I accepted a position at a start up around three months ago. This company was located in New York and I was located in California. They mentioned that I could work remotely for now but I would eventually have to move out to New York. I was okay with this, as I always dreamed of working in New York.
They had me work as a contract worker for the first month to see if I was a good fit. Once that passed they hired me full time, and I worked remotely for around a month and a half, then moved out to NYC last week. However, just this Friday they told me that I was laid off, they said it had something to do on their end. This was totally out of the blue and I didn’t believe them at first. At the office the day before we were talking about how I would get a week off for Christmas.
I’m in a total panic right now. I’m in a city I don’t know without a job and I have about 5 weeks to find a new position or I have to move back in with my parents in California. I’m not even sure if I should include it on my resume, as having only worked three months at my first job might look bad.
The job market for tech is so rough right now I’m terrified. I’m really hoping for any advice on how to go about this, what should I do?
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My first job was remote too, my second one too, yet now I find harder to find a remote job… am I cursed?
Include this position on your resume. Reach out to people within the company to help spread the word that you’re looking for employment. They said that it was their fault so hold them to it and have them help you get a job. Work on your LinkedIn profile, apply for unemployment, work on your resume, work on yourself. I recommend watching ALifeAfterLayoff’s YouTube channel.
Thank you. One of the engineers said he would write me a recommendation on LinkedIn. I’ve already applied for unemployment. I’m thinking of pursuing a AWS Solutions Architect.
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AWS Solutions Architect is a certificate that basically says that you know how to use the AWS Cloud Services. This won’t get you hired by Amazon, it’s more of a training / education thing that may help you land a job at a firm looking for this sort of thing.
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have a beer or other liquor based frosty beverage
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update your resume
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go over your new references list
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work out a few generic cover letters
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start looking for work monday.
a year from now you will look back at this moment of time wistfully and wish you took up oil painting in Tuscany. but seek and thee shall find.
you will be fine.
I’m stuck on step 1
Infinite loop
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It will be questioned, but you have a good explanation. The tricky part is explaining it elegantly. Hiring managers kinda glance at resumes so you should add a sentence at the end explaining that you were let off due to internal company reasons. You should also try and get a letter from the company explaining that it wasn’t for performance reasons. Even better would be to get letters of recommendation from your coworkers and manager. Hopefully they’ll be extra nice to you due to your situation, but you need to be proactive about it.
You should also try and get a letter from the company explaining that it wasn’t for performance reasons.
Excellent advice.
I recall there being laws in place to protect people in your position. Since you had to move across the country to remain employed and they let you go after you did so, you might be entitled to money or your job to some extent. Sorry, I have no idea the name of such laws or any source, but if I were you I’d look this up on the side because it could mean sustaining you out there while you get situated.
It’s a contract thing called detrimental reliance. As I understand it, basically you relied on a promise to do something only in the event the promise was upheld then it wasn’t. It wouldn’t hurt to speak to a lawyer for a consultation. I doubt you’d get the job back, but they could be liable for the damages caused by moving.
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Read Askamanager.com for advice on your resume and strategies to explain the short tenure. This wasn’t you. This was on them.
This is already said, but it cannot be too emphasized: This is not your fault. This is entirely on them. Three months is far too short to evaluate someone even if they were secretly unhappy with your performance. It might be worth talking to an employment lawyer, but likely you’ll have to take this on the chin. In the immortal words of the great Captain Picard: “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life.”
As everyone has said, you can expect to get questions about it, and I would definitely have a prepared, rehearsed statement. Some recruiters and hiring managers make a big deal about these sort of things, some won’t even care. Again: this is not your fault and do not be apologetic about it.
Five weeks is not a lot of time to get a new software job, even in a hot market. This is the unfortunate reality and I would start making contingency plans. If living in NYC remains a goal, then this is a setback but a far smaller one than it may seem right now. You don’t have a mortgage or a family hanging over your head. Moving back to NYC will be in play, likely sooner than you think.
Spending time on career development is a good idea. Something with a firm outcome like AWS Solutions Architect is also good. I have the associate certification which I started working on while at Amazon. It hasn’t really done much for me, but I’m not seeking positions where it would hold much weight.
I hold all three major Kubernetes certifications and I’ve still struggled before I found this position. I probably just need to apply harder than before. I think I’m going to start working on a solutions architect. Thank you for the kind words.
I can’t agree more with regards to career development. When I graduated from college way back in 1990 I wanted to do software development. It took me six months of job hunting that resulted in only 5 interviews and a single job offer to do telephone tech support for a business products software company.
I spent two years doing tech support and used that time to learn the internals of the product and even wrote some programs in C that demonstrated some of our platforms integrations for our business clients. I was eventually noticed by a couple senior software engineers who started mentoring me and helped me move from tech support to software development full time.
After a decade or so of software development I transitioned into a DevOps role in a similar manner - started doing some of that sort of work on my own, got noticed, then encouraged to change roles. I’ve been doing that for close to 20 years and am very happy where I am now.
Maybe also try remote positions outside your country? English is generally accepted (and often required) in IT jobs.
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