I’m still brokenhearted for those in Israel & Gaza and praying for a fast resolution to the bloodshed. For those with family on either side, I wish you and your family safety and peace.

Happy Halloween! This is one of my favorite holidays. Getting out and saying hello to neighbors. Kids playing outside. Costumes. Candy. Cooler air. What’s not to love? I hope everyone has had a great time and got to raid the candy bowl just a bit tonight. 

But let me tell you the one part of Halloween I don’t care for. I’m not into spooky or scary stuff. I hate jump scares (especially right now as I wrap up healing this broken rib.) Sure, I enjoy a few corny decorations, but the thought of going through a haunted house holds absolutely no appeal to me. I think I understand why some people enjoy it, but it’s just not for me. I’m a big fan of knowing what’s coming, planning for it, and moving on. That’s at least partially a reason the layoff hit me so hard initially.

Now that we’re months removed from the layoff, I have come to a place where I can see some more true silver lining. I’m not sure I would have ever willingly made the jump to start my own business. However, consulting for a variety of startups as a fractional CTO (developer, product manager, junior UX designer, leadership coach, or even janitor if needed, I suppose) has given me opportunities to learn more about “The World of Work™” than 20+ years in the industry ever did. I know I still have a lot to learn, but I know from having read so many of the terrible layoff stories that it will be the rest of my life’s goal to run and lead companies that can be transparent, honest, and working to avoid layoffs like this if at all possible. 

Some Scary Numbers and One Less Scary Number

6,996 people were laid off in October (per Layoffs.fyi) (an increase over September.) Source

7% of Splunk employees being laid off before the Cisco acquisition (approximately 500 more people) source

34% → 57% of CFOs surveyed by Deloitte believe the current economic conditions are good or very good (up from the low point of 34% in Q2 ‘22). source

Scary Deadlines

With the end of the year rapidly approaching (hello, November!), many companies will be hunkering down for the holidays. We all expect hiring to slow from November through January. The good news is that layoffs were much lower in December last year than in the surrounding months, but the bad news is that November was the second highest (beaten only by January ‘23.) So, we’re quickly approaching a deadline for finding a new role this year. A hard push in the next few weeks to send out more applications is sound advice I’ve heard several times. Let me jot a few quick notes on services I’ve used to keep myself sane as I sent out all of those applications:

• LinkedIn – core to my job search and alerts, but there were lots of applicants by the time I found a role there.
• Otta – good for finding new jobs to apply to sometimes before they appear on LinkedIn.
• Ramped – Good AI tools for reviewing resumes and writing customized cover letters using AI
• ResumeWorded – Also a good tool for an AI resume review.
• Google Alerts – Setting up job alerts for sites/titles to try to catch them first

I’m Fearing The Reaper…More Cowbell

I know for the months leading up to the layoff at Indeed, there was a lot of fear about the possibility of layoffs, and from a glance at Blind, it’s clear that hasn’t gone anywhere yet. It probably won’t until companies go back into hiring again. Unfortunately, so much of that energy could be better spent on critical initiatives: reducing costs, increasing efficiency and productivity, and innovating to come out of the downturn stronger. This read in Forbes (5m read time) had a line that jumped off the page for me: 

McKinsey & Company research shows that during the last recession, innovative enterprises outperformed the market average by over 30% and had accelerated growth over the following three to five years.

That’s an incredible business advantage. Plus, the new muscles built by constraining costs and tracking efficiency/productivity will make the whole organization more lean and nimble, too. This is now a part of my research when considering new companies/roles. I want to understand their approach to the downturn.

Scary Fun

ChatGPT had some fun helping me find fun memes for today’s newsletter. Not bad robots. Not bad.