That’s neat. High probability of employee taking your offer and not just shopping around because they are layed off and good for the employee who needs to make ends meet quick. I like that they try to exclude companies that had mass layoffs within the last 3 years as well.
Though if I were the employee, I’d take that severance and try to stretch it for a couple of months and depending on the engineering field, do a bunch of interview questions and apply at FAANG or other high paying ones. I feel like a large portion of layed off employees aren’t the ones who jump companies and get promoted regularly. Those ones can smell the end is near and jump ship probabaly beforehand. If finances are stable, getting laid off might be a great opportunity if one can maintain focus and is willing to put in the time.
I was laid off from my first job. It can be really soul crushing at first but luckily in technology its not that hard to find openings in a short time span.
Apart from the constant fear of not getting another job, it was actually a very very pleasant experience. I ended up doing a lot of reading by the pool at my gym, working out a lot and traveling. All the while reading up on algorithms, learning new technologies.
Of course I was pretty stable financially and that really helped. The severance made the first month seem like a paid vacation. The next 2 months were pretty wonderful as well, except that it hurt to see my savings get eroded.
I don't think you're accurate about the kind of employees that get laid off though. If I was a little more experienced, I would have seen it coming and started interviewing long before I was laid off. There were a couple of other folks who got laid off with me and they're not doing all that well now.
Those ones can smell the end is near and jump ship probabaly beforehand
If you sense it coming and you work for a company that treats people decently (dunno if eBay does or not) then why wouldn’t you hang around for the payoff? A good company will give a months pay per year of service.
If you took a job as a developer because you love creating useful things that people like; and you know after the layoff the product is going in the trash; that's going to cut into your job satisfaction a lot.
Plus there's the risk you'll be among those who aren't laid off, but your working conditions will worsen.
Founder here. Technically speaking we are the modern version of what "outplacement" service should be, rather than another recruiting platform.
I'm in Product Management by day (when I'm not in between jobs because I got downsized!), and I help to build out Layoff-Aid on my nights and weekends. More on my story here:
https://www.layoff-aid.com/team
Our first market is SF Bay Area tech talent -- anyone who has work experience in tech and is seeking employment in the SF Bay Area. Our candidates are roughly one-third business, / product & design / technical; basically the same distribution you'd find at a typical tech company that slashes headcount in a downsize event.
We do want to expand to anyone who gets laid off, in any industry, in any location, but we need to figure out how to sustainably generate revenue from our SF tech industry niche before we expand. Until then, I've somehow avoided burning a hole in my pocket as we figure things out, but we still have a lot of work to do to monetize effectively.
Our mission matters more than making money, but we need to make money to execute on our mission.
