Nerd Journey: Career Advice for the Technology Professional
John White | Nick Korte
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Controlled and Proactive: Managing Your Career During Uncertain Times
How should we be managing our careers during times of uncertainty? News of layoffs and economic uncertainty induces paralyzing fear and anxiety in many of us. What can we really control in the midst of it all, if anything? This week in episode 329, we’ll talk through a 5-pillar framework with actionable steps you can take now to be more proactive in your career even when it’s a difficult job market. Whether you’re employed and feeling uncertain or recently unemployed, we’ll share prescriptive advice and helpful AI prompts for forward progress so you can work through the challenges and not get frozen in worry. Be sure to check out our free Career Uncertainty Action Guide to access the AI prompts discussed in today’s show. Original Recording Date: 05-15-2025 Topics – Facing Uncertainty with an Actionable Plan, Pillar 1: Building Financial Resilience, Pillar 2: Maximizing Current Job Performance and Visibility, Pillar 3: Execute Strategic Skill Development, Pillar 4: Effective Networking and Relationship Building, Pillar 5: Managing Your Mindset and Control Your Narrative, AI Prompts and the Call to Action 1:30 – Facing Uncertainty with an Actionable Plan Though not feeling 100% when this was recorded, John and Nick wanted to get this episode on an important topic out in order to help our listeners. Maybe you’re coming into this episode with a lot of anxiety. We continue to see news about tech industry layoffs and economic uncertainty. It feels pretty heavy. We spoke about fear, uncertainty, and how to take control in Episode 70 – Taking Control During Uncertain Times. Maybe you feel secure but are hearing whispers about layoffs at your company and are beginning to worry. Maybe you’ve been impacted by a layoff. We see you. We hear you. Maybe you’re trying to recession-proof your skills, feel stuck at your current employer, or have become highly specialized and don’t know what to do. Wherever you happen to be, those feelings are real. The biggest challenge we each have is the risk to job security and financial stability. Though it may seem wrong, forces outside of our control do affect our careers. Today our intent is not to sit and dwell on problems like a difficult job market. We’re focusing on a practical plan to help you regain a sense of control with actionable steps you can take to proactively navigate this period. Our purpose is to provide career advice we wish we’d had earlier in our careers. We want to help listeners accelerate career progression, increase job satisfaction, and be more effective in your existing role. When things feel unstable and when we see layoffs at our company or in our industry, it’s ok to take more of a defensive approach. It’s rational to feel anxious when finances and job security are threatened by layoffs or economic uncertainty. It’s ok to feel that way. We’re here to help channel that energy into proactive career management. We’ve broken this down into 5 pillars / 5 areas where you can take action starting right now. Building financial resilience Maximizing your current job performance and visibility Executing strategic skill development Engaging in effective networking and relationship building Managing your mindset and controlling your narrative 5:01 – Pillar 1: Building Financial Resilience A buffer against the risk of layoffs and income instability is having a savings account with 3-6 months’ living expenses. Do you know the real numbers for your household expenses? If you don’t, take time this week to determine what they are. What is that bare bones minimum set of expenses? How long could the savings you have right now actually last based on your expenses? In Episode 299 – Chronic Stress: Connecting the Dots between Layoffs and Burnout with Cait Donovan Cait Donovan mentioned You Need a Budget or YNAB as one option to help track your expenses. There are certainly other tools to help with this. Maybe you could decide right now which subscriptions you would cancel or what you would stop spending on if your source of income was suddenly cut (i.e. job loss). We covered some of these items in Episode 57 – Preparing for Unexpected Opportunities Part 5 – Personal Finance. Having a liquid savings account that you can easily access and eliminating high interest debt will bring greater peace of mind if something happens to your job. John is thankful for the jobs and roles he’s had over time enabled him to build an emergency fund. He shares how much peace of mind it brought after being laid off from Google in 2023. Catch the full story on that in Episode 220 – John Got Fired. “It let me basically wake up, read the termination e-mail, and go back to sleep. I didn’t even wake up my wife to let her know. This is not great news, but we are in a financial position to survive. And it’s not a problem.” – John White, on the peace of mind that comes from having an emergency fund Nick mentions he’s had success with building up savings by making it automatic. Maybe you could make an automatic draft from each paycheck to consistently save more starting right now. John mentions he has a separate savings account for his emergency fund that money goes into every time he gets paid. It’s a great psychological barrier to spending any of it. Having an emergency fund in an account that is separate from everything else is step 1. Once you have started this and are contributing to it, then you can begin shopping for a high yield savings account which could earn you something on an annual basis. It’s important to know and understand the benefits you’re getting from your employer. Do you know, for example, what the company policy is on severance packages in the event that they have layoffs? Is that in an employee handbook somewhere? Consider the cost of things like COBRA in your state (continued health insurance after job loss for a period of time). Expect an increase from what you were paying through your employer. In the case of a mass layoff, there may be a 60-day WARN period in your state. Do some research on this. John mentions if it’s a small layoff, the company may not be required to do this. Make sure you understand the vesting schedule for any applicable retirement accounts tied to your employer or RSUs (restricted stock units) that are part of your compensation package. We’ve created a guide that we will reference again a little bit later in the discussion. In the guide is an AI prompt focused on finances that you can use with ChatGPT, Claude, or your favorite generative AI tool. This prompt will interview you to help work through assessing the current state of your finances (which is often a high stakes emotional process). It considers things like understanding savings, retirement funds, current cost of living, and what you could cut out in an emergency. The prompt also has some examples of how the conversation might go. We hope you find it helpful! The link to our uncertainty guide and a link to the above prompt can be found here: nerd-journey.com/uncertaintyguide. 10:50 – Pillar 2: Maximizing Current Job Performance and Visibility Our best defense against being let go or laid off is demonstrating that we are providing value to the organization. Visibility builds internal leverage and credibility in both uncertain times and in more prosperous times. Ideally, we want our personal brand and reputation to stand on its own and make people hesitate to cut us because of our importance to the organization. Action points for this pillar… We talked about some of this in Episode 70 – Taking Control During Uncertain Times, and it’s worth your time to go back and listen. Track your accomplishments, and focus on the quantifiable results you have delivered or the impact you’ve made. Quantify whenever possible! Think about reduced process time, value delivered to a project, etc. Leverage feedback from others to quantify your impact. Think about how you can be valuable and adaptable. What is the unique combination of skills you use to bring value to the organization? Proactively make your impact known by: Giving your manager updates Sharing wins in team meetings when appropriate (not in a boastful way) and offering to help others Documenting your contributions Documenting our accomplishments / contributions is the required input to be able to tell the story of what you are doing. Remember that writing is thinking as we discussed with guest Josh Duffney back in Episode 156 – Better Notes, Better You with Josh Duffney (1/2) and helps us formulate the way to say things. We should be sharing our accomplishments with our manager in 1-1 discussions. That would not be the entire conversation, but if you can share something that worked really well, share it. Keep a copy of your accomplishments saved somewhere in your personal files so you have access should you be separated from your company. Documented accomplishments should translate to bullet points on your private resume or LinkedIn describing the quantified results. John suggests we consider practicing the 30-60 second value statement out loud so we can easily explain it if someone asks. It’s important to understand whether you are or are not delivering value to the organization. One way to get feedback on this is sharing with your boss. If your boss says something wasn’t valuable, at least you will know. An episode that pairs nicely with this advice is Episode 284 – Draft Your Narrative: Writing and Building a Technical Portfolio with Jason Belk (2/2). It’s important to acknowledge that we can follow all the advice given in this episode very well, be valuable to an organization, and still be impacted by a layoff. The advice we’re sharing is critically important because if you are terminated, the work you have done turns into something that builds your resume with quantifiable value statements that you can demonstrate
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