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These are the first 5 things to do after you get laid off, according to a former WeWork exec who hired 3,000 people and now runs a career coaching startup

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  • Layoffs in the tech industry keep coming as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.
  • Dave Fano, best known for his years at WeWork, is back with a career-coaching startup. He’s helping people land new jobs during the COVID-19 crisis.
  • He offers 5 tips on what to do immediately after losing your job, whether it’s a layoff or a protest resignation.
  • These tips involve writing a modern resume, updating your LinkedIn with an eye to keywords, looping in and mining your network, and doing the real work, not tricks.
  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Despite a surprisingly good jobs report for May, the layoffs in the tech industry keep rolling, with more than half a dozen tech companies cutting employees so far in June, according to Layoffs.fyi. All told, 490 startups have cut 63,580 employees since March, when COVID-19 hit the US in force.

The good news is that there are still over 800 tech companies on Layoffs.fyi who say they are hiring for thousands of jobs.

But competition to land a job is fierce, for the first time in years.

Dave Fano, founder of career coaching startup Teal, believes the difference between the people who immediately get a new job and those who struggle is tactics.

“There’s so many people that need help right now and there’s basic tactical stuff like how to write a resume (a lot of the old advice is wrong), and things like LinkedIn, which makes it more like SEO and content management than it is job searching,” he says.

Teal offers a 6-week job-search workshop done in a cohort. It covers things like writing a modern resume, interviewing tactics, and how to search-engine-optimize (SEO) your LinkedIn profile to show up for recruiters. Doing the training in a group also helps with the hardest parts of job searching, loneliness and accountability, he says.

Job searching is “not a skill that most people get,” he says, because most of us “just don’t do it often enough.”

Fano is best known for his years at WeWork as Chief Growth Officer, where he led multiple departments and grew his team from 300 to 3,500, during the office sharing company’s heyday. He left about five months before WeWork attempted to go public and then imploded.

He left because he had an itch to turn all of that hiring experience into a new kind of company, he said, a subscription-based career coaching company. It came out of stealth just as COVID-19 struck, so Teal is currently specializing in job searching. The six-week course is supposed to cost $400, but it’s half-price for anyone who’s lost their job because of COVID-19.

For those who lose a job either through a layoff or, in these troubled political times, quit in protest, Fano teaches his job-searching students that these are the first things you should do:

1. Tell your networks on LinkedIn and elsewhere that you lost your job and are looking for a new one. 

“Once you’ve grieved and gone through the emotional process, say, ‘Hey, I’m looking for work,” Fano says.

Some people are ashamed of being laid off and fear that announcing their job hunt publicly will reflect badly on them. But you shouldn’t be, “especially in this economy,” he says. By writing a public announcement about your situation and your search, you are allowing people to reach out and help you.

“Make it easy for your network to help you. Don’t assume that people know,” Fano says.

2. Mine your network. Your network isn’t just the people who follow you on LinkedIn. It is everyone in your whole career “you’ve ever had an interaction with,” says Fano. “Have the courage to reach out.”

He says one of his students reached out to an executive the person knew 10 years earlier, as the executive’s dog walker. The exec listened and gave the person a lead on a great job. 

“When you reach out, people want to help,” he says, especially in times of crises like today.

3. Do the work. Don’t just “spray and pray.” Don’t just take a standard resume and cover letter and apply to a ton of jobs. “You need to put in the work and apply to each job with care and quality and a tailored application. And you should put it into a person’s hands,” he said. “Only apply online as last resort.”

Think of yourself like a prospective investor. You may wind up investing a lot of your time and energy into this company, so do the research, including meeting connections.

4. “SEO” your LinkedIn resume. Include words that will help your profile be found by recruiters. This includes using keywords in your Headline, About section, and Experience section. Find the right keywords by examining job descriptions, looking at LinkedIn profiles of others, and using a Google keyword tools.

“Make sure your LinkedIn Profile has exact titles and permutations of titles,” he says, such as associate product manager and lead product manager.

“We’re seeing people get more job interviews, from zero — just crickets — to having inbound recruiters hit them up on LinkedIn, all by fixing their LinkedIn profiles,” Fano says.

5. “Don’t rely on tricks. Rely on showing why you are awesome,” Fano says.

For instance, some people are worried about ageism and think they should hide dates like their college graduation. Recruiters see right through that. Focus on creating “good content. Don’t do tricks,” he says. Remember that content can include blog posts, videos and other ways you can show off your skills and your passion for your career.

Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/5-things-to-do-immediately-after-losing-your-job-to-land-another-one-2020-6

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