Engineer’s Guide On How to Survive a Layoff Strong

This article is crossposted from IEEE Spectrum’s careers newsletter. Sign up now to get insider tips, expert advice, and practical strategies, written in partnership with tech career development company Parsity and delivered to your inbox for free!

I lost a cushy engineering management position at the same time I purchased a business, with a mortgage, three kids, and every other financial obligation of being an adult. It was one of the most stressful stretches of my life. If something similar has happened to you, I feel your pain.

You lose more than the income

For many of us, our work became our identity, so we don’t just think, “I don’t have a job anymore.” We start thinking, “I’m not an engineer anymore.”

An apple tree in winter is still an apple tree. A car parked in a driveway is still a car. You’re still an engineer, the same way you were still one every evening you clocked out, and the same way you’ll be one at the next job. Your skills took years to build and won’t evaporate because a company stopped paying for them. This feeling can be particularly rough if part of your identity was tied to a recognizable employer.

However, this can also be a chance to catch up on what you’ve been putting off: working out, being present with your kids, writing, whatever hobby got shelved for a deadline three years ago.

Once you’ve caught your breath, here are some tips for when the actual work starts:

1. Don’t sprint on day one

I started applying for jobs the next morning after the layoff. It felt productive, but it gave me no time to settle my nervous system or consider what I actually wanted next. I took the first offer that came along, at a company I already knew wasn’t right, and quit after exactly 30 days. Give yourself a few days before deciding anything. Plans built out of desperation rarely work out well.

2. Audit your spending

Go through every subscription and recurring charge and cut what isn’t essential. Every dollar you stop bleeding buys you patience instead of forcing a bad offer out of fear.

3. Build a list wider than LinkedIn

Start with former colleagues and vendors, or businesses with a relationship to your previous employer. They already know you or your company, which gives you the halo effect: Some of the trust from your employer carries over to you automatically.

LinkedIn is table stakes and is the most popular place to find work, but that doesn’t mean your search should stop there. Try Facebook, Instagram, and other social media channels too, where plenty of people who aren’t on LinkedIn might have leads for open roles. I found my first job years ago from a Facebook post, and both roles I landed after being laid off came from startup job boards and recruiters I found entirely outside LinkedIn. Your mileage may vary, but LinkedIn isn’t the only game in town.

Don’t skip your inner circle either: Text your family and friends. Good leads rarely come from someone you know directly, but they do come from someone that person knows. Work this list daily and track who you’ve contacted.

4. Eight hours is a long time

With no work to fill your day, you may default to treating the search like an eight-hour shift. You can’t apply productively for 8 hours straight, and that’s why people burn out. Use a focused morning block for the list in step 3, then spend the rest of your day on activities you’ve been putting off.

5. Catalog your wins before you study interview questions

Cataloging your wins is a higher-leverage move than drilling practice questions this early. Can you explain the most impactful project you worked on in the last year? Probably not.

Most people skip this step, then default to generic answers when a recruiter asks about their last role. Write down specific stories showing leadership, technical ability, and grace under pressure. They’ll come up once you’re in interviews, and cataloging them rebuilds your confidence along the way too. Save the deep prep for once an interview is on the calendar.

Ask yourself daily whether today’s work is generating interest in you, or leading you to someone who might hire you. If not, consider skipping it.

One last thing

A layoff rarely reflects your skills. It’s usually a company protecting revenue—nothing more personal than that. Knowing that doesn’t make it easier, but hopefully this gets you back on your feet faster.

—Brian

Looking for a job? For the first time, IEEE is taking its Career Fair worldwide. The inaugural IEEE Global Virtual Career Fair runs September 23 (5:00 PM EST) through September 24 (8:00 PM EST), following the sun across every region to connect engineering and technology professionals with employers around the world.

Read more here.

While most engineering Ph.D. grads end up in jobs at commercial companies, academia and industry often operate in their own bubbles. Now, the U.S. National Science Foundation is investing in a program to integrate industry experience into STEM doctoral programs and help bridge the gap. Modeled after similar programs in other countries, students in the I-PhD will spend at least one year working on research at an industry site and receive a combination of funding from the company, NSF, and the university.

Read more here.

When systems engineer Richard Mitchell designed a digitally-controlled nuclear plant, he made a counterintuitive decision: including manual steps for the human operator that a machine could execute on its own. The strategy was meant to keep the operator sharp, and it’s one that could help address one of the biggest issues facing the workforce today: What happens to human expertise when AI does the work that used to build it?

Read more here.