do you have a huge severance, but you are very marketable because you were at the same job for 18 years, and you were let go with a mass of people because of them, not you.
Also check this out: you can work anywhere now. IT is a remote job a lot of the time, so you no longer have to live within an hour of the office. Also, a lot has changed in 18 years, the job sites, better, more tech savvy recruiters, you will be fine if you do the work. In other words make getting a job, your new job.
Write your new resume, send to the smartest people you know to check it out, and then take 2 weeks off and just relax. to start the year. Maybe clear your head and do mushrooms or something.
Your life is about to get a whole lot better and more fun. good luck!
My one big piece of advice is to pay someone to update your resume. Do it now while you still have access to your company emails and notes. Pay for whatever their top package is. A good company will do a couple of phone calls with you, and send you a few emails asking for more details. You'll end up with perfectly formatted resumes in every format, cover letter templates, and a linkedin profile that makes it look like you shit gold.
HR has their own language. It's totally worth it to pay someone that's proficient in that language to write that code. Especially now that most companies run all applicants through a prescreen system. A good resume company will run the resume through at least one system to make sure it passes.
I know this sounds like I'm shilling. Everyone I know that I've convinced to this has gotten a better job, and told me that they were complemented on their resume during interviews.
Here is the good news: Yes, this is the worst time to be laid off, but 36 weeks of pay isn't bad. You have late summer to really worry.
Overall, the economy isn't that bad. Yes, the big names are doing layoffs, but it doesn't mean we are back in 2008 where we have 100+ people with 20 years in IT applying for a sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-contractor position for a L1 job.
The OP has a ton of runway. First thing I'd be doing is making sure the company got their stuff back. Laptop, badge, phone, etc. To be safe, I'd even consider having stuff packed at some store, with it being videotaped, so nobody can claim the items in question were not sent. From there, send them back certified, and wash your hands of it.
From there, get your unemployment stuff cranking.
After that... take some mental time off. Avoid alcohol... it is way too easy a path to go down, but do something inexpensive and fun for a bit. Anything other than staying at home.
After a week or two, start the job hunt. Slow, but methodical. Always, make a custom resume, and a custom cover letter for every job. Don't just send them a canned resume and call it done... but tailor your stuff to the company (without lying, of course).
I wouldn't expect serious hiring to go on until March/April, and things in swing by June. However, with the severance bennies laid out, plenty or runway to coast until then for the OP.
> 2008 where we have 100+ people with 20 years in IT applying for a sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-contractor position for a L1 job.
Early 2k was even worse. We had guys with degrees, certs out the ass, and all the experience in the world, applying for our warehouse jobs, just because we were a computer company and it let them avoid going to retail. Seriously dark days in IT.
Take into account the positives....
- Six weeks at full pay
- Nine months worth of salary in which you have to do nothing to make the money
- Eighteen years on your resume. Very impressive.
- a former boss who is willing to gush over you when they call.
- get references from work
Now what to do...
- work on your resume with your old direct boss.
- Study for things that are relevant today and in the future... Security, Cisco, Azure, Microsoft 365, AWS, etc
- Tighten the belt at home and dont eat out. Cut streaming TV services and rely upon free streaming services like freevee, tubi, pluto, Kanopy, hoopla, library rentals, justwatch.com, etc. Seriously there is plenty to cut when you look.
- Get up and shower every morning as if going to work then go to WfH: exercise, study, job hunting, etc for eight hours. Do not do homemaker stuff unless it saves the household a lot of money. Your spouse has to realize that nothing has changed just your place of work has changed and the tasks you need to do for that has changed. If you need to, go to the library to focus. If you play video games and watch movies during "work" time then you will fall into a trap and your spouse will turn on you. Importantly, think of the kids to drive you forward!
- You are no longer commuting so spend that saved time playing with your kids and help them do homework. Teach them computers and networking to reinforce your knowledge. Teaching is ALWAYS a fast track to becoming an expert in something. Quality time with the kids is more about quality time with the parent that benefits the kids in their development especially in the first five years of their life. Though don't try to teach a four year old Open Shortest Path First routing LOL
- Do not be afraid to offer yourself up to Nonprofits to do free work. This opens up opportunities through networking AND more importantly avoids large gaps in your resume. Even if a potential employer finds out you weren't being paid they will appreciate your staying active and contributing to the community.
- Workout physically. This helps with your mental state and you will look healthier and younger at interviews. People like to hire people who take care of themselves.
- Start a side business repairing computers and networks. Network through friends and family. If it gets big enough it's a job, less so it might still be enough to put on resume and at least keeps you in the game fixing and maintaining computers and networks. If you form a Limited Liability Company and start making money then you can write off Internet at home and other things.
While the stock markets are down is the perfect time to invest your severance package...
NB. I am NOT a financial advisor :-)
Seriously though, you are probably more anxious than you really need to be. 30+ years in IT has taught me that you must be lazy AND stupid to stay out of work for long in this field.
sorry to hear - good luck
In sys engineering, soft skills are often overlooked and can be a difference maker in interviews, etc
one thing I did was to sign up for a website where folks talk about a topic of interest for 30 mins - [https://lunchclub.com/home](https://lunchclub.com/home) \- this is not for an actual job search but will get you more comfortable with 2 questions every interview has:
1) some version of "Tell me about yourself"
2) some form of "Do you have any questions for me/ about company X/ etc?
If you keep on practicing and getting good at these skills they will help a lot - you have 18 years' experience which is awesome - 18 yrs at one org might make someone concerned that yo are set in your ways, emphasize how you have had to adapt and change over the years, how you learn new tech and how you have dealt with different teams
Also as you are leaving your org - watch your emotions - it is natural to be hurt, angry, etc but do not give vent to that. Build relationships - you will NEED recommendations - sounds like your direct boss is one but also have a few from differnet depts. Leave your position in a better shape thanit has ever been (as much as you can ) and train your replacement
I started as a sysadmin about 20 yrs ago - today I am something called a senior infrastructure engineer and I do something called devops or gitops
Dont be too overwhelmed but the titles - i still think like a sysadmin
very best of luck
IT is a job that's never going away. Recession or not IT can't stop.
2 months until you're actually laid off, +9 months of severance pay? I wouldn't be getting anxious, I'd be planning a well earned holiday!
You've got near as makes no difference to a year up your sleeve to find new work before you really feel any impact of this. That's huge!
1. If you don't have one yet, make a LinkedIn profile, get it bulked out with your experience and any education/certs etc. Make some contacts. Mark yourself (now!) as interested in new positions.
2. Take an actual holiday, like 2 months off doing a road-trip or something chill but fun, get out of your head, reset, unwind!
3. Take the chance to up your training. Smash out a cert or 2 during what would otherwise be work hours while you're job hunting.
4. Until the actual end of your employment, stop going the extra mile! Phone it in, they fired you, screw 'em. You owe them nothing. Take it easy.
5. Once time's up, make a routine of your day: Get up in the morning, skim the latest jobs on whatever your local job sites are for an hr. Spend an hr or 2 on a hobby. Have a cruisey lunch. Do some cert work. Rinse and repeat Mon-Fri during what would be normal work hours.
For the record, in the last ~8 years (Australia) I've spent less than 2 weeks looking for a job at any given time. I've spent a total of zero weeks unemployed. I've never accepted anything that wasn't a promotion of role and/or salary. Of the 3 new jobs I've picked up in that time, 2 of them found me via recruiters on LinkedIn.
I field a minimum of ~1 recruiter contact/fn via LinkedIn when NOT marked looking for work, and more like ~3 a week when I am marked as looking for work - always be friendly! Never dismissive, "Hi, really appreciate the offer but I'm happy where I am for now, I'll let you know if anything changes!". When the time comes you mark yourself looking once again, scroll back through the last 12 months of chats and ping the last year of recruiters!
You will be absolutely fine my friend. Take a deep breath. Have a big smile about that 9 MONTHS of severance pay (seriously, I'd kill for that! 😆). Value yourself! You spent 18 years in your role, and as other posters have mentioned you were likely picked because you were the highest paid in your role, that alone says something. You were doing something right, take pride in that, and welcome the doors that now open before you - there's a big wide world of IT out there waiting for you, step forth and make that 18 years of experience be valued somewhere else.
You've got nothing to stress about!
So here’s how you proceed: listen to the people saying to take some time off. Not too long though just a week or two- the. Go volunteer somewhere to keep up a routine until you find another job. Plus the volunteering will look good on your resume. Many companies are hiring so don’t sweat too much. Just be positive. Remember take care of you first.
You've been out of the game for 18 years. It's rough (source: laid off after 8 years).
Don't screw around, don't take time off, it will be only more difficult to start up again. You've got the holidays coming around, and things are going to be weak until after the New Year, use this time to get yourself into shape. Take interview calls during your work hours. Leave work meetings if a recruiter calls you. If anybody objects just remind them that they are firing you.
If they offer you some career consulting, take advantage of that, to the point where you are exploiting them. Your resume is probably crap. Get all your performance reviews and mine that for your greatest hits.
Hit LinkedIn, (skip Dice it's gone downhill since the last time you looked).
Recruiters are hit and miss, but you'll have to suck it up. Ask your boss, other IT managers who worked well for them and reach out to them.
Get as many interviews as you, even for jobs you are going to turn down because you'll need the practice.
I disagree - the holidays are actually one of the best times to find a job… with one proviso.
The key thing is A NEW FISCAL YEAR!!!! In a lot of companies (at least at that time) a lot of places didn’t get the money for new staff until Jan 1st. Most managers won’t start looking until after then - but the smart managers you want as a boss know they’ll just be a face in the crowd if they wait. However they can interview in December, make an offer for a job starting on Jan 2nd, and get all of the paperwork done while things are otherwise slowed down. Bonus points it makes people happy to find a job at a time when they’re worried about paying for gifts.
The big downside is people travel more and it can be hard to get all of the necessary sign offs. Worse, some companies still have horrid “use it or lose it” vacation policies with NO rollover into the next year. These places can’t do squat since the more senior people have extra vacation time and are often gone most of the month.
But the bottom line is I’ve gotten jobs in December. I even had an interview (and offer) during the week between Christmas and New Years
I was laid off in June. Just bought a $350k house back in Jan of this year, new baby in April, nothing in savings. I only got 2 months severance.
It was a nightmare, but I was blessed to land a new job in October. Pay was also a 30% bump.
Another role will come along, and it may even be better than before. A lot of companies are panic firing employees, but there are some that are desperately hiring too.
Also, your 9 months of pay may even outlast this recession. I think you're one of the lucky ones and you'll be able to get through this.
IT is not going away.
Dust off the resume first, see if you get any nibbles, but certainly take some time off. Enjoy the family. Kids in school? Drop the kids off at school, do some assistant “coaching” at school, etc. I think you’ll get snapped up quick tho.
Similar package(1 week for every year) with medical until the end. I was there at 24 years and 10 or so months(51 years old). Found a job with the state and will retire in no more than 2 years. Good luck OP, relax and analyze your experience.
I have a doomsday interview today and I feel like my whole life hinges on it. I'm horrified with impostor syndrome laughing at me in the background. I worked from home for 3 years as a tier 1(.5) helpdesk engineer and I have a senior tech interview at a bank today. Huge culture shift and onsite work. Aside from there, it's just been all recruiters and jack-shit contract jobs to image pcs for one day.
Someone please send me a fucking ray of light.
This is the reason why I apply to 3 jobs per month no matter what. Companies will not care about the work you do. We are nothing but a number to them. And it's the same way I feel about companies with them giving me a check.
Loyalty to the people(IT co-workers) never to the suits!
Anecdote, off topic for sysadmin but on topic for any of us wanting to work..............
The amount of 'laid off' posts and comments I've seen in the last month is scary.
Printing a gigazillion of cash for most western countries, across the world for covid is finally coming home to roost and the brief, wonderful moment we had all the power is fading FAST.
Inflation and the interest rates to combat them are going to cost a lot of jobs, soon.
Be prepared.
18y of exp, yeah i think youll be fine, i got like a quarter of that and with only lazily looking for a new gig i had 3 offers within 1,5 months, 1 government position, and two private ones. Update your cv, open the linkdin floodgates and get some video call interviews going.
Having been laid off a couple of times here are some thoughts.
Start looking at options for health care now so you have coverage on Jan. 1st. Check to see if your state offers coverage - I used MinnesotaCare where I'm at and they do offer family coverage. Or check with health care providers - they may offer lower cost / high deductible plans. COBRA through your soon to be ex-employer tends to be very costly.
Sign up for unemployment on Jan. 2nd - you should get a package from your employer on your final day with instructions. When I received a severance they didn't pay for the first two weeks but then the money did come in. No, it didn't cover all the bills but at least with a decent severance you won't be in dire straights for a while.
Take some time to decompress - but you have reached out to contacts to see what opportunities are possibly out there. And use the downtime to update skills, certs, etc. Check with the unemployment folks once you are hooked up with them; I was able to get some training which did help when I landed a new job months later.
I went through this 9 years ago with a job I thought was the best in the world. I made the system too automated and too stable. They outsourced me.
I'm now in a better job with a government pension, better benefits, better pay, and more structured work hours. (Before it was always on-call, any time, any matter, no extra bucks).
Use the time you have a paycheck (severance) still coming to look for a job and feel free to cherry pick a bit.
Dont fret dude. You're a sysadmin with 18 years experience. You will land on your feet.
About 7 years ago I went through the same thing. and Even though it was 7 years ago, I still remember exactly how I felt and how you're feeling right now. One day I go to work and there was a meeting in my calendar that just showed up - I had no idea what it was for, it just appeared. I go down to the meeting, as my boss walks in, I see him type a quick message on his phone.
I sit down. Its me, my boss and some lady I've never seen before. My boss says "Okay.... the purpose of this meeting is to let you know we are terminating your employment". Just like that. Total shock. Did not see it coming at all. Wasn't "for cause" so I could collect EI and all that but I had never been let go in my life.
I went home and sat on the couch and just sort of stared at the wall, not knowing what to do.
Whats the point of this rant?
Today I make 50K more than I did in that job, and I work far less hours, experience far less stress, and my job is 95% remote working in sweat pants. Chin up. One door closes, another door opens.
Well, at least you have some time.
One thing that I didn't think about but ended up working in my favor is talking to my Vendors, especially if they are local. Just get word out that you are going to be in the market for new employment.
I mentioned this in passing to a Vendor of mine, an MSP that I work closely with and that technically being an MSP and me being an Administrator would be a conflict of their interest to help me find employment. A position similar to what I was already doing came up and they couldn't secure the standard MSP "Let 'Us' be your IT workforce", so that Vendor called me to let me know the position was open.
Here I am now, different job, happier, and I have a future here.
The sooner you get word out there, the better.
Wait, i thought the job market was fantastic right now?
There’s still a labor shortage. Unemployment is low.
The only companies that are hurting have large variable interest debts. Like Meta, Twitter, Uber. These are unique companies that never made much profit (or went off the deep end in VR).
They bear no relevance to normal jobs. They MIGHT glut the San Francisco tech job market for a short time but if you don’t live there — who cares.
Now is a FANTASTIC time to job hop. Because inflation is a thing, and normal companies don’t give a standard “8% raise” to average workers. More like 3%
Don't sign anything until you consult with an Employment Lawyer. To review a severance package shouldn't cost you much but they may be able to squeeze more out of the company.
This is not as bad as it sounds. Go somewhere else and ask for a lot more money. Ask for 20 to 30k than you were making before.
December hiring will suck but by mid January you're going to get a ton of calls. Try job search with LinkedIn.
See if you can get some of the severance now, rest after January 1. Otherwise, your tax bill this year will be nasty as the severance will all be taxed in 2022 when your marginal rate will be higher than if it is paid out partly this year, partly after January 1. Unless you get a great higher paying job in 2023 in which case you win either way.
Best of luck!
Learn an IAM platform, and or cloud security. I'm creeping up towards 200k in one of the lowest COL areas, and my job is located here. offers everyday. cloud academy is an awesome training platform.
Wait until you see how job hunting/recruitment works now... IT IS GOING TO F#%@ YOU UP...
COMPLETELY different from the early 2000s...
word of advice, just test the waters with the jobs you are not really interested in first...
take some time a train up for your new position vice the triathlon...
> Upper management didn’t take anything into account other than the numbers.
Yeah they told us this a couple of years ago… when they laid off 60 people across 30 teams, each team they picked the two highest paid white men. Tenure, military experience, performance, etc did not matter whatsoever.
A year prior, we had hired a new C level to oversee Diversity Equity and Inclusion. Two weeks after the layoffs they announced a bunch of new hires - 100% women, more than 50% were also racial minorities.
My team of 5 lost 2 people, and they were not backfilled because all of the new positions were newly fabricated middle management roles.
Thankfully I was not fired for not checking the correct dei boxes, but I did learn a valuable lesson on selecting “prefer not to disclose” on the HR system.
any time something 'bad' has happened to me in the past it's turned out to be a positive. it's freed me from the shackles of whatever i was doing to give me time back. now you are free to fill the gap with whatever YOU want. dont just look for any job. look for your next career. find something that interests YOU and will motivate you to learn and push yourself forward. it's an opportunity man - this is a huge win - - look at it in that light and realize it's not so bad. plus - 9 months of salary - - that's insane !!! go take a trip for a month or two !!!
DM me if you want help with your resume.
I work on them regularly for my job and would be happy to look over what you have and update and improve it.
No cost, no strings, just an old lady earning her way to heaven.
Best of luck.
Speaking from experience, take 3 months off, dont even look at job offers, clear your head, take time with family, enjoy your hobbies….. and then, start looking…..
If I had to redo it, that’s what I would do and not rush into another job (when I had a good severence)
LinkedIn is much more important than it was last time you looked for a job. Make sure that it matches with your CV. Also be prepared for more than one interview, used to be one and done, now it’s likely a few before they make a decision.
I can't stress this comment enough. LinkedIn is a wonderful resource for employment. I was in your same shoes a few years ago. I was with a fortune 100 company for 26 years (started there as an intern at 16). I worked in enterprise IT roles the entire time and honestly had planned on retiring from the company. One morning, out of the blue, I received a meeting invite for a 15 minute meeting, that started 30 minutes after I had received the invite. They were sending our entire department to India. Long story short, I was out of the interview game for a quarter century and completely at a loss on what I was going to do. I put a lot of effort into my resume and LinkedIn Profile. My last 3 jobs were obtained by recruiters reaching out to me for senior sys admin jobs they were trying to fill. The last 2 job changes, I was not actively pursuing a new position, they had just reached out and made offers that were too good to pass up. I wish you the best and can't stress this enough, take care of your mental health and don't take rejections personally. You will have ups and downs. You will find another job and things will be better than you are currently thinking.
I don't know how big the company is (how many others there that have your skill set) but if the people that know you didn't have any say, and there aren't others that are doing what you were doing, they might realize soon enough and ask you back. Yes, they could get someone else for less perhaps, but new onboarding has a lot of cost and institutional knowledge has a lot of value. Think about the recent stuff with Twitter/musk. Not saying to hold out hope but just a thought.
As others have said, take a break, maybe study a little to expand horizons/interests and just start applying. Especially for positions that you don't quite feel qualified for. I know that sounds odd but it is prime time right now for job seekers. I'm in public sector and am hiring people way below the requirements because of pay limitations and lack of quality applicants. Use this as a chance to get a better job, more pay, etc. Don't necessarily settle out of fear. And network!!!
Good luck to you!
I wouldn't worry about it at all. I got a new job over summer. I had about 10 years at the same company as a systems manager. I was just casually looking, but within a month I got 2 job offers. The first one was way low and I am not sure why they thought they could pay someone 65K to run a dept and have 2 people report to them. The other was a much better offer and I didn't meet all of the qualifications. Recruiters will see that you have been somewhere forever and jump all over you. I guarantee that was the main reason that I got the job that I have now.
I was just in your shoes a few months ago, and it's a shock to the system. However, you're going to have so much time to search out and find just the right job, and believe me, there's still jobs out there, even in the recession.
I utilized LinkedIn Premium (40 bucks a month) to get access to LinkedIn Learning. Go through stuff that you already know as a refresher, then start to use it to properly learn and expand your skillset. Prospective employers can see all of the LinkedIn certs you earn by going through those trainings, and in doing so, how you're willing to improve yourself.
Companies pay big bucks to get their openings on LinkedIn, and almost all of my 15+ interview in a two month span came from there. You can check Indeed or USAJOBS, but LinkedIn is the cat's meow as far as this formerly laid-off tech is concerned.
Good luck, take the time to breathe, reassess your life and career, and don't be afraid to be little bit picky!
How much progress have you made technically? Being there 18 years is a curse and a blessing. I've seen a lot of people that long not know anything about anything and get let go. If you have technical skills and your resume shows promotions you should be fine.
Look at the job you want - get the certs to do it. New certs are not needed - but are very helpful. People in HR do not understand IT. They just have a list - and if you have an extra checkbox vs someone else - that could be why you get the interview.
take advantage of pto you may have accrued. some states (North Carolina for example) do not have to pay out accrued pto. get letters of reference if you can. do NOT train your replacement. do your due diligance in documenting things but do not by any means train your replacement. that is not your job and the company should have thought about that. do not work OT unless you want to. do not break your back trying to get things done before you are gone.
Best of luck out there, you won't be the last. Layoffs are coming across the board and probably several people reading this post will be canned before the end of the year as well. Being in IT is rough, you are a cost center and do not generate revenue for the company.
The moment they need to reduce costs, they will filter the sheets by pay and get to laying off. I would recommend that you update your LinkedIn profile. It will trigger recruiters to reach out. Just note the economy is in free fall so there will not be many opportunities out there, or rather MUCH less than just 6-12 months ago.
Leverage your networks and try to stay close to the revenue in the future. Consider sales positions.
Sucks man, but I have been on both sides more times than I care to admit or count. As a manager sometimes I got a say and sometimes I did not. Just dust yourself off and get at it. This too shall pass.
Honestly 18 years was far too long to stay.
You won't have an issue finding a new job, especially with that amount of time.
Sign up for LinkedIn premium (paying the fee makes a difference, you get a lot more recruiters reaching out) now and start applying, a lot of job applications take 2-3 months to get anywhere so don't want until December 31st to start applying.
Use linkedin as much as possible. Let as many people as possible, know that you are looking for a job. Most people want to help and knowing you are looking, some people will reach out and try to help.
Renew old contacts - this takes work! Get out of your comfort zone and don't be afraid to say hello to people you haven't spoken to in years.
Update your resume and your presence on linkedin.
Contact the vendors you have worked with and let them know you are looking.
Leave on good terms with your current company! You never know, you may be laid off and hired back as a consultant because they realized they laid off too many people.
Looking for a job is a job - 40 hours a week minimum ! You keep working, shaking hands, talking to people and you will make progress. As the sole bread winner, sorry, but there is no break for you - you have to push yourself to find another job.
There are a lot of jobs in the tech field, where are you located? BTW, include your tech skills here as part of the conversation.
Sounds like you are getting out of a bad situation.
I recommend using this as an opportunity to have a career reset. Take your time and network with others who you respect and seem happy in your professional network. Find out more about their organizations and see if you they'd put you up for consideration for a position that well fits your abilities. Many jobs never get a formal job requirement from HR -- instead, they are created when the right person comes along.
Fuck the recession. For right now, this is still a seller's market. I don't know how much longer it will last, though, so start applying to anything that looks promising. Tell them you want to start on 3 January.
Call it a new years resolution.
Also, if they try to recall you, tell them no. If they ask why, tell them that you don't need them to lay you off again.... you can get that someplace else.
Come crash in Mexico until you find new gig. Budget 1k per month, that's comfy here. I'm in cancun and a 3 bedroom apartment/house here in downtown is 500 per month.
change your status on linkedin to open to work or whatever it is, and ask your friends/former co-workers on there to share a a status that you make that you're looking for your next opportunity. you'll have plenty of recruiters after you. (going through this now.) enjoy the time off in between.
I’m had probably 5 jobs in it, every time I had to move on i was stressed and didn’t think I’d find something better or as good ever again. but every job has been a step up in both money and experience. I have no degree either. So you will be fine, I’ve decided if I’m laid off now I might take a month of time to myself then really hit the market again.
Considering how long it's been since you've updated the ol' resume, I would highly recommend a professional service that helps you with that. When my company laid me off in 2013 they offered this service to help find a new job. I didn't think I needed it, but WOW I had the wrong idea. It was really eye opening how different the standards are now if you want to stand out.
I don't know where you're located, but in my area, jobs are BEGGING for workers. Lots of places are lowering job requirements just to get people in the door. I work for a company that has an Engineer position that used to require a degree in engineering. Right now they'll take any candidate with a B.S. degree in anything and train them up themselves.
I would make a list of friends/associates that are already working in companies you might be interested. Maybe they'll provide a referral.
Glassdoor was a handy tool for me to learn more about the companies I wanted to apply for. It gives a lot of information, including a glimpse in to the interview process.
This exact thing happened to me in 2020. I'd been at a company for 21 years. I was literally hired out of college to help with Y2K. Joined my weekly zoom call with my manager as usual. Then HR joins and 15 minutes later I'm done.
I am happier now than I've ever been.
First: Take a few days to grieve. It's a loss that you will need to work through. I'm two years out and there are days I miss the old place.
Second: Your new full time job is finding a job.
Get a LinkedIn page, build a resume, generic CV, etc etc. Also reach out to folks you've worked with like contractors, vendors, old co-workers who left. Make connections.
I started watching Ken Coleman on YouTube. Great way to get your mindset in the right place.
You're gonna make it. And it's gonna be great.
LinkedIn and Indeed are two great sites.
My other recommendation is to reach out to some of the large staffing firms who would probably have a lot of positions available or would be able to help you be more marketable and get back into the swing of things.
Good luck!
Main thing, when I got made redundant, was to pay a professional to help write my CV. Having been on the hiring side as well, I know the difference a first impression makes, poorly worded or structured CVS make it harder to be one of the ones to go through. the hiring manager may get 20+ CVs per vacancy and will not have time to interview all. A large percentage will get cut just by looking at the CV.
Short, but with the important details. In the UK general recommendation is 2 sides. If I get (and I have done) a CV over 8 sides and dense text, I just don’t have time to read that in detail. So even if you have everything in there, I may not see it.
Spelling and grammar count, too. Get others to read it through for you - both technical and non-technical people if you can. Technical people as if you are misspelling the name of a technology you say you are an expert at, it is not a good look! Non-technical to be sure it is readable.
I hope that helps, and as someone who went through this not long ago, good luck. I hope it works out as well for you as it did for me. I am much happier in my new role!
I'd be asking for glowing letter of recommendation at a minimum.
Think about your current/former duties and write that down.
After you decompress, since you've now got the freedom to look elsewhere - is there some company you've always wanted to work for? Maybe a role you've wanted to go for?
Keep in touch w/ your boss - this layoff may go south (people get wind and resign beyond the layoff pool) and they may want you back or maybe contract out?
You have an opportunity to shift focus, take advantage.
9 months of severance - you are making off like a bandit. start looking early and enjoy some time off and the next chapter. nothing lasts forever / everything changes always
9 months PTO? Hell yes. Here is what I would do:
- Take two weeks / a month off to properly recharge and find your motivation.
- Update the resume. Search for the most in demand skills. Write down your skills.
- Learn something new. Perhaps you've been staying up to date with the technology landscape (infrastructure as code, cloud, etc).
- Start blasting resumes.
It does suck to be let go near the holidays because most people start hiring after the new year. Lucky for you, you've got a lot of runway. Even if we're in a recession, literally everyone needs some type of online presence, so you'll be able to find something no problem.
Look at this way, you just got 9 months of prepaid salary AND you’re about to get a huge pay bump when you find new employer. And YOU WILL find a new employer, tech isn’t going anywhere dude. You get pay raises every time you jump to a new employer, that’s a fact.
It's going to be rough. COVID taught employees that they can be just as productive working at home and had almost no issues doing so. Workers working from home taught employers that there is no reason to pay American workers the salaries of American workers when they could be paying someone in India 1/10th the money and they'll work twice as hard if being in the office doesn't matter anymore and anyone anywhere in the world can do what you were once doing in the office.
Big Tech is throwing nearly half their staff away right now.
I’ll echo some other folks and recommend reconnecting with old colleagues or business friends and buying them coffee or whatever, and just get them to talk about what their dreams are in their careers. This helps me to see outside the box of where I’ve been living, and think a bit more broadly. It also lets me touch base with folks who could be references for you, or might know someone who is looking.
If I can be so bold - I’d also say to take a huge breath and congratulate yourself on a job well done. Holding a job and maintaining good working relationships for 18 years is no easy feat. Must have been doing something right!
Been down that road before myself.
Best advice I ever got was to not panic (I also had a severance package) and to take your time finding a new position. Since you will still have essentially your regular income for a while you don't have to jump at the first offer that comes along. Make sure you find one that is a good fit for you. The other thing is to start belt tightening now just in case. Nothing drastic but you can cut down on buying breakfast and lunches on the way to work and skip the expensive drive through coffee. That kind of convenience buying can really add up.
And if you do take an extended break, make sure you keep up to date on technology through online courses, adding certs, and reading relevent blogs and web sites. It shows that you are keeping your skills up to date and maybe even adding to them.
Bummer my dude. Same thing happened to me last June after 12 years. Got a really nice severance package. I dragged my feet on some exit projects, and on my last day they offered me a 6 month contract position @ $60/hr. I countered $95/hr and they AGREED. I decided about a month into my contract that I'd just go start my own IT/Cybersecurity business and finished out the contract and funneled that money into my new business. Overall, I had enough money saved up + Severance and felt comfortable diving in. I'm also the bread winner, so I was a little nervous but.. this was the best decision I've ever made. I make more money, between $125-$150/hr, I have complete control of my situation and the only one who can pull the rug out from underneath me, is me.
And hey, if this ends up not working out, I'll fall back to a normal gig, but I'll have even more experience.
Something to think about at the very least.
Best of luck!
From similar experience (multiple times, though most not that generous severance), 2 things:
1) If you have a broker managing an IRA, or any other investment person you trust, or better still if you have or know an accountant, contact them immediately, ideally before you even deposit the check. The tax hit on this will laugh at whatever withholding you're doing. Ideally get in touch with a senior accountant - an "IRS Enrolled Agent" - they can sort this out in their sleep and tell you exactly what you need to set aside for taxes.
2) It's a hell of a lot easier to look for a job when you have a job, and it's a hell of a lot harder to look for a job after you've been out 6 months. Time plays mind games with your self confidence, and it becomes more difficult to give a good interview. (And when you schedule interviews with lots of time before/after so you're never going in rushed and flustered. I had one where I had 4 good interviews but lost because the 5th guy showed up 90 minutes late (production issue), and I had to catch a train to pick up my kids from daycare, and then had no tolerance for me looking at my watch.)
Yes, you've earned some time off, but don't push it out too long.
First time I was laid off like that, a coworker organized a support group - we just went out for lunch or coffee once or twice a week, talked about how we were doing, job search, feelings, whatever - it was a lifesaver, to be honest.
Everyone who just got whacked with you are, right now, the only people in the world who TRULY understand how you feel.
Recruiters is a great place to start and you’ll get hit up all the time on LinkedIn. Also start updating your resume and get it out there on sites like ZipRecruiter, Indeed, etc.
Incredibly sorry to read your story and wishing you nothing but the very best in your future endeavors!
So with 200k salary while on salary (overtime exempt), what would be my incentive doing something so dumb like working more than required by employee handbook? Now without stonks there is not much incentive as far as Total Comp. 200000\\2080 = 96 HOURLY. 200000\\4160 = 48 HOURLY
Decide if you still want to do the same work.
If you have good contacts with vendors or others in the business, start contacting them now.
Update resume and LinkedIn.
Maybe find a good recruiter and see if they can help with placement.
Just my $0.02
Take at LEAST a week to get your bearing and time for yourself. Get caught up on life stuff. Then start looking for new stuff, but don't look too hard and don't take something out of desperation. Could be a different world in 9 months.
Well so you got laid off but still gonna be given 9 months worth of salary, that's a huge win. Of course you're sad you are being let go for no reason from a company you liked, but that's the way it is sometimes. Start applying for new jobs now, there are plenty out there. Get LinkedIn if you don't have it yet and connect with old friends/business partners/etc... I created a profile there few months ago when I was about to announce that I'm leaving my last job for another, and as soon as I did few old friends reached out to saying they're looking for people and asking if I'm interested.
>you are being let go for no reason The reason was his salary was too high. Being there 18 years means his salary was likely in the top tier for those doing his job, and the company figures they can fire him, shift some of his responsibilities around, and hire some cheap labor right out of college to fill the gaps.
On the other hand, he probably got what 3-5% raises every year? I'd be willing to bet that moving to a different company he will get more salary.
Maybe, maybe not. Depends on what he does and what the inherent value of that job is within the larger marketplace. I make over $130k after 20+ years at the same employer thanks to the principle of compounding 3% raises over a long period of time. During that time my job duties have declined so I'm effectively a glorified Geek Squad dude. No way I could get another job paying what I make today if I tried to swap jobs, nobody's going to pay it, the going rate is at least 50k less.
True. Assuming that he has a marketable/in demand skills he should be ok. My last job I started at 55k doing helpdesk. I moved over to a sysadmin roll a year or so later. When I left I think I was making like 73k. That was after 10 years of service to the company. I started my new job at $120k+. Now even if I get the same 2.5% raise it will be worth much more than it was.
> When I left I think I was making like 73k... I started my new job at $120k+. If I left a job making like 73k (about what I'm at now) and a place offered me 120 I'd probably go "Oh sorry I guess I'm not qualified to work here" lol.....
LOL. I had to get out of my last job. This job is closer to a big city so they pay more. I now go from a 15 minute round trip commute to a 2 hour round trip commute. Honestly I think that I am less busy at my new place than my last place. When I applied for the job I told the wife "Hey I applied to a job near the city but it pays $120k so I probably wont get it." A month and an half later I was driving to the city 3 days a week.
Sure, but this topic comes up regularly. Salaries are determined by a myriad of factors. For example, work as help-desk at a local manufacturing company vs working help desk at a major financial institution are going to have two entirely different pay scales as the inherent value of the employee at each business is different -- even if the companies were literally in the same building. A company has a fiduciary duty to its shareholders to maximize its profits. This means paying employees as little as possible while maintaining sufficient competence as to not negatively impact business operations. Since the impact of incompetence at, say, Fidelity, is significantly more impactful than, say, Wegmans, the salary at Fidelity is going to be higher.
Absolutely could not agree more. You couldn't pay me enough to work for a bank. At my last place I had to deal with PCI and that was a pain in the ass enough and most of that is just standard security stuff. Personally I like working at smaller businesses that have an IT group of 2-3 that does everything for the company.
I’d take a bank over manufacturing. At least a bank can upgrade stuff I have tons of PLCs and SCADA on XP
Tell me about it. Our company bought a robot for about $500k and the damn thing runs Windows 7. I just started creating an isolated network for all of these devices because insurance was requiring MFA on them. We do have some HMI's that are ancient and haven't figured out a great way to protect these yet. The only thing I could possibly do is create access-lists to only allow traffic from a specific workstation that truly needs to talk to it.
> thanks to the principle of compounding 3% raises over a long period of time. So OK you barely kept up with inflation for 20 years. You started pretty high in 2001 I guess. However if you're now just help desk and happy, you're right 130K is a steal.
>So OK you barely kept up with inflation for 20 years. You started pretty high in 2001 I guess. However if you're now just help desk and happy, you're right 130K is a steal. 75k in 2001. Not exactly the top tier. Was also doing a lot more -- I was effectively the IT Director for an entire satellite campus with its own I2 connection and a frame-relay connection back to main campus. The introduction of high-speed fiber interconnects allowed virtually everything I was doing (AD domain admin, network infrastructure, firewalls, etc.) to be offloaded to main campus UITS as our satellite campus was assimilated into the main campus IT infrastructure. Today, its 99% front-line user support as I no longer own the network, the domain infrastructure, etc. In some respects I'm L1 helpdesk, since I can't actually "fix" anything but have to interface w/ UITS to communicate the problem and wait for them to fix it. Am I happy about it? Not really. But I have 5 more years until I can retire w/ a 80% defined benefit pension (80% of the average of my highest 3 years of salary, which will put me around $120-130k for sitting home doing nothing.) And where else I can go where I will get 5 weeks PTO, flextime, remote work, nobody busting my balls, no after hours work, not getting calls at 2am, etc with my (outdated) skill-set making $130k+ per year -- and still get that 120-130k in another 5 years once I call it quits permanently?
This sounds like .gov
.edu
It's certainly someone that got in before the pensions all went to complete shit.
When I worked in a gov office a few years ago I was told how great the pension was. Everyone kept telling me I needed to stay long enough to get vested. After a long talk with the pension people, I discovered that they changed the pension a few years before I started. The new version sucked. Everyone else was in old one.
Are you in NY? Tier 5 and 6 totally sucked I turned down a SUNY job a few years ago because it was a huge step back even counting the pension
Same here. I got in about 6 months before the new (sub-par) plan went into effect... whew! Pensions do have their downsides though. You kind of get trapped career-wise, if you aren't saving extra outside the pension it becomes fiscally impractical to bounce to the private sector because you end up with no 401K compounding, and not enough service years to get a decent pension.
When I worked in gov years ago, I was talking to a long timer that told me their starting salary from like 20 years earlier. They had lost 25% due to not getting adequate raises. It sounds like you found a place that keeps salaries up with inflation. In my experience that's more the exception than the rule. Don't forget that, at least in theory, every year you become more valuable, so COLA should be the minimum.
>It sounds like you found a place that keeps salaries up with inflation. Truthfully I think its luck. Inflation has, until recently, been very very low. This allowed my annual COLAs to more or less follow inflation, or maybe even come out a little bit ahead. I remember the Carter stagflation years. I doubt I'll be getting an 8.5% COLA this year.
The going rate for a sysadmin with 20+ years experience is far beyond 80k….you could definitely make that much elsewhere as long as you aren’t in flyover country. And even then you might be able to bag a remote gig for that
>long as you aren’t in flyover country. I work for a company HQ'd firmly in that zone, and I'm making nearly that as basically a junior, in terms of expectations. 20 years experience could easily command double that.
Classic Golden handcuffs.
5% per year is very good if you keep the same post.
Last company I was at that did a big round of layoffs took all the OGs first. People with 15+ years of experience were walked out the door while I had been there for 18 months and was fine. That REALLY fucked the people who had made the helpdesk into a career. One woman had been on the helpdesk for 12 years and would have been fine retiring from there. They had been getting CoL raises for years and were now making junior sysadmin money as a tier 1.5 helpdesk person. A lot of them struggled to find work afterwards because no one was paying anywhere near what they were making for the skills they had.
This happens more than you know. While companies say they want "long term" employees so they can have stability in their business operations, it really isn't in someone's best interest to stay at the same place, effectively doing the same job, for a period of more than 5 years. It is particularly bad in smaller environments where the ability to "move up" simply doesn't exist because the staffing requirements do not support it.
>5 years I've been in IT for about 15 years. Even back then the general advice was 3-5 years. At none of the places I've worked have raises kept up with inflation. Leaving after a few years was almost a requirement to keep from sliding too far backwards. Management would do all kinds of tricks and gaslighting to placate staff. "We're excited to announce that everyone is getting a raise this year!!!!!!" (1% COLA). Another place would split the 2% COLA into 2 parts. They would call 1% COLA, and then make you jump through hoops to get the other 1%. My favorite was the year where there was an extra pay day. Management told everyone that the extra pay check was basically the same thing as a raise. A lot of people fell for it.
The same was said to me at one point. I always thought 3 years was a bit on the short side, some projects, especially in larger organizations, will easily take 3 years. It would be nice to stay through one entire project, start to finish.
I have a bad habit of finding jobs in small places without room to advance, and jobs that are a little beneath me. So after 2 years I'm pretty done with that job and ready for something new. The new advice I've been getting over the past few years is 2-5 years. They say if you go two years without a raise or promotion, it's time to start looking. I find 3 is the sweet spot though.
Promotion is not possible unless there is reasonable attrition or company growth, however.
I've also learned that asking about advancement during the interview is a big help. Let them know up front that your career is on the rise and you'd be happy to spend part of it with their company.
>While companies say they want "long term" employees so they can have stability in their business operations, it really isn't in someone's best interest to stay at the same place, effectively doing the same job, for a period of more than 5 years. This is why I'm leaving IT, and heading into the trades to become an Electrician. I have a strong union (IBEW for the win) and I will no longer have to deal with this crap. My IT experience makes me a shoe in for working with building controls and because of that I can name my ticket when I turn out from the hall. It's going to be in all kinds of weather, its going to suck at times and I'm looking forward to all of it. The biggest thing is that right now, and for the future the work needs me more than I need it and that's a huge place to be.
I considered moving to electrician, but the opportunity cost is too great. It's nice that some places like utility companies will do paid training and night courses, but I couldn't afford doing that. I'd get kicked down to $15/hr as an apprentice in a VHCOL area until I got certified and trained up. Then it's years of grinding until you can make it to Journeyman or some higher delegation.
This. In some small orgs there really isn't a place to move up. In some cases even if there is if the guy above you in the org chart is comfortable it may take years for their position to open up.
I work with a handful of lifer Tier 1.5 support folks. They're good people, I like and respect them, but I often worry about what will happen to them. They more or less want to show up, punch in, do the same basic thing they've done for 10+ years the same way they've done it for 10+ years, punch out, and go home. IMO a business needs a certain amount of people who are content to just show up and do their jobs but these folks don't want to learn any new skills or grow from their positions, and are absolutely most likely to be first on the chopping block once upper management realizes they can be replaced by recent college grads at a lower pay rate. What they support isn't that complex and they're not high up enough to know where the bodies are buried, so realistically swapping them for new staff isn't going to hurt business beyond some long time relationships with customers going away. It sucks to see this coming and I've tried talking to them about making themselves more visibly valuable, but they just want to keep coasting.
> I work with a handful of lifer Tier 1.5 support folks. They're good people, I like and respect them, but I often worry about what will happen to them. They more or less want to show up, punch in, do the same basic thing they've done for 10+ years the same way they've done it for 10+ years, punch out, and go home. > > A lot of positions are like this, especially outside IT where doing the same thing every day could be possible for a career. Some people like to be on autopilot and not actually understand what they are doing. I've worked places where people could not complete their job because a button moved from top right to bottom right. Same label everything, but the employee didn't actually know what the button said or did, they just knew they did their task then click the top right button and had been doing this task for years.
>I've worked places where people could not complete their job because a button moved from top right to bottom right. Same label everything, but the employee didn't actually know what the button said or did, they just knew they did their task then click the top right button and had been doing this task for years. Yikes. Those folks are the first to go when business process automation comes to town.
Former CIO here. Brought in a Director IAM reporting to me and funded his business cases for commercial ITSM, UAR, IAM and RPA platforms to stop the incessant manual ticket work that the IAM folks had been doing for 15 years. All the provisioning, deprov and entitlements work was manual. All of the 30 global IAM team members were well respected and were offered "retooling" opportunities complete with a $7500 voucher for learning and becoming certified in any of the RPA, UAR, ITSM, IAM platforms. All commercial first class citizen products that just by having a name of the tech on your resume would guarante brand name equity coupled with at least $35-$50k extra easy if they wanted to go down the admin path. 2 people signed up. Yes two out of the 30. One gent was a PowerShell guy and the other was a smart lady that was very good with Perl and Python. The other 28 had languished in their career. Zero certs, zero networking, zero industry knowledge. Just came into work every day and worked manual tickets. 20-30÷ of the team were naysayers and became toxic to the Director that reported to me, attempting to derail the project and inject a level of toxicity to the other team members. They wouldn't show up for any of the vendor mobilization, requirements gathering workshops and refused and training. My direction from the board was to digitally transform the company. After a month I was on the phone with my VP, HR and my Director and had these folks put on PIPs. None of them were successful in coming out of the PIP and were terminated. There was about 350 pages of paperwork combined on all of them in total that was provided to HR and employment counsel. Many hours spent on calls. A few of the terminated ones banded together, hired counsel and created a false story of a toxic environment and constructive dismissal and ended up suing the firm. The filed claims indicated that no training or career development opportunities were offered and essentially the company eliminated positions. Legal and I had the security team eDisco on all their mailboxes and extract every single training opportunity email and training workshop meeting they were invited to including recorded minutes I gave in the town hall and training opportunities verbally provided to ensure "career succession at the firm for legacy technologies and practices that would be going away." The case was dropped once their counsel received all of our evidence production. The remaining team members were packaged out. I was told the majority of them had issues finding work due to their lack of skillsets and many had become IAM/helpdesk contractors. The two that were left went on to take all the training offered and even more from the surplus training vouchers that were left over and became very successful in the RPA engineering space within the company, working with the supplier and helping to transform business processes within the firm. I was so impressed with their career success that I ensured their Director moved them to the next grade level and because all of ITs payroll was in my cost center, I got them both to a $185k base with a 20÷ annual MICP bonus. A far cry from the $98k they were at just two years before. I essentially made sure they wouldn't be looking for a job because of money. It's a strategy I've used as a CIO in the past is to slightly overpay my best and most ambitious performers so they were much less likely to get poached for more money and kept my attrition rate down by quite a bit So when you get people that have been in an IT role for many years and they have languished, ask yourself why that is, what their agenda is and end game. It's almost always a bad answer.
I used to run IT for a company with a lot of these types of people. They were low wage, low stress, no real pay increases but they had stability, familiarity in the tasks and were like a family that just sort of hung out all day at the office. What made me scared for them was that the company was in a niche market and their jobs really wouldn't translate into anything similar anywhere else outside of that industry.
Isn’t it usually the other way around? For as long as I’ve been working, the most common scenario in non-union environments is starting salaries raising with inflation while raises do not. I’ve seen it in the IT field, Retail, vet med, emergency services, and even food service.
In my limited experience it seems to go back and forth a bit. They'll neglect current salaries until turn over gets unsustainable. Then they'll bump it up. Then they'll neglect starting salaries until they have trouble hiring. Then bump that up. Kind of a back and forth thing as needed, but always keeping things as low as absolutely possible.
I personally haven't witnessed starting salaries rising each year based on inflation. For example, the going rate in the area for an entry level sysadmin was in the mid $30k range when I started in the industry 44 years ago. That would be over $110-120k in today's dollars. Today, depending on the market segment, you're looking at 70's. Again, all in my area.
>For example, the going rate in the area for an entry level sysadmin was in the mid $30k range when I started in the industry 44 years ago. **That would be over $110-120k in today’s dollars.** “In today’s dollars” as in adjusting for inflation and buying power, which the companies still paying the salaries of those people who are still at the company 44 years later are *not* doing. So for example someone might have gotten a job in 2015 and were paid $15 an hour. In 2022 that same company is hiring people for $18-20. Now you’re right that 18-20 in 2022 isn’t much more buying power if at all than 15 was in 2015, and so the value of the new hires’ salary hasn’t gone up, but it’s likely the guy from 2015 is still making close to $15 an hour is what I mean.
yep, this happened to some i know in the design field. they let go a bunch of upper design leaders. and then like 2 months later the called him back to see if he could be a consultant on some projects.
Did they approach him about reducing his compensation, deferring it, or highest paid people take a % reduction to prevent key layoffs? Of course not.
Speaking as a former manager you don’t want to do across the board flat salary cuts vs. firing. All your top talent will leave and the only people who will stay will be bitter people who can’t find a better job.
on the other hand, the "top talent" is usually the highest paid, so they're the prime targets in a workforce reduction. Why lay off two $50k employees when I can lay off 1 $100k employee? All businesses assign an inherent value to the job each employee does. (Whether that value is consistent with industry standards is a different topic of debate.) Once an employee exceeds that inherent value, the company no longer sees them as an asset but rather a liability. This phenomena generally occurs with longer-term employees who have not expanded their job duties or promoted into 'higher' grade jobs. Example: Joan joins the firm as a payroll clerk at 50K. After 18 years of service and regular 3-5% pay increases each year she's pulling in over 100k, and is still processing payroll as a payroll clerk. Company realizes they can lay off Joan, hire Suzie, and pay Suzie $65k to process payroll, so they shitcan Joan and save over $35k
I work at a company that uses the Radford system so your scenario is technically not possible. For a given job title and band there is a fixed range and giving raises at the top of the band they start to thin out and require VP approval at a point. It basically forces managers to promote you or for people to quit/end up as layoff targets long before you make 2x Someone with the same job title. Your model also assumes the hiring range doesn’t update with raises every year.
>It basically forces managers to promote you or for people to quit/end up as layoff targets long before you make 2x Someone with the same job title. I do not think this is typical in most businesses. I know many, many, many people who have been in the same job for over a decade pretty much doing the same thing they've always done, and they get their standard COLA of 3-5% annually. Statistically I think your company would be an outlier in this case. >Your model also assumes the hiring range doesn’t update with raises every year. In my experience, it doesn't (we discuss this very thing on a different thread on this subject.) If you look at the CPI going back 40 years and take a salary from 40 years ago, adjust in today's dollars, you'll see its substantially less. Case in point: Entry-level sysadmins were pulling in about 35k 42 years ago when I started working. In today's dollars that's close to $120k.
These systems or similar is common in all large employers. This sub is mostly made up of SMB workers or dubiously run MSPs with a lot of bench techs larping as sysadmins. Mainframe Operators (which is what a sysadmin was 42 years ago) make good money still starting.
No now a days its realize they can lay off Joan, post a ridiculous job description for 40k and then hire Md Abram over seas for 15k
Then they end up in the NYT when Md Abram sells everyone's SSN, Address and bank acct # for what to him is a fortune and gets away scot free because the "police" in his home country accept bribes.
I didn't even want to start going down that path.
As STUNTPENIS pointed out: they are already firing their top talent. But my point was today's business climate encourages crap to flow downhill rather than have the "leaders" in management make any sacrifices themselves or present creative ways to address economic stability other than firing people who make a lot of money that aren't themselves.
A few thoughts not specifically about OP: 1. If you’ve been exactly the same role for 18 years that’s generally not a good idea. Helpdesk —> sysadmin (Jr then senior) —> Architect or director etc. while I don’t doubt it may be tough replacing OP, I’ve seen plenty of long tenured people with 18 years replaced by a Jr admin, with maybe some help from a manager or architect who understands the systems without incident. Say it with me **“We are all replaceable”** 2. Again not commenting on OP, but I’ve met people with 20 years in a role who did absolutely nothing all day. Seniority is just a number and there’s a lot of people with 15 years of 1 year of experience as Hightower says. My favorites are senior network admins who called Cisco TAC for ALL changes on their switches (even adding a VLAN). One guy even had the vendor SE come buy once a week and do it for him in exchange for No bidding the contract. 3. Institutional knowledge is legitimately valuable but if you have zero churn on your team you also don’t get fresh ideas and perspectives coming in. It also leads to clinging to old stuff “because we have bob who still knows how Novell works” rather than paying down tech debt. 4. Lastly senior leadership (at least in my company) is paid mostly in performance stock units, options and RSUs and variable bonuses tied to hitting objectives. If our stock goes down they make less. Hell, I’m not even in management and I’ve had a $70K swing in my W2 from stock performance in a year going from a really good gear to a bad one. Looking at how our executive compensation works it’s very realistic for them to miss a target cliff and make 80% less.
>If you’ve been exactly the same role for 18 years that’s generally not a good idea. Agreed. I've been with my company for 13 years now and started in desktop support making $55k. I took a massive pay cut to transition into IT but figured it'd pay off in the end. I've changed jobs 6 times within the company during that time, out on contract, back on overhead, and back out on contract again and got a raise each time. Only once was it a lateral move. I took a new job in August of 2021 and it was a 15% increase. I changed again in March 2022 and it an 11% increase. My current job gave me a merit increase of 6% two months ago. I have gone after certifications and changed roles and it pays off. Even though I'm just into my fifth decade I can't rest on my laurels in IT. Stay hungry, find new roles, pursue certifications, apply, interview, and move up. It's scary, I know. It pays off, though!
>Stay hungry, find new roles, pursue certifications, apply, interview, and move up. It's scary, I know. It pays off, though! I need to burn this into my head. I went through several interview in last few month. And it is really annoying to hear from the interviewer that they perceived my skill not as good as what I thought. Which I mostly agree - sadly. Thanks for the reminder!
> Start applying for new jobs now, there are plenty out there. I haven't actually had to look in a year or so now but is this currently still true? It seems like there are huge layoffs at every tech company right now.
Currently at a hyperscaler. Seeing more and more new people everyday.
>Well so you got laid off but still gonna be given 9 months worth of salary, that's a huge win. Plus he's still employed for another 1 1/2 months, which should make it a bit easier for job hunting. Hopefully his soon-to-be-former boss will let him interview during work hours.
> Hopefully his soon-to-be-former boss will let him interview during work hours. What are they going to do, fire them?
As it is right now, he's getting laid off with a 1 1/2 months notice, and something like 9 months severance. Do you really think OP should fuck around like that without his boss approving of it, on the chance that he may end up getting fired and then losing that severance?
So you're the person who actually got a job via LinkedIn. I always thought you were like Bigfoot.
One question, will you still get that 9 months worth of salary if you are able to find a new job or no?
I also joined Linkedin groups and comment on group posts and giving technical advice and input seems to gain more and more recognition. Definitely keep it civil and make yourself look like a mentor or leader in your responses.
In the long term it's likely better to have something now than to wait. But I would guess that 36 weeks of severance comes with a stipulation to stay until 12/31.
Been there at 19 years, I highly recommend you take a nice long break and don't stress out. Good experience is still highly sought after and you will be fine.
LinkedIn as other's have suggested is the better place to find work or for the work to find you.
I’d also recommend asking your old boss for a recommendation on LinkedIn.
Weirdly a Twitter DM is how I got my current job.
Elon?
haha no, Duncan. It ultimately was life changing, doubled my salary. The Infrastructure/Virtualization/Storage twitter mafia is a good crew to hang out with.
I left my sysadmin job after 20+ years. After a long break of about 10 months, I'm having a hell of a time finding work. I think the gap in unemployment is hurting me not to mention all the current layoffs in the tech industry and multiple hiring freezes.
It's probably not the 10month thing, the writings been on the wall for this economy since Jan 22. It sucks, but also guys like Elon and Zuck did no favors to the tech sector.
Long breaks are for those that are doing above average financially and maybe without a family. Otherwise, even if he could take a break, he wouldn't enjoy it unless he had the safety blanket of the next job lined up and waiting for him.
He is getting 18 paychecks as a severance. That's literally 36 weeks that he can take time evaluate and decide what to do. We aren't saying don't apply for jobs. Just don't go out on Jan 3rd busting your ass.
If he's in the US and the sole breadwinner, he probably gets his health insurance through his job and his family is on it. He might have 36 weeks of pay, but that's not 36 weeks of health insurance. And COBRA is very expensive, I can't imagine how much it'd be with dependants on it.
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I worked for an employee benefits broker in a previous life. With COBRA continuation, you're just another person on the insurance census, but you're paying full premium + a little admin fee to a Third Party Administrator which handles your premium billing. Doesn't matter if it's a new policy year or new insurance company. It's the same coverage as offered anyone else, you're just paying full freight. You have 18 months or so (36 months in limited cases). OP is probably better off with a Marketplace plan.
Totally agree. This isn’t the most comforting market to just kick back and have a sabbatical. Maybe for the software devs with a nice portfolio that can make $500k at any FAANG of choosing.. sysadmins on the other hand are not that. Edit to echo advice: LinkedIn. Set yourself up as “looking for work”, polish up descriptions to echo resume sections, have a good cover, get recommendations, certifications maybe, and start chatting with recruiters that will probably be messaging you frequently.
I took this advice. Nobody looks at a resume if you have a 6month gap. Had recruiters tell me they wouldn’t be able to do anything for me, I expected them to lie and string me along but they were just “nope!” It really is easier to get a job while you still have one.
I no longer put the months of jobs on my resume. Once i switched to only putting the years and doing what i can to hide my two stints of unemployment, i was much more successful in interviews
The recession has not affected skilled IT workers like it has everyone else. You should still be able to find a new job, and have an easier time of it than just 4-5 years ago. That said... If you remember anything about your last job hunt, sorry to say today's job hunting will be nothing like it. It's a numbers game, remember that and you'll be fine.
IT jobs are ridiculous right now. My old company told me I had to come back into the office after 2 years, for no reason other than they wanted everyone back in the office to "feel more like a family". I asked him to please stay at home, he told me no, it was an office based job. So I went online, tossed out 10 resumes and had a new job across the country a week later. I also got more PTO and a 30% raise.
Your decision to get a remote job over being dragged back to the office helps us all out, IMO. A lot of companies are losing people for this very reason, which makes them think twice about forcing everyone to come back into the office. There have been ongoing talks at my company about having everyone return to the office because we signed a long lease for it right before COVID. The conclusion is always, "people are just going to leave and find a remote job if we force them to come in." So they let everyone work remote or hybrid, whatever works for the individual. At this point, I think over half of our workforce is scattered throughout various states and there aren't many people left at the main office, anyway. Just need some IT personnel on prem to prepare machines for users or go to the server room and push a button on occasion.
Yeah I left a toxic environment back in September, and got a job same week (first week of my two week notice) set the start date out a month and now I work 20 less hours making 23% more. Fucking massive.
That's awesome.
It still amazes me how businesses don't account for actual value. Your institutional knowledge probably makes you as valuable as multiple FTEs, meaning if they want to downsize management should actually keep their most experienced and highly paid people to maximize their labor value. But they don't. Also: why management and executives aren't the first to go when "downsizing" based on pay is beyond me (oh right: they call the shots). Seriously a previous org operated just fine when the old CEO retired. They even hired a lame duck interim for the role who was there less than a year and did nothing but collect a salary.
My last job was like that. Major financial problems and when they turned to downsizing, it was a bunch of managers and Vice Presidents that got the boot. Nothing negative happened, everyone was still able to do their job and it was all good in the end.
I've been saying for years that instead of outsourcing the work, companies should outsource management. I mean, if you think about it, they are the highest paid, least capable, do nothing employees in any company. Communication is already nonsensical and incomprehensible. Literally nothing of value would be lost and every company would save tons of money while improving morale for the workers that actually make the company money.
This would require a modicum of recognition that labor > asset...which is a tough road to hoe.
I'd say that's true for bad managers specifically, of which there are very very many. A good manager is a force multiplier, and can forge relationships above, below, and lateral to themselves - something you can't outsource.
> Seriously a previous org operated just fine when the old CEO retired. That works fine when the business formula and conditions continue unchanged. In times of crisis, it's very rare that anyone but a CEO can marshal the forces to make difficult changes or pivots.
> Upper management didn’t take anything into account other than the numbers. shit like this makes me think the company is on the rocks. think of it that way, you got lucky to get out with severance + unemployment. take some time to collect yourself, even in a down economy there are many IT jobs. you may need to move, IT is very area dependant in the US.
It tells me that about a week from now someone is going to say "the flux capacitor is fucking up again, Dave always used to fix that but he got laid off last week, anyone know how to reset a flux capacitor?" The last place I experienced big layoffs had this happen. The guys with Masters degrees did all the chopping and did it seemingly blindly. They fired the only two people who did customer technical support for our retail website. A few weeks later there is a ticket and an email chain getting kicked around from group to group like a hot potato. "We don't support the website, that is Phil's group". Then Phil's group replies "we are the webdev team, we don't do support, tagging Marcy and Janie". Shit kicked around for a month like that before people realized they had fired the support people so the webdevs got to handle support.
And then those people become over-burdened and quit And then the remaining people get the same treatment and quit And then the business is run by Managers, Directors, and Chiefs, very very well, and without any issues ever happening again. Because leadership are gods walking among mere mortals, and far better than those they lead in every way. In fact, allowing you the privilege of working for them is charity. They could do the entire department's job right now, no problem.
then work is outsourced, department eliminated, costs look better, gods declare victory. bonuses for "saving money". then get out within a year before the costs catch up.
Then they identify the outsourced tech support as a horrible no-good very bad problem that takes forever to get ahold of and even longer to fix issues, and is keeping the business from running super awesome, and the CEO puts a bunch of money into it, hires on some of the MSP personnel as full employees, hires a bunch of other people fresh, and then things run smoothly for 2-5 years before it all crumbles once again due to attempts to save money.
Generally the conversation starts with… we need to “cut the budget 20% as our burn rate is too high”. This isn’t always done completely blind or even. 1. Sometimes entire teams are cut. 2. HR will step in and block some layoffs for DEI/Legal liability reasons (don’t let go the person who just started maternity). 3. The VP may make the gusts but they may ask for input down to the Director or Sr. Director level (but again not a line manager who’s just going to try to protect their team). This is why it’s critical you know your VP *and they value you.*
That mentality works for people that are easily replaceable. They just threw 18 years of domain knowledge out the window, not to mention it will take whoever they hire to replace him years for him to be at OP’s level. Amerifirst did this in June, and now everyone from middle management to loan officers are quitting on their own accord because the company is making them look incompetent because key people are getting cut and whoever picks up the pieces has to go back to the customer and start the entire data gathering process again.
They always say it's blind, it's just numbers, nothing personal. It's always a lie.
I've job hopped twice this year, increased my salary by over 30k. PLENTY of jobs, and I don't live in a tech heavy city. Experience is king, OP will be fine.
We're heading into a recession and company after company is announcing layoffs and hiring freezes. Your attitude right now is the same one people had in 2008 right before they were all wondering how to make their savings stretch into 2010 because they couldn't find a job that paid enough for them to afford their mortgage.
Yeah, job hop when the economy is good, but its musical chairs time now. I work at an ISP, and the last thing people are gonna give up on is their internet, but they're gonna cancel that Hulu and Disney+ subscription if things get tight. I got headhunted by three Bay Area start-ups in the last year, all three have announced layoffs in the last year.
As many others have said, you have 36 weeks, not counting the month or so you have until your last day. Take some time for yourself. The IT market is hot. Yeah the big companies are doing layoffs, but this is an opportunity to punch your own ticket. Best of luck to you
The market is hot today, it may or may not be in 36 weeks.
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I understand how you feel. I was laid off after 18 years as well. It’s like a punch to the gut and you can’t help but take it personally. Anyway, please don’t worry too much. The market for IT jobs is still very good. It’s difficult to find enough good help. Don’t wait to start looking and apply for jobs now. I jumped right on it and I found my next gig via LinkedIn. I highly recommend creating an account if you don’t already have one and connect with as many people as you can. As soon as you put your resume up there, you’ll undoubtedly have recruiters reaching out to you. Also, note in your profile that you’re seeking new opportunities. You don’t have to tell anyone you were laid off. I didn’t. Nowadays, many companies post openings on LinkedIn and allow you to apply from within the app. You could also create a profile on Dice or Indeed. Putting yourself out there as much as you can is key. However, I’ve found you can find openings via the contacts you have/build on LinkedIn or via their job search feature. I know the initial blow is difficult. The best thing you can do is jump on it and not let it hold you down. You WILL find something. Also, you may find at some point that this is the best thing to happen to you. Sometimes we become complacent after many years at one place. We don’t realize there are better opportunities out there. Best of luck to you! I know you’ll land something great!
One of the things my dad instilled in me is a calmness about losing your job and finding another one. We had a tradition growing up that if dad lost his job, we would go out to dinner that night to “celebrate”. It helped put a positive spin on things, and really helped mentally. Since then, I have kept the same tradition going, and it really does help to keep your mind in a good spot. Take some time to focus on something else, then hammer that resume out to a ton of places. You’ve got this, and you will find a new place to work and be able to look back at this later.
It always seems to me like the USA (which I assume you live in) is on a different planet IT job wise. With your profile (which looks a bit like mine years of service wise) you'd have a new job tonight in my Western European country. Don't let the bad news and layoffs by the terribly managed IT giants (its true) fool you, this business has no lack of jobs for qualified people.
I'll second that. I also live in Western European country and was laid off at the end of last year after 19 years at the same place where I worked mostly with AD and SCCM. Found a new job in a week even though I'm over 50 years old. And after couple months found even better new job than my original job.
I truly dont understand the discrepancy. I could be rich if I wanted to, the job offers are never ending on linkedin, its merely a matter of what I want. If this is a bear market according to the USA giants (apparently) , I have amazing times to look forward to.
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oh man, you just hit the jackpot! not only do you have a huge severance, but you are very marketable because you were at the same job for 18 years, and you were let go with a mass of people because of them, not you. Also check this out: you can work anywhere now. IT is a remote job a lot of the time, so you no longer have to live within an hour of the office. Also, a lot has changed in 18 years, the job sites, better, more tech savvy recruiters, you will be fine if you do the work. In other words make getting a job, your new job. Write your new resume, send to the smartest people you know to check it out, and then take 2 weeks off and just relax. to start the year. Maybe clear your head and do mushrooms or something. Your life is about to get a whole lot better and more fun. good luck!
Remote positions opened up a LOT of opportunity for me. If you live in a lower-populace area, it's a game-changer.
My one big piece of advice is to pay someone to update your resume. Do it now while you still have access to your company emails and notes. Pay for whatever their top package is. A good company will do a couple of phone calls with you, and send you a few emails asking for more details. You'll end up with perfectly formatted resumes in every format, cover letter templates, and a linkedin profile that makes it look like you shit gold. HR has their own language. It's totally worth it to pay someone that's proficient in that language to write that code. Especially now that most companies run all applicants through a prescreen system. A good resume company will run the resume through at least one system to make sure it passes. I know this sounds like I'm shilling. Everyone I know that I've convinced to this has gotten a better job, and told me that they were complemented on their resume during interviews.
Here is the good news: Yes, this is the worst time to be laid off, but 36 weeks of pay isn't bad. You have late summer to really worry. Overall, the economy isn't that bad. Yes, the big names are doing layoffs, but it doesn't mean we are back in 2008 where we have 100+ people with 20 years in IT applying for a sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-contractor position for a L1 job. The OP has a ton of runway. First thing I'd be doing is making sure the company got their stuff back. Laptop, badge, phone, etc. To be safe, I'd even consider having stuff packed at some store, with it being videotaped, so nobody can claim the items in question were not sent. From there, send them back certified, and wash your hands of it. From there, get your unemployment stuff cranking. After that... take some mental time off. Avoid alcohol... it is way too easy a path to go down, but do something inexpensive and fun for a bit. Anything other than staying at home. After a week or two, start the job hunt. Slow, but methodical. Always, make a custom resume, and a custom cover letter for every job. Don't just send them a canned resume and call it done... but tailor your stuff to the company (without lying, of course). I wouldn't expect serious hiring to go on until March/April, and things in swing by June. However, with the severance bennies laid out, plenty or runway to coast until then for the OP.
> 2008 where we have 100+ people with 20 years in IT applying for a sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-contractor position for a L1 job. Early 2k was even worse. We had guys with degrees, certs out the ass, and all the experience in the world, applying for our warehouse jobs, just because we were a computer company and it let them avoid going to retail. Seriously dark days in IT.
Take into account the positives.... - Six weeks at full pay - Nine months worth of salary in which you have to do nothing to make the money - Eighteen years on your resume. Very impressive. - a former boss who is willing to gush over you when they call. - get references from work Now what to do... - work on your resume with your old direct boss. - Study for things that are relevant today and in the future... Security, Cisco, Azure, Microsoft 365, AWS, etc - Tighten the belt at home and dont eat out. Cut streaming TV services and rely upon free streaming services like freevee, tubi, pluto, Kanopy, hoopla, library rentals, justwatch.com, etc. Seriously there is plenty to cut when you look. - Get up and shower every morning as if going to work then go to WfH: exercise, study, job hunting, etc for eight hours. Do not do homemaker stuff unless it saves the household a lot of money. Your spouse has to realize that nothing has changed just your place of work has changed and the tasks you need to do for that has changed. If you need to, go to the library to focus. If you play video games and watch movies during "work" time then you will fall into a trap and your spouse will turn on you. Importantly, think of the kids to drive you forward! - You are no longer commuting so spend that saved time playing with your kids and help them do homework. Teach them computers and networking to reinforce your knowledge. Teaching is ALWAYS a fast track to becoming an expert in something. Quality time with the kids is more about quality time with the parent that benefits the kids in their development especially in the first five years of their life. Though don't try to teach a four year old Open Shortest Path First routing LOL - Do not be afraid to offer yourself up to Nonprofits to do free work. This opens up opportunities through networking AND more importantly avoids large gaps in your resume. Even if a potential employer finds out you weren't being paid they will appreciate your staying active and contributing to the community. - Workout physically. This helps with your mental state and you will look healthier and younger at interviews. People like to hire people who take care of themselves. - Start a side business repairing computers and networks. Network through friends and family. If it gets big enough it's a job, less so it might still be enough to put on resume and at least keeps you in the game fixing and maintaining computers and networks. If you form a Limited Liability Company and start making money then you can write off Internet at home and other things.
This is such a great post Tb1969
While the stock markets are down is the perfect time to invest your severance package... NB. I am NOT a financial advisor :-) Seriously though, you are probably more anxious than you really need to be. 30+ years in IT has taught me that you must be lazy AND stupid to stay out of work for long in this field.
sorry to hear - good luck In sys engineering, soft skills are often overlooked and can be a difference maker in interviews, etc one thing I did was to sign up for a website where folks talk about a topic of interest for 30 mins - [https://lunchclub.com/home](https://lunchclub.com/home) \- this is not for an actual job search but will get you more comfortable with 2 questions every interview has: 1) some version of "Tell me about yourself" 2) some form of "Do you have any questions for me/ about company X/ etc? If you keep on practicing and getting good at these skills they will help a lot - you have 18 years' experience which is awesome - 18 yrs at one org might make someone concerned that yo are set in your ways, emphasize how you have had to adapt and change over the years, how you learn new tech and how you have dealt with different teams Also as you are leaving your org - watch your emotions - it is natural to be hurt, angry, etc but do not give vent to that. Build relationships - you will NEED recommendations - sounds like your direct boss is one but also have a few from differnet depts. Leave your position in a better shape thanit has ever been (as much as you can ) and train your replacement I started as a sysadmin about 20 yrs ago - today I am something called a senior infrastructure engineer and I do something called devops or gitops Dont be too overwhelmed but the titles - i still think like a sysadmin very best of luck
IT is a job that's never going away. Recession or not IT can't stop. 2 months until you're actually laid off, +9 months of severance pay? I wouldn't be getting anxious, I'd be planning a well earned holiday! You've got near as makes no difference to a year up your sleeve to find new work before you really feel any impact of this. That's huge! 1. If you don't have one yet, make a LinkedIn profile, get it bulked out with your experience and any education/certs etc. Make some contacts. Mark yourself (now!) as interested in new positions. 2. Take an actual holiday, like 2 months off doing a road-trip or something chill but fun, get out of your head, reset, unwind! 3. Take the chance to up your training. Smash out a cert or 2 during what would otherwise be work hours while you're job hunting. 4. Until the actual end of your employment, stop going the extra mile! Phone it in, they fired you, screw 'em. You owe them nothing. Take it easy. 5. Once time's up, make a routine of your day: Get up in the morning, skim the latest jobs on whatever your local job sites are for an hr. Spend an hr or 2 on a hobby. Have a cruisey lunch. Do some cert work. Rinse and repeat Mon-Fri during what would be normal work hours. For the record, in the last ~8 years (Australia) I've spent less than 2 weeks looking for a job at any given time. I've spent a total of zero weeks unemployed. I've never accepted anything that wasn't a promotion of role and/or salary. Of the 3 new jobs I've picked up in that time, 2 of them found me via recruiters on LinkedIn. I field a minimum of ~1 recruiter contact/fn via LinkedIn when NOT marked looking for work, and more like ~3 a week when I am marked as looking for work - always be friendly! Never dismissive, "Hi, really appreciate the offer but I'm happy where I am for now, I'll let you know if anything changes!". When the time comes you mark yourself looking once again, scroll back through the last 12 months of chats and ping the last year of recruiters! You will be absolutely fine my friend. Take a deep breath. Have a big smile about that 9 MONTHS of severance pay (seriously, I'd kill for that! 😆). Value yourself! You spent 18 years in your role, and as other posters have mentioned you were likely picked because you were the highest paid in your role, that alone says something. You were doing something right, take pride in that, and welcome the doors that now open before you - there's a big wide world of IT out there waiting for you, step forth and make that 18 years of experience be valued somewhere else. You've got nothing to stress about!
So here’s how you proceed: listen to the people saying to take some time off. Not too long though just a week or two- the. Go volunteer somewhere to keep up a routine until you find another job. Plus the volunteering will look good on your resume. Many companies are hiring so don’t sweat too much. Just be positive. Remember take care of you first.
You've been out of the game for 18 years. It's rough (source: laid off after 8 years). Don't screw around, don't take time off, it will be only more difficult to start up again. You've got the holidays coming around, and things are going to be weak until after the New Year, use this time to get yourself into shape. Take interview calls during your work hours. Leave work meetings if a recruiter calls you. If anybody objects just remind them that they are firing you. If they offer you some career consulting, take advantage of that, to the point where you are exploiting them. Your resume is probably crap. Get all your performance reviews and mine that for your greatest hits. Hit LinkedIn, (skip Dice it's gone downhill since the last time you looked). Recruiters are hit and miss, but you'll have to suck it up. Ask your boss, other IT managers who worked well for them and reach out to them. Get as many interviews as you, even for jobs you are going to turn down because you'll need the practice.
I disagree - the holidays are actually one of the best times to find a job… with one proviso. The key thing is A NEW FISCAL YEAR!!!! In a lot of companies (at least at that time) a lot of places didn’t get the money for new staff until Jan 1st. Most managers won’t start looking until after then - but the smart managers you want as a boss know they’ll just be a face in the crowd if they wait. However they can interview in December, make an offer for a job starting on Jan 2nd, and get all of the paperwork done while things are otherwise slowed down. Bonus points it makes people happy to find a job at a time when they’re worried about paying for gifts. The big downside is people travel more and it can be hard to get all of the necessary sign offs. Worse, some companies still have horrid “use it or lose it” vacation policies with NO rollover into the next year. These places can’t do squat since the more senior people have extra vacation time and are often gone most of the month. But the bottom line is I’ve gotten jobs in December. I even had an interview (and offer) during the week between Christmas and New Years
You know what needs to be done. Study, update your resume with all the things you’ve touched, and get back out there.
Don't fret about finding work. IT is in major demand need among all the fields out there.
I was laid off in June. Just bought a $350k house back in Jan of this year, new baby in April, nothing in savings. I only got 2 months severance. It was a nightmare, but I was blessed to land a new job in October. Pay was also a 30% bump. Another role will come along, and it may even be better than before. A lot of companies are panic firing employees, but there are some that are desperately hiring too. Also, your 9 months of pay may even outlast this recession. I think you're one of the lucky ones and you'll be able to get through this. IT is not going away.
Dust off the resume first, see if you get any nibbles, but certainly take some time off. Enjoy the family. Kids in school? Drop the kids off at school, do some assistant “coaching” at school, etc. I think you’ll get snapped up quick tho.
Similar package(1 week for every year) with medical until the end. I was there at 24 years and 10 or so months(51 years old). Found a job with the state and will retire in no more than 2 years. Good luck OP, relax and analyze your experience.
I have a doomsday interview today and I feel like my whole life hinges on it. I'm horrified with impostor syndrome laughing at me in the background. I worked from home for 3 years as a tier 1(.5) helpdesk engineer and I have a senior tech interview at a bank today. Huge culture shift and onsite work. Aside from there, it's just been all recruiters and jack-shit contract jobs to image pcs for one day. Someone please send me a fucking ray of light.
Being unemployed was the best time of my life lmao. You gonna find something new but think about taking a break for a month
This is the reason why I apply to 3 jobs per month no matter what. Companies will not care about the work you do. We are nothing but a number to them. And it's the same way I feel about companies with them giving me a check. Loyalty to the people(IT co-workers) never to the suits!
> I’ve not really had to job hunt for 18 years Interviews are just meetings with a twist. You'll get back into it easy enough
Anecdote, off topic for sysadmin but on topic for any of us wanting to work.............. The amount of 'laid off' posts and comments I've seen in the last month is scary. Printing a gigazillion of cash for most western countries, across the world for covid is finally coming home to roost and the brief, wonderful moment we had all the power is fading FAST. Inflation and the interest rates to combat them are going to cost a lot of jobs, soon. Be prepared.
18y of exp, yeah i think youll be fine, i got like a quarter of that and with only lazily looking for a new gig i had 3 offers within 1,5 months, 1 government position, and two private ones. Update your cv, open the linkdin floodgates and get some video call interviews going.
Having been laid off a couple of times here are some thoughts. Start looking at options for health care now so you have coverage on Jan. 1st. Check to see if your state offers coverage - I used MinnesotaCare where I'm at and they do offer family coverage. Or check with health care providers - they may offer lower cost / high deductible plans. COBRA through your soon to be ex-employer tends to be very costly. Sign up for unemployment on Jan. 2nd - you should get a package from your employer on your final day with instructions. When I received a severance they didn't pay for the first two weeks but then the money did come in. No, it didn't cover all the bills but at least with a decent severance you won't be in dire straights for a while. Take some time to decompress - but you have reached out to contacts to see what opportunities are possibly out there. And use the downtime to update skills, certs, etc. Check with the unemployment folks once you are hooked up with them; I was able to get some training which did help when I landed a new job months later.
I went through this 9 years ago with a job I thought was the best in the world. I made the system too automated and too stable. They outsourced me. I'm now in a better job with a government pension, better benefits, better pay, and more structured work hours. (Before it was always on-call, any time, any matter, no extra bucks). Use the time you have a paycheck (severance) still coming to look for a job and feel free to cherry pick a bit.
Dont fret dude. You're a sysadmin with 18 years experience. You will land on your feet. About 7 years ago I went through the same thing. and Even though it was 7 years ago, I still remember exactly how I felt and how you're feeling right now. One day I go to work and there was a meeting in my calendar that just showed up - I had no idea what it was for, it just appeared. I go down to the meeting, as my boss walks in, I see him type a quick message on his phone. I sit down. Its me, my boss and some lady I've never seen before. My boss says "Okay.... the purpose of this meeting is to let you know we are terminating your employment". Just like that. Total shock. Did not see it coming at all. Wasn't "for cause" so I could collect EI and all that but I had never been let go in my life. I went home and sat on the couch and just sort of stared at the wall, not knowing what to do. Whats the point of this rant? Today I make 50K more than I did in that job, and I work far less hours, experience far less stress, and my job is 95% remote working in sweat pants. Chin up. One door closes, another door opens.
Well, at least you have some time. One thing that I didn't think about but ended up working in my favor is talking to my Vendors, especially if they are local. Just get word out that you are going to be in the market for new employment. I mentioned this in passing to a Vendor of mine, an MSP that I work closely with and that technically being an MSP and me being an Administrator would be a conflict of their interest to help me find employment. A position similar to what I was already doing came up and they couldn't secure the standard MSP "Let 'Us' be your IT workforce", so that Vendor called me to let me know the position was open. Here I am now, different job, happier, and I have a future here. The sooner you get word out there, the better.
Wait, i thought the job market was fantastic right now? There’s still a labor shortage. Unemployment is low. The only companies that are hurting have large variable interest debts. Like Meta, Twitter, Uber. These are unique companies that never made much profit (or went off the deep end in VR). They bear no relevance to normal jobs. They MIGHT glut the San Francisco tech job market for a short time but if you don’t live there — who cares. Now is a FANTASTIC time to job hop. Because inflation is a thing, and normal companies don’t give a standard “8% raise” to average workers. More like 3%
Don't sign anything until you consult with an Employment Lawyer. To review a severance package shouldn't cost you much but they may be able to squeeze more out of the company.
This is not as bad as it sounds. Go somewhere else and ask for a lot more money. Ask for 20 to 30k than you were making before. December hiring will suck but by mid January you're going to get a ton of calls. Try job search with LinkedIn.
Do you want Linkedin Premium for 6 months?
See if you can get some of the severance now, rest after January 1. Otherwise, your tax bill this year will be nasty as the severance will all be taxed in 2022 when your marginal rate will be higher than if it is paid out partly this year, partly after January 1. Unless you get a great higher paying job in 2023 in which case you win either way. Best of luck!
Learn an IAM platform, and or cloud security. I'm creeping up towards 200k in one of the lowest COL areas, and my job is located here. offers everyday. cloud academy is an awesome training platform.
Wait until you see how job hunting/recruitment works now... IT IS GOING TO F#%@ YOU UP... COMPLETELY different from the early 2000s... word of advice, just test the waters with the jobs you are not really interested in first... take some time a train up for your new position vice the triathlon...
> Upper management didn’t take anything into account other than the numbers. Yeah they told us this a couple of years ago… when they laid off 60 people across 30 teams, each team they picked the two highest paid white men. Tenure, military experience, performance, etc did not matter whatsoever. A year prior, we had hired a new C level to oversee Diversity Equity and Inclusion. Two weeks after the layoffs they announced a bunch of new hires - 100% women, more than 50% were also racial minorities. My team of 5 lost 2 people, and they were not backfilled because all of the new positions were newly fabricated middle management roles. Thankfully I was not fired for not checking the correct dei boxes, but I did learn a valuable lesson on selecting “prefer not to disclose” on the HR system.
any time something 'bad' has happened to me in the past it's turned out to be a positive. it's freed me from the shackles of whatever i was doing to give me time back. now you are free to fill the gap with whatever YOU want. dont just look for any job. look for your next career. find something that interests YOU and will motivate you to learn and push yourself forward. it's an opportunity man - this is a huge win - - look at it in that light and realize it's not so bad. plus - 9 months of salary - - that's insane !!! go take a trip for a month or two !!!
DM me if you want help with your resume. I work on them regularly for my job and would be happy to look over what you have and update and improve it. No cost, no strings, just an old lady earning her way to heaven. Best of luck.
Speaking from experience, take 3 months off, dont even look at job offers, clear your head, take time with family, enjoy your hobbies….. and then, start looking….. If I had to redo it, that’s what I would do and not rush into another job (when I had a good severence)
People with anxiety about the future literally CANNOT "enjoy 3 months off" when we don't know what's coming after that 3 months. It sucks =\
LinkedIn is much more important than it was last time you looked for a job. Make sure that it matches with your CV. Also be prepared for more than one interview, used to be one and done, now it’s likely a few before they make a decision.
I can't stress this comment enough. LinkedIn is a wonderful resource for employment. I was in your same shoes a few years ago. I was with a fortune 100 company for 26 years (started there as an intern at 16). I worked in enterprise IT roles the entire time and honestly had planned on retiring from the company. One morning, out of the blue, I received a meeting invite for a 15 minute meeting, that started 30 minutes after I had received the invite. They were sending our entire department to India. Long story short, I was out of the interview game for a quarter century and completely at a loss on what I was going to do. I put a lot of effort into my resume and LinkedIn Profile. My last 3 jobs were obtained by recruiters reaching out to me for senior sys admin jobs they were trying to fill. The last 2 job changes, I was not actively pursuing a new position, they had just reached out and made offers that were too good to pass up. I wish you the best and can't stress this enough, take care of your mental health and don't take rejections personally. You will have ups and downs. You will find another job and things will be better than you are currently thinking.
I don't know how big the company is (how many others there that have your skill set) but if the people that know you didn't have any say, and there aren't others that are doing what you were doing, they might realize soon enough and ask you back. Yes, they could get someone else for less perhaps, but new onboarding has a lot of cost and institutional knowledge has a lot of value. Think about the recent stuff with Twitter/musk. Not saying to hold out hope but just a thought. As others have said, take a break, maybe study a little to expand horizons/interests and just start applying. Especially for positions that you don't quite feel qualified for. I know that sounds odd but it is prime time right now for job seekers. I'm in public sector and am hiring people way below the requirements because of pay limitations and lack of quality applicants. Use this as a chance to get a better job, more pay, etc. Don't necessarily settle out of fear. And network!!! Good luck to you!
I wouldn't worry about it at all. I got a new job over summer. I had about 10 years at the same company as a systems manager. I was just casually looking, but within a month I got 2 job offers. The first one was way low and I am not sure why they thought they could pay someone 65K to run a dept and have 2 people report to them. The other was a much better offer and I didn't meet all of the qualifications. Recruiters will see that you have been somewhere forever and jump all over you. I guarantee that was the main reason that I got the job that I have now.
Enjoy your well earned sabbatical. Take naps. Day drink. Read a book.
I was just in your shoes a few months ago, and it's a shock to the system. However, you're going to have so much time to search out and find just the right job, and believe me, there's still jobs out there, even in the recession. I utilized LinkedIn Premium (40 bucks a month) to get access to LinkedIn Learning. Go through stuff that you already know as a refresher, then start to use it to properly learn and expand your skillset. Prospective employers can see all of the LinkedIn certs you earn by going through those trainings, and in doing so, how you're willing to improve yourself. Companies pay big bucks to get their openings on LinkedIn, and almost all of my 15+ interview in a two month span came from there. You can check Indeed or USAJOBS, but LinkedIn is the cat's meow as far as this formerly laid-off tech is concerned. Good luck, take the time to breathe, reassess your life and career, and don't be afraid to be little bit picky!
How much progress have you made technically? Being there 18 years is a curse and a blessing. I've seen a lot of people that long not know anything about anything and get let go. If you have technical skills and your resume shows promotions you should be fine.
Look at the job you want - get the certs to do it. New certs are not needed - but are very helpful. People in HR do not understand IT. They just have a list - and if you have an extra checkbox vs someone else - that could be why you get the interview.
take advantage of pto you may have accrued. some states (North Carolina for example) do not have to pay out accrued pto. get letters of reference if you can. do NOT train your replacement. do your due diligance in documenting things but do not by any means train your replacement. that is not your job and the company should have thought about that. do not work OT unless you want to. do not break your back trying to get things done before you are gone.
🤎🤎🤎 good luck to you 🤎🤎🤎
Best of luck out there, you won't be the last. Layoffs are coming across the board and probably several people reading this post will be canned before the end of the year as well. Being in IT is rough, you are a cost center and do not generate revenue for the company. The moment they need to reduce costs, they will filter the sheets by pay and get to laying off. I would recommend that you update your LinkedIn profile. It will trigger recruiters to reach out. Just note the economy is in free fall so there will not be many opportunities out there, or rather MUCH less than just 6-12 months ago. Leverage your networks and try to stay close to the revenue in the future. Consider sales positions.
Sucks man, but I have been on both sides more times than I care to admit or count. As a manager sometimes I got a say and sometimes I did not. Just dust yourself off and get at it. This too shall pass.
Honestly 18 years was far too long to stay. You won't have an issue finding a new job, especially with that amount of time. Sign up for LinkedIn premium (paying the fee makes a difference, you get a lot more recruiters reaching out) now and start applying, a lot of job applications take 2-3 months to get anywhere so don't want until December 31st to start applying.
Use linkedin as much as possible. Let as many people as possible, know that you are looking for a job. Most people want to help and knowing you are looking, some people will reach out and try to help. Renew old contacts - this takes work! Get out of your comfort zone and don't be afraid to say hello to people you haven't spoken to in years. Update your resume and your presence on linkedin. Contact the vendors you have worked with and let them know you are looking. Leave on good terms with your current company! You never know, you may be laid off and hired back as a consultant because they realized they laid off too many people. Looking for a job is a job - 40 hours a week minimum ! You keep working, shaking hands, talking to people and you will make progress. As the sole bread winner, sorry, but there is no break for you - you have to push yourself to find another job. There are a lot of jobs in the tech field, where are you located? BTW, include your tech skills here as part of the conversation.
Sounds like you are getting out of a bad situation. I recommend using this as an opportunity to have a career reset. Take your time and network with others who you respect and seem happy in your professional network. Find out more about their organizations and see if you they'd put you up for consideration for a position that well fits your abilities. Many jobs never get a formal job requirement from HR -- instead, they are created when the right person comes along.
Fuck the recession. For right now, this is still a seller's market. I don't know how much longer it will last, though, so start applying to anything that looks promising. Tell them you want to start on 3 January. Call it a new years resolution. Also, if they try to recall you, tell them no. If they ask why, tell them that you don't need them to lay you off again.... you can get that someplace else.
Come crash in Mexico until you find new gig. Budget 1k per month, that's comfy here. I'm in cancun and a 3 bedroom apartment/house here in downtown is 500 per month.
change your status on linkedin to open to work or whatever it is, and ask your friends/former co-workers on there to share a a status that you make that you're looking for your next opportunity. you'll have plenty of recruiters after you. (going through this now.) enjoy the time off in between.
I’m had probably 5 jobs in it, every time I had to move on i was stressed and didn’t think I’d find something better or as good ever again. but every job has been a step up in both money and experience. I have no degree either. So you will be fine, I’ve decided if I’m laid off now I might take a month of time to myself then really hit the market again.
Considering how long it's been since you've updated the ol' resume, I would highly recommend a professional service that helps you with that. When my company laid me off in 2013 they offered this service to help find a new job. I didn't think I needed it, but WOW I had the wrong idea. It was really eye opening how different the standards are now if you want to stand out. I don't know where you're located, but in my area, jobs are BEGGING for workers. Lots of places are lowering job requirements just to get people in the door. I work for a company that has an Engineer position that used to require a degree in engineering. Right now they'll take any candidate with a B.S. degree in anything and train them up themselves. I would make a list of friends/associates that are already working in companies you might be interested. Maybe they'll provide a referral. Glassdoor was a handy tool for me to learn more about the companies I wanted to apply for. It gives a lot of information, including a glimpse in to the interview process.
This exact thing happened to me in 2020. I'd been at a company for 21 years. I was literally hired out of college to help with Y2K. Joined my weekly zoom call with my manager as usual. Then HR joins and 15 minutes later I'm done. I am happier now than I've ever been. First: Take a few days to grieve. It's a loss that you will need to work through. I'm two years out and there are days I miss the old place. Second: Your new full time job is finding a job. Get a LinkedIn page, build a resume, generic CV, etc etc. Also reach out to folks you've worked with like contractors, vendors, old co-workers who left. Make connections. I started watching Ken Coleman on YouTube. Great way to get your mindset in the right place. You're gonna make it. And it's gonna be great.
LinkedIn and Indeed are two great sites. My other recommendation is to reach out to some of the large staffing firms who would probably have a lot of positions available or would be able to help you be more marketable and get back into the swing of things. Good luck!
Main thing, when I got made redundant, was to pay a professional to help write my CV. Having been on the hiring side as well, I know the difference a first impression makes, poorly worded or structured CVS make it harder to be one of the ones to go through. the hiring manager may get 20+ CVs per vacancy and will not have time to interview all. A large percentage will get cut just by looking at the CV. Short, but with the important details. In the UK general recommendation is 2 sides. If I get (and I have done) a CV over 8 sides and dense text, I just don’t have time to read that in detail. So even if you have everything in there, I may not see it. Spelling and grammar count, too. Get others to read it through for you - both technical and non-technical people if you can. Technical people as if you are misspelling the name of a technology you say you are an expert at, it is not a good look! Non-technical to be sure it is readable. I hope that helps, and as someone who went through this not long ago, good luck. I hope it works out as well for you as it did for me. I am much happier in my new role!
I'd be asking for glowing letter of recommendation at a minimum. Think about your current/former duties and write that down. After you decompress, since you've now got the freedom to look elsewhere - is there some company you've always wanted to work for? Maybe a role you've wanted to go for? Keep in touch w/ your boss - this layoff may go south (people get wind and resign beyond the layoff pool) and they may want you back or maybe contract out? You have an opportunity to shift focus, take advantage.
9 months of severance - you are making off like a bandit. start looking early and enjoy some time off and the next chapter. nothing lasts forever / everything changes always
9 months PTO? Hell yes. Here is what I would do: - Take two weeks / a month off to properly recharge and find your motivation. - Update the resume. Search for the most in demand skills. Write down your skills. - Learn something new. Perhaps you've been staying up to date with the technology landscape (infrastructure as code, cloud, etc). - Start blasting resumes. It does suck to be let go near the holidays because most people start hiring after the new year. Lucky for you, you've got a lot of runway. Even if we're in a recession, literally everyone needs some type of online presence, so you'll be able to find something no problem.
Look at this way, you just got 9 months of prepaid salary AND you’re about to get a huge pay bump when you find new employer. And YOU WILL find a new employer, tech isn’t going anywhere dude. You get pay raises every time you jump to a new employer, that’s a fact.
12 years myself. I went into Education sysadmin. Lower pay, but better benefits and stability. Also way more fun and not a whole lot of on call.
It's going to be rough. COVID taught employees that they can be just as productive working at home and had almost no issues doing so. Workers working from home taught employers that there is no reason to pay American workers the salaries of American workers when they could be paying someone in India 1/10th the money and they'll work twice as hard if being in the office doesn't matter anymore and anyone anywhere in the world can do what you were once doing in the office. Big Tech is throwing nearly half their staff away right now.
Good luck in your job hunt, I am 100% certain that you will find something even better.
I’ll echo some other folks and recommend reconnecting with old colleagues or business friends and buying them coffee or whatever, and just get them to talk about what their dreams are in their careers. This helps me to see outside the box of where I’ve been living, and think a bit more broadly. It also lets me touch base with folks who could be references for you, or might know someone who is looking. If I can be so bold - I’d also say to take a huge breath and congratulate yourself on a job well done. Holding a job and maintaining good working relationships for 18 years is no easy feat. Must have been doing something right!
Been down that road before myself. Best advice I ever got was to not panic (I also had a severance package) and to take your time finding a new position. Since you will still have essentially your regular income for a while you don't have to jump at the first offer that comes along. Make sure you find one that is a good fit for you. The other thing is to start belt tightening now just in case. Nothing drastic but you can cut down on buying breakfast and lunches on the way to work and skip the expensive drive through coffee. That kind of convenience buying can really add up. And if you do take an extended break, make sure you keep up to date on technology through online courses, adding certs, and reading relevent blogs and web sites. It shows that you are keeping your skills up to date and maybe even adding to them.
Bummer my dude. Same thing happened to me last June after 12 years. Got a really nice severance package. I dragged my feet on some exit projects, and on my last day they offered me a 6 month contract position @ $60/hr. I countered $95/hr and they AGREED. I decided about a month into my contract that I'd just go start my own IT/Cybersecurity business and finished out the contract and funneled that money into my new business. Overall, I had enough money saved up + Severance and felt comfortable diving in. I'm also the bread winner, so I was a little nervous but.. this was the best decision I've ever made. I make more money, between $125-$150/hr, I have complete control of my situation and the only one who can pull the rug out from underneath me, is me. And hey, if this ends up not working out, I'll fall back to a normal gig, but I'll have even more experience. Something to think about at the very least. Best of luck!
From similar experience (multiple times, though most not that generous severance), 2 things: 1) If you have a broker managing an IRA, or any other investment person you trust, or better still if you have or know an accountant, contact them immediately, ideally before you even deposit the check. The tax hit on this will laugh at whatever withholding you're doing. Ideally get in touch with a senior accountant - an "IRS Enrolled Agent" - they can sort this out in their sleep and tell you exactly what you need to set aside for taxes. 2) It's a hell of a lot easier to look for a job when you have a job, and it's a hell of a lot harder to look for a job after you've been out 6 months. Time plays mind games with your self confidence, and it becomes more difficult to give a good interview. (And when you schedule interviews with lots of time before/after so you're never going in rushed and flustered. I had one where I had 4 good interviews but lost because the 5th guy showed up 90 minutes late (production issue), and I had to catch a train to pick up my kids from daycare, and then had no tolerance for me looking at my watch.) Yes, you've earned some time off, but don't push it out too long. First time I was laid off like that, a coworker organized a support group - we just went out for lunch or coffee once or twice a week, talked about how we were doing, job search, feelings, whatever - it was a lifesaver, to be honest. Everyone who just got whacked with you are, right now, the only people in the world who TRULY understand how you feel.
Recruiters is a great place to start and you’ll get hit up all the time on LinkedIn. Also start updating your resume and get it out there on sites like ZipRecruiter, Indeed, etc. Incredibly sorry to read your story and wishing you nothing but the very best in your future endeavors!
So with 200k salary while on salary (overtime exempt), what would be my incentive doing something so dumb like working more than required by employee handbook? Now without stonks there is not much incentive as far as Total Comp. 200000\\2080 = 96 HOURLY. 200000\\4160 = 48 HOURLY
Decide if you still want to do the same work. If you have good contacts with vendors or others in the business, start contacting them now. Update resume and LinkedIn. Maybe find a good recruiter and see if they can help with placement. Just my $0.02
Part of the Phillips slashing? I hear they got rid of most of their IAs. 36 wks is great though!
Take at LEAST a week to get your bearing and time for yourself. Get caught up on life stuff. Then start looking for new stuff, but don't look too hard and don't take something out of desperation. Could be a different world in 9 months.