My Experience of Tech Layoffs and the Job Market in 2024
- Danielle Downs
- Dec 11, 2024
- 26 min read
My job search, which started when I was given three months' notice at the end of July, has now thankfully drawn to a happy conclusion. A former colleague, with whom I worked over 10 years ago, saw my #opentowork banner on LinkedIn and got in touch, leading to the offer of a rolling 6-month contract, due to start in January.
I had initially been looking for something permanent, having shied away from contracting in the past, due to the lack of supposed "job security" but, having been made redundant from my 3rd "permanent" job in the past 17 years, it suddenly didn't seem like such a bad idea!
So, what have I learned over the past nearly six months?
Firstly, although everyone is saying it, the job market right now is like nothing I've ever seen.
To put that into context, last time I was looking for a job, I had to take my phone number off my profile on job boards because I was getting too many calls. At one point, I had 2 offers on the table and a final interview for another role (which I didn't get) on the same day. I don't even think I applied directly for any jobs, it was all recruitment consultants getting in touch with me after I put my CV online. I'm not saying that to show off because, quite honestly, that was pretty typical for most people on the market at that time, but to demonstrate the complete turnaround the job market and indeed the global economy has undergone in just 5 years.
This time around, I submitted over 100 direct applications and only got 9 calls total. 3 said they would call me back for a 1st round, but I never heard from them again and I later received an automated email saying one of the positions had been cancelled; 1 said the role was on hold until next year; 2 ended in rejection and 2 went to a final round, only to be ghosted in one case and told they'd selected another candidate in the other. The final one resulted in the offer of the contract.
In total, I received 53 rejection emails, had no response after a month from 38 and am still waiting to hear from 8 that I applied to before I was offered the contract, but I suspect they'll end up on the "no response" pile, bringing that total to 46 or 40% of my total applications.
In short, it's brutal out there, but this is why I want to share my experience and thoughts on the subject, in the hope that others in a similar predicament can see the situation for what it is, not take it personally and instead take heart from the fact that they are far from alone.
This post ended up quite a bit longer than I intended, so I've split it into 3 sections and a summary, so please feel free to skip to the part that interests you the most.
Cause:
Effect:
Solutions & Tips:
The Perfect Storm that caused the Tech Layoffs
A lot has been written about this already but here's my take on the perfect storm that led to the status quo and it definitely isn't the fault of any individual, unless of course your name happens to be Vladimir Putin, Liz Truss, or possibly Rachel Reeves!
Post Pandemic Optimism
After the pandemic, there was a lot of optimism about "Britain bouncing back". It seemed like every firm in the world wanted to "bounce back" faster and harder than the competition, so they all hired at pace, in order to be able to scale up as quickly as possible once lockdown ended and the economy opened back up.
Wage Inflation
The sudden and dramatic increase in demand, particularly for skilled and experienced workers, only accelerated the skills shortage that had been building for a few years. I had a Senior Automation QA vacancy open for over a year from March 2021-22 and had to resort to contractors to fill Senior Developer roles because there just weren't enough good calibre candidates applying for our jobs.
By 2021, the UK had swung from COVID induced furloughs, redundancies and pay cuts, back to a candidates' market.
Firms had to fast-track the recruitment process to get their offer in before the competition. The thought of not calling someone back that could even string a sentence together on a screening call was unthinkable! As a result, hiring managers were forced to offer way above what had been market rate a few months earlier and even then sometimes had to go even higher due to counter offers.
Cost of Living Crisis
Then, on top of this existing wage inflation, Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022. This pushed the cost of fuel and therefore the cost of everything else sky high. Add to that Liz Truss' infamous mini-budget in September of that year and interest rates rocketed, sending inflation even further into the stratosphere. Employers, who were probably already spending well beyond their means, had to give workers 10% increases, just to retain them, or face the risk of having to spend even more time and money on recruitment in 2023.
Economic & Political Instability
While firms across the globe were literally busting a gut to scale up, investment was massively scaling down. Many corporations' big plans for expansion relied heavily upon external investment to bridge the gap, while they chased down the anticipated surge in sales they were ramping up to meet, but that investment simply wasn't there.
The economic uncertainty still lingering in the UK from Brexit, not helped by Liz Truss' disastrous economic policies, followed by a second leadership contest that year, all resulted in investors no longer being so keen to invest in once "Great" Britain. In addition, global political instability, caused by multiple international crises and upcoming elections in many influential countries, not least the USA, meant investors worldwide had got cold feet.
Adding to the vicious circle, companies that may have been considering large-scale infrastructure and/or IT projects, requiring the services of multiple B2B suppliers, understandably put them on hold, scaled them back or cancelled them altogether. At the same time, large employers in other significant sectors, such as energy and automotive, found themselves at the mercy of governments flip-flopping on their net zero commitments, setting car sales, engineering and manufacturing into freefall.
Suddenly hundreds, if not thousands, of businesses, all of which had been scaling up to meet an expected boom in demand, found their services were no longer required and that's when the layoffs started.
Why Recruitment seems to be Broken
The reasons for this are another perfect storm, which I liken to games most of us gave up when we reached our teens...
Musical Chairs
For one thing, a lot of firms have stopped hiring, for all the reasons outlined above and many have already made significant reductions in their workforce. There are simply fewer jobs to go round. At the same time, the market has been flooded with candidates that have been let go. It's like a huge game of musical chairs, with a lot fewer seats than partygoers.
For remote roles, the situation is even worse. With Return to Office (RTO) mandates rife and hybrid working becoming the norm, 100% remote roles are now at their most scarce since the pandemic. This puts them in great demand, not only from the unemployed, but also from those looking to leave organisations where an RTO mandate is being enforced. Worse still, unlike hybrid and onsite roles, the competition for remote roles is global, unrestricted by geographical boundaries, as most roles used to be. Of course, not all employers will accept applications from international applicants, but that doesn't stop them applying and adding to the "noise" in recruiters' and hiring managers' inboxes. At best, you face nationwide competition for roles that would previously have only attracted applications from at most a 35-50 mile radius.
Pin the Tail on the Donkey
If one thing has been abundantly clear to me in the past six months, it's that recruitment consultants and agencies have been almost completely frozen out. The main reason I've had so few calls from recruiters seems to be that they frankly don't have any jobs either! Some that I contacted were keen but ultimately unable to help, primarily because prospective employers are simply putting their emails in the bin (let's face it, we all get so many unsolicited emails these days, who doesn't?) and those that were able to get me an interview didn't get any feedback themselves, so weren't able to pass it on to me. Even consultants with long-standing relationships with large enterprises are being ghosted.
From one perspective, since it is no longer a candidates' market, this makes perfect sense. If hiring managers and internal recruitment teams can post a job on a job board or LinkedIn and receive hundreds of direct applications within 24 hours, it is understandably very difficult for them to justify paying 15-20% of a new recruit's first year salary to an agency to source candidates, especially when budgets are tight.
On the other hand, internal recruiters need the skills of recruitment consultants now more than ever. They are completely inundated with applications, many of which are unsuitable because of the sheer desperation of the unemployed population, together with well-meaning inclusivity statements, encouraging people to apply "even if you don't meet all the criteria" (who are they kidding?!), but a dud CV takes just as long to assess as a good one; the result being that probably only about 10%-20% of applications even being seen.
As much as I used to hate pushy recruitment consultants phoning me while I was at work, causing me untold embarrassment, as I hurriedly told them it wasn't a good time and to just send me an email, while they tried to pressure me into being put forward for a role that I didn't necessarily consider a good fit, they absolutely did serve a purpose. As Joni Mitchell wisely said, you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.
What recruitment consultants have that internal talent acquisition (TA) professionals now seem to lack, is time and specialism. Most consultants are assigned to a particular industry and sub-discipline (e.g. IT and Product Management, Project Management, QA or Development) and therefore have a pool of candidates in that field readily at their disposal. Of course, they still receive a lot of applications for every job they post online, but they have the resources to go through them because that's what they do. Moreover, they're not just hiring for one specific role, but for multiple vacancies in multiple firms. If a candidate isn't right for one job, they will go back into the 'pool' and might be a good fit for another.
TAs, conversely, are tasked with recruiting for a whole range of roles, across multiple business units, but only within one organisation. They are literally looking for a needle in a haystack, or attempting to pin a single tail on a single donkey; while recruitment consultants have an assortment of tails and an array of donkeys, but with one consultant dedicated to pinning a specific type of tail on one particular size and shape of donkey, giving them a far better chance of hitting the spot, even when "blindfolded" by a huge volume of applications.
Unfortunately, only the largest of organisations have the luxury of having TAs aligned to business units, let alone specific roles and even less so at a senior level, where vacancies are naturally less frequent, so the process is a lot less efficient. Instead of submitting a CV once to multiple agencies, who might work with multiple clients, candidates are having to submit CVs for multiple vacancies (affectionately known in the job board world as "Spray and Pray"), while internal recruitment teams up and down the country are replicating the work of what used to be a far smaller group of external recruitment consultants.
Battleships
Another side effect of generalist TAs leading the recruitment effort is that job descriptions are becoming increasingly generic. Hiring managers don't have time to write a job ad, so the task inevitably falls to HR or an internal recruiter, who may not have a clear idea of exactly what the hiring manager or their team really need. From what I've seen, many evidently turn to AI, with the net result that many job descriptions for Product Owners and Managers look identical, even though the content of the role, level of seniority and remit of a PO / PM at one organisation may vary greatly from another.
The same is true of candidates. At one time, I used to tailor my CV for every application, emphasising points that matched with the job description. Now, not only are the job descriptions so generic that this often isn't possible but, when applying for multiple jobs every day and getting rejection after rejection, putting the effort in to changing my CV for every role doesn't seem worthwhile. Many candidates also turn to AI or so-called "CV optimisation" experts, all of which give very similar advice and generate a keyword-rich CV with the goal of appealing to the widest possible base. In reality, this benefits no-one.
The nature of product management is such that one organisation might be looking for a relatively inexperienced candidate, to write user stories and work with a small development team to update the company website, while another may be a pivotal role, leading a flagship product, or building, optimising and marketing new features across multiple teams and workstreams, but the job titles and descriptions will often look the same.
Jobseekers, meanwhile, not wanting to rule themselves out of any role, will draw on experience from the full spectrum and say they can do it all, when realistically they may have more experience in one area or another, but ultimately neither party really knows what the other is actually looking for, so time is wasted on both sides before they find out. It's like blindly calling out coordinates, hoping to get a 'hit' on the other side, but having no idea where the opponents' ships are hiding.
What number am I thinking of?
In addition to the margin for mismatch in skills and experience, the lack of transparency around salary means you are effectively weeing in the breeze, wasting even more time on both sides and ultimately making the process even less efficient.
About a third of the jobs I applied for insisted on me entering my salary expectations on the application form, without even giving an inkling of theirs. Some of these roles were those for which I received the fastest rejections, making me think I was being forced into a trap. Pitch too low and you risk underselling yourself, opening yourself up to a low-ball offer and potentially portraying yourself as less senior than you actually are. Pitch too high and they will consider you too expensive, thinking they can probably get the calibre of candidate they're really looking for much cheaper.
As I said earlier, the degree of seniority for a Product Owner / Manager can vary enormously, as can how much the organisation values the role. For those vacancies where a salary was specified, I've seen figures anywhere between £32K and £120K with the exact same job title and a very similar description. You're literally flying blind.
Worse still, many application forms don't even let you enter a range, so you're forced to enter a specific number. This is particularly problematic for roles advertised as "remote / hybrid" (another area of opacity!) because I would be prepared to accept a lot less for a role with no travel than one where I'd have to commute into London 2-3 x a week at a cost of ~£50 per day, for which I would have to be paid around £10k a year more, before tax and NI, just to cover my travel costs. I therefore felt compelled to enter a figure at the top end of my range because it's nigh on impossible to negotiate a higher figure, once you've put your cards on the table and they say "actually, you need to come into the office 5 days a week." I may have been overlooked for a number of roles for this reason, even if in reality I might have considered a lower offer once I found out more about the role.
What does it mean for Product Management?
Wage Deflation
Unfortunately, salaries in the product arena seem to be returning to pre-pandemic levels, even though the cost of living is still much higher than it was back then. This will mean a real-terms pay-cut for a lot of people, if they're fortunate enough to even be in a job.
This is unlikely to improve while there are still more candidates than jobs and won't be helped by the employers' NI and minimum wage increases that come into effect in April. It's a great shame the new Government backed themselves into a corner and couldn't fill the "black hole" by putting a penny on the standard rate of income tax for those fortunate enough to be in work and instead decided to tax employers at a time of already significant unemployment. Ultimately this will only drive inflation up even further because most companies will have no choice but to pass these costs on to their customers, but simultaneously drive down average salaries because the more employers pay their workers, the more NI they have to pay... I have recently seen quite a few vacancies cancelled and even more converted to contract or fixed term roles, conveniently ending before the NI hike comes in.
In short, it is going to be a bumpy ride and I think many people will have to aim their sights lower, either in terms of seniority or salary (or both), in order to secure a role.
The Downfall of the Product Purist
The one thing that I personally consider positive to have come out of all of this, is the downfall of the Pious Product Purist (PPP).
I take a small measure of delight in the fact that the previously smug PPPs, the subject of an earlier blog post, who pass judgement on product managers not "truly the CEO of their product", who get "bogged down" by pesky things like stakeholders, business process and requests for (gasp!) estimates, turning "so-called PMs" into "delivery cogs", may now find themselves in an even worse position than the rest of us mere mortals.
With organisations being told to do more with less, I have seen a distinct uptick in product management roles requiring hands-on business analysis, project management, Scrum Master and technical skills. We're not (yet!) seeing Product Managers being asked to write code, but a knowledge of APIs and cloud-hosting is definitely now seen as an advantage, rather than a "red flag" that the candidate is too into the detail and therefore for some reason assumed incapable of strategic thinking. With purse strings tightened, it makes sense that hiring managers don't want to pay for a Project Manager, BA, Solutions Architect and a PM, if they can get someone that can fulfil all 4 roles.
I've seen many PPPs comment on LinkedIn that such jobs "obviously aren't real product management roles and shouldn't be touched with a barge pole" but the truth is those hiring managers probably wouldn't touch them with a barge pole either!
Visionary leadership, entrepreneurship and product-led-growth are all very well in times of expansion but, if they're the only strings to your bow, you may well find yourself coming unstuck in the current climate. With research & development budgets being slashed and investment at an all time low, "big bets", (costly) innovation and (risky) disruptors are less popular buzz words than they used to be.
It's a bad time to get into Product Management
As well as R&D budgets being cut, training and development have also taken a back seat. Agile and product management certifications seem to be losing popularity in favour of hands-on experience, so those hoping to break into the sector may be out of luck. The "do more with less" mantra means PMs are now busier than ever and unfortunately no longer have the time or capacity to take on and mentor a Junior PO.
I'm seeing a lot of training providers advertising product management courses and I fear they're taking advantage of desperate people, who probably can ill-afford their fees.
If you're looking to get into Product, I would recommend going in as a BA or Systems Analyst and learning the job by observing others (like I did), rather than by taking expensive qualifications and expecting to walk into a job. Without wanting to sound disparaging, based on my LinkedIn feed, there are a lot of very senior PMs that already have these certifications, along with decades of experience, who are finding themselves out of work for 6 months or more, so it's a really bad time to be trying to enter the sector.
What might get us out of this Doom Cycle?
Having banged on long enough about how and why we got into this mess and what it means for PMs, I thought I should probably share my thoughts on what I think might help get us out of it, for both recruiters and hiring managers, as well as jobseekers.
Ask or Answer Killer Questions
One thing I did experience in the past 6 months, which I thought was a really good idea, was asking questions specific to the role during the application process.
My best experience was where the application asked 3 questions, each with a maximum 100 word answer. This not only tests the candidate on their knowledge and experience, but also their written communication skills and ability to write concisely. Based on this blog post so far, it looks like I've failed that test!
It wasn't easy, but I really wanted the job, so I put my thinking cap on and came up with some killer responses. Sure enough, this was one of the roles for which I got a call back just 2 days later and was offered a 1st round interview. Unfortunately, the hiring manager then went on an unexpected long term absence and the role was subsequently cancelled, but I took great comfort from the fact that, had it remained open, I probably would have been in with a decent chance.
It was, in my view, a great way to weed out the "easy appliers", who probably wouldn't bother even trying to answer the questions if they weren't truly suitable for the role and ensure a good fit between the hiring manager's expectations and candidates' real-world experience. It took away the element of "battleships" and negated the need for the first screening call. Yes, the TA had to read applicants' responses but, with fewer applicants completing the process, plus the removal of the screening call stage, which itself takes time to set up, conduct and (hopefully!) give feedback, I imagine that a great deal of time was saved overall. It doesn't take that long to read 300 words and it probably saved the TA from actually reading the CV if the answers weren't what the hiring manager was looking for.
For info, the 3 questions I was asked, which I thought were really great, were:
Write a press release for a product or feature you personally have taken to market.
As a product manager, how would you describe your approach? How do you personally bring value and what are the points of difference in terms of why “you” versus others?
How would you describe a good product culture?
Another recruitment process asked me to complete an online test with a 15 minute time limit, but you could (bizarrely) extend it by rating each of the questions with a thumbs-up or down! The time constraint likely prevented candidates using AI and most of the questions were multiple choice, with a couple of free-text answers.
The multiple choice questions were pertinent and asked about discovery, agile best practice and how you should handle various situations. The free-text questions asked why I wanted to work for the company and what I thought I could bring to it. I assumed that, if you achieve the pass mark for the multiple choice questions, a real person looks at your free-text answers and CV to decide whether or not to put you through to the next stage. Given that I didn't receive the rejection email until 5 days later, I would hope that I passed the multiple choice, but presumably my free-text answers or CV weren't to their liking.
As an aside, I personally hate being asked why I want to work for a company! It is ultimately a pointless question because the job market at the moment is such that you can't often pick and choose the organisations you apply to. It almost certainly results in a completely fictitious answer and in my view unfairly disadvantages candidates, who frankly just need a job! Yes, it might highlight those candidates with a genuine passion for the company, or what they do, but there's no real way to distinguish them from the majority who probably make it up!
To be fair to them, I wasn't that passionate about the company or their product and it really wasn't the sort of software that anyone would get excited about so, if someone did manage to enter an outstanding answer to that question, they definitely deserved the job!
Even if the application doesn't ask specific questions, there's no harm in working the answers to the 3 examples I posted above into a cover letter or supplementary document (most applications allow the upload of more than just your CV), as I really think they could help you stand out from the crowd, which brings me on to my next tip...
Write a Cover Letter
Although it's tedious and time consuming, I think writing a cover letter that draws attention to those aspects of your skills and experience that are a match to the role can be a real advantage, particularly if there's a good fit and especially if the most relevant experience isn't on the 1st page of your CV. Although it can feel like a waste of time and there's no guarantee anyone will read it, it is probably the one chance you get to make yourself stand out from other candidates, who probably have an equally generic, keyword-rich CV!
It is of course difficult if the job description is too generic, or if you really aren't that great a fit to the requirements but, if there's a job you really want, it's worth putting in the time and effort. I wrote a really detailed cover letter for my 1st "real world" job application for a Business Analyst role and I know it piqued the hiring manager's interest and I got the job.
Don't just talk about your experience but also the advantages you might have over other candidates. If you've fulfilled other functions outside of product management, such as project management, delivery, Scrum Master, QA, or have a development background, make sure to draw it to their attention (if they express a desire for these things in the job ad).
A question I got asked a lot during my few screening calls and interviews was if I've ever said no to doing something "because it's not my job". It's an obvious trap but, as I keep saying, employers are having to do less with more and want people not afraid to roll their sleeves up and get their hands "dirty" with whatever needs doing; not just recite a Scrum manual about what a PO should and shouldn't do. Pragmatism is the new Purism.
Stop Using Generative AI or Paying for CV Help!
While it might be tempting to ask Chat GPT to rewrite your CV, literally everyone is doing it right now and believe me, it's absolutely clear to recruiters and hiring managers when someone has used AI to create their whole CV.
Not only will it give you a very generic CV, like the majority of the others doing the rounds at the moment, but it also begs the question as to why you would need AI assistance if you've got a good career history and background.
That said, it can be useful if you're looking to reword a bullet point that you're not happy with, or make it more concise, but make sure you add your own personal 'flavour' to the text it generates, or you'll come across as a bot.
The free CV review offered by some job boards serves a purpose, in that it can give you some general pointers about what makes a good CV. This might be useful if you haven't updated your CV in a while, or if you've had the same CV for a long time and become "blind" to it, but be wary when they say you can "feel free to ask any questions", as they will charge for advice after the initial review! You might 'feel' free but it won't be free!
Paying for CV advice is a bit like paying for a wine expert to tell you which wine goes best with which dish. They can give you their opinion, but it won't suit everyone's taste. I've supported a lot of hiring managers with the recruitment process over the years and there are very few areas on which they'd all agree. Some like to see skills before experience and education, others think it's a waste of space. I hate a multi-column layout because I find it distracting and I want to read the CV in chronological order, but a Head of Delivery I once worked with thought it was great. There is no "perfect" CV.
The subject of Applicant Tracking System (ATS) readability is also controversial. Having worked for job boards for 10 years, I can promise you that their CV parsing capabilities vary enormously! Some will suck in your CV and spit out a jumbled mess but others, like those used by Totaljobs and Indeed, will make a great job of compiling your CV into a well-structured profile. Indeed even show you the PDF that's been generated before you upload it, which I find really useful to ensure that my intended formatting has been interpreted correctly. Since all ATS platforms ultimately have some kind of CV parsing software under the hood, it's safe to assume that they all vary in terms of the quality of their output.
There are a lot of schools of thought on the subject, but I'm a believer in the theory that, if you can copy and paste your Word CV into Notepad and it still reads ok, it can be read by even the most basic ATS. This approach will also demonstrate the potential pitfalls of a multi-column layout...
The use of keywords is however really important. All ATS and search engines are based on the presence of the terms searched in the document. Think about what you would search for if you were hiring a product manager and make sure those keywords are in there.
For what it's worth, my 4 CV tips are:
Keep it clean. Use clear headings and keep sufficient white space between sections.
Keep it simple. Don't use fancy fonts or layouts. Humans (and machines) are trained to read from left to right, top to bottom. Stick to that and you can't go wrong.
Keep it short. 2 pages is ideal. Summarise roles more than 10 years old and link to your LinkedIn page or website for more details.
Use a summary at the top of the 1st page. 2 lines to grab the reader's attention and highlight your key skills and experience that will make you stand out from the crowd.
Sign up for Job Alerts
It may sound obvious these days but, to those new to job seeking, or that have been out of the market for more than 10 years, it's really important to sign up to as many job boards as possible.
A lot of jobs are now posted on LinkedIn, which is a great source of jobs and where I found over 50% of those I applied for, but some are only posted on job boards like Totaljobs, Reed and CV Library, so it's worth signing up with them too. Also, the rise of "Easy Apply" on LinkedIn, together with its global audience, mean that jobs posted there are likely to attract a lot more applications than those posted solely on UK job boards. Don't let the "over 100 applicants" on LinkedIn put you off, though, as many of these either may not have completed the application process, may be bots, or entirely unsuitable applicants, who will quickly be weeded out.
Otta.com, now known as Welcome to the Jungle, was a new one for me and I found it had quite a lot of jobs for better known employers and start-ups, but what I really liked was the profile they create for you, which you can download as a PDF that you can then use to apply for roles, even those found on other sites. I don't know of many other job boards that do that, although I personally didn't take advantage of the profile for fear of it being too long for those not used to the format. It's a smart move by Otta though because the profile is branded with their logo, resulting in free advertising for them if people do use it elsewhere. Due to the household names, remote roles and popular start-up culture, however, the competition for these roles will be fierce, so don't pin your hopes on getting a response. Of the 12 that I applied for on Otta / WTTJ, I got 7 rejections and no response at all to the rest.
Indeed is also a good one to sign up with because they aggregate jobs from multiple job boards and sometimes even from the recruitment page of employers' own websites, meaning you might see jobs there that you don't see elsewhere.
Use your Network!
Don't be afraid of the Open To Work (OTW) banner on LinkedIn. I know it's controversial but, unless you're already employed and don't want your current employer to know you're looking, there's absolutely no reason not to use it and it has a lot of advantages.
For all the reasons I've talked about, direct applications aren't being processed as efficiently as they should be and many aren't even being read. As much as it is one of my most hated cliches, because I'm a strong believer in meritocracy, it really is a case of not being so much about what you know as who you know right now. If your network doesn't know you're available and looking work, they're a lot less likely to contact you with potential job opportunities. I probably wouldn't have found my next role, had I not been open and honest in posting about my situation.
In fact, out of the 9 jobs for which I got an initial screening call, 2 were the result of an employee referral, 2 were from recruitment consultants and 1 was a direct approach from an internal recruiter, who saw me on LinkedIn. None of them would have contacted me had I not used the OTW banner. Only 4 calls were a result of a direct application I made online.
Not only does it increase the chances of you being contacted but being immediately available also makes you a more attractive candidate. There have been a few occasions in the past, where there have been 2 very close candidates for a role and I've plumped for the one immediately available over one with a 1-3 month notice period. In the current climate, if a vacancy is open, the chances are there's a very strong business case for having it and an urgent need for it to be filled! The sooner a candidate can come on board, the sooner the hiring manager will have the resource they need to help their business run more smoothly. Furthermore, if someone has a 3-month notice period, there's a huge risk they might find something else in the meantime and never actually start, putting the recruitment process right back to the drawing board. Don't under estimate the value to an organisation of being an immediate hire.
The counter argument is that it may, potentially, risk a low-ball salary offer if the hiring manager knows you're currently unemployed but, by the time you get to the final interview and start talking notice periods and salaries, the chances are they will find out anyway. Only a really unscrupulous person would reduce the offer on the basis of someone's employment status and anyone should feel able to challenge an offer if they feel it isn't representative of their value and/or means they won't be able to make ends meet.
One other word of warning, however, is that if you use the #opentowork hashtag in posts on LinkedIn, you may find yourself receiving immediate comments and direct messages from random people you've never heard of, telling you to send them a connection request. These are usually scammers, or people touting 'CV optimisation' services. They can easily be distinguished from genuine interest by clicking on their profile. If the page was set up in the past 24 hours, they're almost certainly a bot. Block and report them and move on, but don't let it put you off using the banner and hashtag.
Summary
To sum it all up, I would say that if you've been made redundant and/or are finding it's a lot more difficult and taking a lot longer to find a job than it used to, remind yourself every day that it isn't your fault and that you are definitely not alone.
If your confidence is waning, remember that there are a lot of other senior and experienced product professionals, who have also been laid off through no fault of their own and are taking between 6-12 months to find a new role. I know because I've seen them on my LinkedIn feed. The market is flooded with candidates right now and the recruitment process is being hampered by the sheer weight of traffic in the system. It isn't helped by the reluctance to use recruitment consultants, who (love them or hate them), do have the ability to match candidates to jobs much faster than individual internal recruiters, each recruiting for a single vacancy. It's not your fault. The process is just a lot slower than it used to be.
If you can, prepare yourself both psychologically and financially for a 12 month period of unemployment. It sounds horrific but you will be relieved if you find something sooner and limit disappointment and despair if you don't.
Set yourself a realistic goal of applying for at least one job per day and putting your all into applications for those jobs for which you are the best fit. I'm not saying not to apply for others because, if you don't apply, you stand zero chance of getting the job, but do your best to help yourself stand out from the crowd when there's a job that you really want.
Don't just focus on searching and applying for jobs but also on speaking to people in your network. Use the OTW banner, post frequently on LinkedIn, telling people you're available and ask your contacts if they know of any vacancies. I've had a lot of really lovely people get in touch with me, saying they're keeping an eye out for me.
Finally, if you're thinking of getting into product management right now, I would seriously consider learning by watching for the time being, rather than paying out for expensive qualifications. Apply for roles that match your current skill set and experience and express an interest in gaining more exposure to product. You may well find that an overstretched PO will welcome your help, enabling you to gain valuable experience, without having to find an official Junior PO or Associate PM role, which are increasingly hard to come by.
Most importantly, make time for you. Spend a few hours on your job search in the morning but find something you enjoy doing for a few hours in the afternoon. In the winter in particular, you can always come back to your job search after it gets dark. Take Vitamin D supplements and make the most of the daylight.
If you can't afford a gym or exercise classes, go for a walk, run or jog, or find YouTube videos of Yoga or fitness routines that you can follow in your own home. It doesn't matter what form of exercise you take, as long as you do something and build it into your routine. It will boost your endorphins and give you a break from doom scrolling on LinkedIn. Even if you don't think your physical health needs it, your mental health certainly does. Trust me.
Take up a new interest, like gardening, researching your family tree, blogging or building a website - anything that will keep your brain active while you're looking for work. There are a lot of free tools and platforms available and you don't have to use the paid, premium options. Take the opportunity to spend time with friends and family that you can't normally see because you're working. Hell, even binge watch a series on TV if that's your thing, but don't forget to keep your mind and body active as well!
Although you may feel pressure to spend every waking hour looking for a job, you will burn out quickly. Job seeking in the current climate is definitely a marathon and not a sprint.
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