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What to Do if You’re Laid Off in the 2008 Recession

Still from the original “Odd Todd” cartoon.
A still from the original “Odd Todd” cartoon, Laid Off: A Day in the Life.
Click the image to watch the cartoon.

Inspired by news of the impending layoffs at Yahoo!, Robert Scoble — quite possibly the internet’s best-known tech evangelist has compiled a list in his article What to Do if You’re Laid Off in the 2008 Recession. I’ve got a condensed version of his list items below; I suggest you read the article to see the list in full. It’s good advice whether you’ve just been laid off, looking for a job or even if you’re currently employed and looking for your next job.

(Note: while a few of these points are tech industry-specific, they should be easily adaptable to whatever field you’re in — or would like to be in.)

  1. Don’t get lazy. It might seem dire, but if you work it you WILL find a job.
  2. Make sure you spend at least 30% of every day trying to find a job.
  3. Start a blog on the field you want to work in.
  4. Do things that will get you to be recognized as a world leader in the field you want to be in. Are you a programmer? Build something and put it up!
  5. Network! Learn from Loic Le Meur. How did he get thousands of videos uploaded on Seesmic everyday? He networked.
  6. Do a video everyday on YouTube that demonstrates something you know. Loic does a video everyday. If you’re laid off you have absolutely no excuses.
  7. Show your friends your resume and cover letter. Don’t have any friends? Now is the time to make some. Call up some interesting people and ask for an informational interview.
  8. Do the basics. Yes, my blog helped me AFTER I got the interview, but I got the interview just by having a great cover letter and an interesting resume.
  9. Don’t feel bad about taking government assistance. You’ll need it to pay your bills.
  10. Go to any job networking session you learn about.
  11. Go where the money is. If you are laid off and you haven’t sent your resume to Matt Mullenweg this morning, why not? People with new funding (Matt just got almost $30 million) are the ones who are hiring.
  12. Take a little bit of time to work on family and health.
  13. Volunteer. Let’s say you are going to be out of work for six months. What could you do with six months of your time? Make sure you come away with it with a great project under your belt. Why not volunteer your time with a charity that could use your skills? Building an IT system for the Red Cross looks damn impressive — saying you were “on the beach” for six months does not,
  14. Make sure you take advantage of any help your former employer is offering. Sometimes they have retraining or other programs that might help you land an even better job.
  15. See if you can keep coming into the office. This isn’t open to everyone, but at Userland I kept coming into work everyday after the paychecks stopped. That made me feel better, plus it gave me the ability to use phones, stay away from negative situations (do you really want to be around family all day, everyday, who might remind you that you need to find a job?) as well as give you a place to work hard on finding your new job.
  16. Go to every business event you can attend. Can’t afford to get in? Me neither and I have a job! Hang out in the hallways. You never know who you might meet.
  17. Always have your suit ready. Some interviews happen quickly. You want to be able to answer “yes” to “Can you be here this afternoon?”

You may also want to check out the Deep Jive Interests article that asks Are You Applying SEO Strategies To Your Resume?

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Advice for Startup CEOs

Some of the advice in the SEOMoz article Advice for Startup CEOs includes: have a voracious appetite for knowledge, be ready to multi-task, be able to communicate in multiple mediums, have a background in usability, cultivate a strong culture of analytics, admit and understand that a company is NOT a democracy, delegation is your friend and don’t get too far removed from your company’s day-to-day operations.

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Rock Star Coders [Updated]

Gene Simmons showing a bass guitar (headstock first) into his mouth.

Reading the ComputerWorld article Rock Star Coders reminded me of a classified ad announcing auditions for a band member that went something like this:

Lead guitarist/vocalist wanted for glam rock/metal band. Must have serious chops, a good voice, looks and stage presence.

No assholes.

You might as well put up an ad that goes “Vegan life coach wanted. Must like steak.”

The article looks at rock star programmers from the manager’s point of view, describing some of the desirable qualities of the rock star programmer (a not-so-stereotypical geek who is well-rounded, organizes events like BarCamps, writes an influential blog, has a passion for coding and tech but also has some interesting hobbies) to the downsides (Khan Noonien Singh syndrome — where superior skills come hand in hand with superior attitude).

A couple of things in the article that I found funny:

  • The obligatory mention of Zed Shaw’s rant. The name “Zed Shaw” may end up becoming a figure of speech the way the phrase “Pulling a Peyton Manning” jokingly got used on the SNL episode with guest host Peyton Manning (or to cite a not-so-safe-work example, the way some people on the political left now use Rick Santorum’s name).
  • They mistakenly refer to the enigmatic programmer known only as why the lucky stiff as “why the lucky” (which sort of sounds like a Chinese movie title)
  • They refer to a company looking for a very skilled Rails programmer that placed an ad for a “Rails Pirate”. Every time I hear something of the form “[insert noun here] Pirate”, my brain automatically turns it into “Butt Pirate”. That’s just me.

As for my own personal ambitions, while I’d love to be an accordion rock star, I’m with Ron Evans — I’m aiming to be a jazz programmer.

Update

Brian Wynne Williams, CEO of Viget Labs (whose recruiter was interviewed in the article) wrote about his thoughts about the article in his blog.

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T-Shirt of the Day

Here’s a fine t-shirt that you can get made at any shopping mall that has one of those stores where they’ll stick the slogan of your choice in Cooper Black letters onto a t-shirt or sweatshirt with one of those big press irons. You’ll be a big hit at your next geek gathering!

T-shirt: “I know H.T.M.L. (How to Meet Ladies)”
Photo by Kris Krug.
Click the photo to see it on its Flickr page.

[Found via The War on Folly via ffffound.]

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Mac Support Ad Based on Desktop Icon Art

Here’s an ad created by the ad agency 2008Scandinavia for “Teknograd Mac Support” in which the graphic is a Mac OS X desktop with icons arranged to form images:

Teknograd Mac Support ad featuring desktop icons arranged to form images

[Found via adgoodness.]

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Toronto Gatherings for Rails Developers

Ruby on Rails logo

If you’re a Ruby on Rails developer, there are a couple of events you might be interested in…

Tonight: Rails Pub Nite at The Rhino

The fine folks at local development company Unspace have hosted the monthly Rails Pub Nite for nearly two years now, and the event is going strong. It’s a meet-and-greet event where you can hang out with all sorts of people from those who develop in Rails for food to the curious ones wondering what all the fuss is about. It happens tonight at 7 p.m. at The Rhino (1249 Queen Street West, just west of Dufferin).

Ruby/Rails Project Night – Tuesday, February 12th

In a couple of weeks, TSOT — the company for whom I work — will be hosting its second Ruby/Rails Project Night at its offices (151 Bloor Street West, Suite 1130 — that’s just east of Avenue Road), where various Ruby and Rails developers do presentations on their current project or some aspect of Ruby or Rails. The first was a hit, and if you want to see some pictures, they’re here. As usual, I’ll be doing the opening monologue at Project Night, and I promise it’ll be entertaining.

(By the bye, if you missed it and are interested, I’ll show you the slides from the my Project Night monologue, Rant Said Zed, at Rails Pub Nite tonight. Just ask!)

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Is Chandler’s Demise Evidence that Dynamic Languages Can’t Scale?

Manageability.org asks the question “Is Chandler’s Demise Evidence that Dynamic Languages Can’t Scale?”. For a quick reply, I’ll quote a Reddit comment: “Even if it was, such a badly-managed project wouldn’t be a good example.” Software projects have failed long before the current dynamic language hoopla — see Jeff “Coding Horror” Atwood’s article, The Long, Dismal History of Software Project Failure and the articles he cites for a backgrounder. All the projects cited in these articles most likely were developed in solid, respectable, God-fearing, non-communist static languages.