Finding a new job takes a lot of effort. I’ve been recently laid off from Shopify (along with 20% of my friends) and have been spending the past three weeks applying for jobs, connecting with friends, and searching for that next thing. It’s exhausting work. This is my first layoff (and probably not my last) and the approaches I’ve used in the past to find a new job don’t really apply right now.

I’ve made a few observations that I felt were worth sharing, especially for the folks in the same predicament as me:

  1. Cold applications tend to go unanswered – try to get referrals from friends or previous coworkers.
  2. Silence, rejection e-mails, and bad recruiter experiences all contribute to making yourself feel like a fraud. Don’t base your self-worth on this job search. Recruiters are overwhelmed (and also getting laid off), companies are cutting costs and implementing crap AI for job-matching.
  3. Spend time to rewrite your resume listing accomplishments and any outcomes you contributed to. Put them in order of most impactful first, least being last.
  4. Cover letters. I have no idea if they’re worth the effort or not.
  5. You’ll dream about having a terrible job, or being back at a previous terrible job.
  6. Don’t be ashamed of getting laid off. You did nothing wrong.

There are way more, but those are the top of mind for me.