I accepted a new job offer today. Less than 2 weeks after I started my job search. In the worst job market in 15 years, I had 5 official job offers, 2 verbal job offers, and even more "come join us whenever you want" pitches than I can count. Here's the roadmap of how I did it so you can implement it yourself: 1: It all came through networking I didn't apply to one single company. It all came through calling people I worked with in the past. And not just "ground level" referrals, but people with actual influence with decision makers, or are decision makers themselves. I figured, these people know who I am, and what I'm capable of. This was important because it will make rebuilding my political equity that much easier. Coming in and having someone of influence vouch for me and to help make introductions was a big factor for me. That, and I didn't have to go through any formal interview process. In fact, I only spoke to one recruiter throughout this whole thing. The actual decision makers themselves drove this process for every offer except one. So make sure you're focusing on building relationships internally - upwards, downwards, and sideways. You never know where some of these people end up in a few years. 2: Networking Internally Of course, this network wasn't built overnight. One of the many things my late father taught me was to build your network for the long term, because you never know what doors it can open up for you later on in life. So, when I first at started my old company 10 years ago, I made it a priority to network with the top performers in the office. When most people think of networking, they think of outside events our DMing people online. Now that stuff is important, but for the purpose of this post, all of my offers except for 2 were via people I worked with in the past. 3: Realizing Top mentors are busy I figured out pretty quickly that, if I’m reaching out and asking these people to mentor me, other people are too. So why should they mentor me over everyone else? My first move was to make sure I was the hardest worker there. I was the first one in the office, last one to leave. So they knew immediately I was willing to put in the work. The next was to offer to take them out for coffee, lunch, happy hours, you name it. I did this on my little $35k base salary. All the new hires had this salary, and they knew it too, so again, they knew I was serious when I told them I refused to let them pay for the bill. Slowly but surely I won them over. 4: Advice in real time I remember one senior recruiter quitting, who sat next to who would then be my biggest mentor, so I switched desks asap. Just hearing him on the phone, taking calls from candidates and clients, how he conducted himself, was a masterclass. This was so clutch. Made it so easy to pop over each other’s desks and ask quick 1-2 questions. Eventually, I would poke in asking questions why he did certain things the way he did. Then as I was working with my candidates and clients, I would ask him for advice in real time. This way he was engaged and saw me implement his advice in real time. I didn’t do this with just him, but with another senior performer in the office. 5: Building relationships with my managers I also was asking the advice of my managers. One in particular I became close with and we grew a great relationship over the course of my career. As I started “winning” more, I didn’t take credit. I gave it. And I made my managers look good in the process. As I made one of them look good, he also went out of his way to make me look good. And we reciprocated this back and forth. Eventually, he became the VP of sales and took me up the ladder with him. 6: Becoming a top performer & recognizing others Of course it's easier to build your network internally when you're a top performer. With the help of my mentors and managers, I kept smashing company records left and right. But it wasn't just about me. My performance raised the bar and broke barriers. With every milestone I hit, other people started realizing what's actually possible and it raised their performance too. So whenever other people starting hitting their new milestones, I was virtually the first person to reach out to congratulate them, and offer advice on how to hit the next one. 7: Giving Others Credit Eventually my reputation grew and spread. Other teams wanted to work with me. I started making placements with everyone on our east coast division. But the thing is, I didn’t really take any credit. I always made sure the other people involved received more recognition than me. I figured, it didn’t matter, because the executives upstairs would keep seeing my name pop up and eventually I am the real impact player behind the scenes. Plus, people love recognition in general. As these people moved onto other companies, they will most certainly remember me not just for my performance, but how I made them feel special. 8: Getting Laid Off Eventually, after years of top performance and building out my network, my entire division was whacked! It didn’t come to a surprise. About a year or so ago I saw the music was going to stop at our company. Overall performance wasn’t great, shuffling executives in and out, etc. I took some time off to decompress especially with the passing of my father to figure out what I wanted to do. 9: Reaching out to my network Now is the time where 10+ years of building and curating my network was going to pay off. I knew I wanted to be intentional about who I reached out to. I started out with not just referrals, but referrals of influence. Meaning it wasn’t enough they worked there. They either had to be a decision maker, or have influence with a decision maker. From there, just to see what my options were, I started reaching out to a few more people I enjoyed working with, that I knew were successful at their new companies. On top of that, virtually anytime someone that was also laid off with me that took an interview, that company eventually reached out to me once they heard I was available. So I was taking calls left and right the past 2 weeks. 10: Fast tracking the interview process I knew everyone would be chomping at the bits to bring me on so I made it very clear from day 1 that I wanted to take my time. This way, I wasn’t spending my time talking to the wrong people, and with the companies I did like, I could process through them faster. That being said, I didn’t have to apply anywhere. The referrals just sent me to either the person I’d be reporting to or their boss. And for the companies I really liked, I did the entire interview process in a week, and in 2 instances, a day. 11: Acting with extreme transparency From the very first call, I made it clear what I was looking for and my expectations for my next employer, manager, role, and income. On top of that, without mentioning the names of the companies I was speaking with, I was very honest where I was at in the process with the other companies. Further, I was even more honest with where that specific company ranked, and if they still wanted to proceed with me to go through their interview process to show them I was cognizant of not wasting their time if they weren't "serious contenders". 12: Choosing the company: It landed down to 3 offers I was serious about. The one I accepted, is where the first mentor I had mentioned above, their company is in the same exact situation my old company was in about 7-8 years ago. They’re landing all these accounts, they’re having growing pains, and they need someone who can not only contribute, but help map out what they need to do. I also already have experience with half the accounts they have so there would be minimal ramp up involved. The 2nd place one was a small, yet growing, recruiting startup. One of my biggest mid-career mentors has a very successful company. But it would have required a little bit of a learning curve. There was nothing “wrong” with their offer, I was just more familiar with the other one. The 3rd place one was actually in first place briefly. I met the entire team in person at their NY office. They had an amazing energy about them. A few senior top billers and a lot of up and commers. Ultimately why I didn’t move forward was that their team was onsite 3x/week in NY. Although they offered me remote, I knew eventually at some point this would cause issues internally with the other producers. 13: Declining offers the right way So far with all of the offers I have declined, they've essentially given me a standing job offer. Which means if the company I go to goes bankrupt or I somehow get whacked again in 6-12 months, I can call them and they'll bring me onboard. Now, I am also taking an extra step to ensure a smooth transition. I am not sending them a generic email template I made on ChatGPT. I am personally calling each of them, not just the main POC, but each person that was involved in the process. Because, again, you never know where each person ends up in the next 3, 5, 10 years. So the focus isn't keeping that bridge and network with that specific company, but with the specific people.

Tech CEOs after laying off 25% of their workforce

Drinking a few beers then staring at the ocean

For every like this post gets I’ll have 1 (one) Guinness

When you know certain companies are lying about their advancements in AI but you just can’t prove it

Check out this weeks free newsletter here: open.substack.com/pub/random…

These layoffs probably aren’t going to end anytime soon. That’s why you need to come up with your Plan B today. Better to build yourself a lifeboat and never have to use it, vs getting effected and be left stranded

Took my wife, daughter, and in laws to lunch at Carmines and to see @Rockettes Absolutely incredible show. The athleticism, timing, and precision is insane. Amazing day with the fam

What’s the point of this? Do you think they’re going to hire you back and give you a massive raise and promotion? Or do you think a competitor will see this and say, “wow I have to hire this guy!” Genuinely curious.

Tech workers when you ask them to adhere to RTO mandates

“You’re definitely qualified, but we went with someone cheaper. We call that a "culture fit"

While I'm onboarding for my next job, I've been working on some splits with other solo/independent recruiters. I've essentially been targeting AI Engineers and seeing if anyone has a spot for them. I'll tell you what, for as bad as this job market is, AI Engineering roles are MOVING. Doesn't matter the industry, doesn't matter company size. I put in a pretty specific search in on Juicebox. Looking for experienced folks strong with python, pytorch, tensorflow, variety of LLMs, etc. Then it stack ranked them in order of who fit my criteria top to bottom. It's awesome because instead of spending an extra 30 minutes scrolling through LinkedIn Recruiter sifting through a bunch of fake or unqualified profiles, Juicebox did the work for me. I called the first dozen people and had good conversations with two of them. Sent those folks to a few of the recruiters I'm partnering with and booked 2 interviews this week.

We’ve been gaslight by the government telling us the job market has been good for the last ~3 years. But white collar professional that’s looked for a job since then knows that hasn’t been the case. There are so many factors at play right now: • Tariffs • Geopolitical activity • High interest rate environment • Adoption of AI in the workplace This is exactly why you shouldn’t trust government data. Follow the earnings reports of public recruiting and staffing companies. They’re the ones that are telling you exactly what they’re hearing and seeing in terms of hiring plans from their clients. If you’ve done that, then you know the job markets completely sucked since the end of 2022 regardless of what any government report has said.

5am workout = SMASHED!!! We got a fun day lined up today. Taking my wife and oldest daughter to the city for a nice lunch and to see the Rockettes! It’ll be her first time up there. LFG!

“We’re like a family here.” “You fired my entire department yesterday.”

Another solid launch video here. Google Ads are huge for SMB marketing and they’re building a platform to compete with everyone else. Looks like they’re hiring too.

Every Gen Z employee on planet earth:

The layoffs will keep coming. This is your sign to come up with your “Plan B” Start building, nurturing, and reaching out to your network. Ex-colleagues are a great place to start. Start building out some cash runway as there’s a decent chance your job search will take longer than expected. I’m not sure when the job market will improve but I don’t think it will be anytime soon.

“AI is going to replace you.” Yea right. Maybe some recruiters. But not me. Ghosting candidates is an art. A science as even some would call it. Something that comes natural like a talented artist. You simply can’t recreate that with a stupid computer algorithm.