It’s been over a year since I was laid off from Snap. I think it’s the right time to share my journey to finding my new role.

It started off with much excitement and anticipation. I had never been laid off, and I was in a good financial spot with severance to take a deliberate approach to the job search, and be selective with where I chose to go. I set out with a few key criteria that I wanted to pursue in my new career, following the sage advice of Charlie Kindel, https://blog.kindel.com/2012/04/26/the-job-decision-matrix/ 

In pursuit of finding a role that aligned my criteria (top 5 criteria: company size, role, location, work environment, ML focus). I deliberately disqualified roles which weren’t matches, saving time and heartache. Examples: more than a few companies required relocation to different states (or countries), while that sounds appealing to my sense of adventure, one of my criteria was I want my kids to be able to finish school in the current school system. Once these mismatches were discovered, usually during recruiting screens, I would disqualify the role from consideration. Another I disqualified after the tech screen when I discovered strong negative feedback for the company on Glassdoor.

Recruiting is a numbers game, and I like numbers and games, so I kept track of my job application process. Keeping track of the process numbers allowed me to answer questions around funnel metrics. The metrics I tracked were: applied date, response date (yes/no), recruiter screen date, tech screen date, loop date, offer date. Of the 145 jobs that I applied to over a 9.5 month period, I received a response from 69 of those roles (48%), 23 recruiter screens (15%,  33%), 10 tech screens (7%, 15%), 9 full loops (5%, 90%), and yielded 1 offer (<1%, 11%). Key for percentages: (% of total, % of previous stage)

I decided to share these metrics for two reasons: 1) show the state of the tech market last year (still a buyers market), 2) offer perspective on how even an experienced interviewer who has passed interview loops for many high-hiring bar companies struggled to find a role this time.

First, the market is still in favor of the buyer (employer). Since there are fewer opportunities available, it is more competitive to land these opportunities. One of my mentors stated: “unless you have 10 out of the 10 of the qualifications which they are looking for on the job description, you probably aren’t going to get a call”. That resonates with my experience, employers are more picky, because they can be (days of 0% interest lending are over), and there are a lot of qualified employees on the market. Depending on which site for tracking layoffs over the timeframe of 2022-2024, there were between ~600-900k layoffs. That is a lot of people looking for a small number of jobs. Also, that doesn’t account for the numerous people who are currently disgruntled in their current roles who are wanting to leave. My advice: don’t lose hope, I expect it will get better once the massively overinflated Gen AI hype has blown past, and execs realize AI is no panacea for replacing expensive thinking humans.

Second, It’s easy to become discouraged with a protracted search, especially where you can’t seem to find a role that is a fit for your skills. Over the years, I estimated completing 39 full tech interview loops, with 13 offers. That is about a 33% loop to offer rate, which is pretty high (see post around hiring for norms). Not to mention that these offers have been across companies with extremely high interview bars: Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Snap, Apple. I know people who interview and get offers for every loop, but that hasn’t been my experience. Neither am I used to being in the process and receiving 1 offer for every 10 interview loops, although that is more typical and which was the case this time. My advice: find someone who can empathize with you, and find someone else who is willing to give you honest feedback on your search strategy and interview performance. 

These two advisors, empathizer and truth-teller, will serve different roles as you work on landing your next role. The empathizer will be able to care for you as a person and help to encourage you when you don’t have good news, for example: no screen, no callback, no offer, ghosting after loop. The truth-teller will serve to sharpen the skills which you need in order to land the job. This might take the shape of telling you when you’re not qualified for a role, or when you need to adjust how you’re sharing your narrative. The hardest part of the process is the lack of tangible feedback you will receive during the interview process. So, having a person who can share the truth with you, even if it isn’t what you want to hear, is necessary.

Finally, I want to thank my many advisors and truth tellers along the way. I ended up reaching out to well over 90 folks which I have previously worked with to catch up, and share my story. (see LinkedIn post for list of names) I came into those meetings expecting nothing but to share, learn, and be alive together. It was refreshing to connect with so many folks, who were overall very encouraging. 

As a parent, we want our children to succeed. Part of that success is in learning what their strengths are, and developing those strengths. In order to cultivate these strengths, children need to exercise a daily habit of disciplined focus. These habits will help them to surmount obstacles that invariably come up during life. My advice: let kids explore their passions, and then by modeling your habits of developing these skills, they will transfer that to their area of interest (and it won’t be forced).

As a musician, I would practice a couple of hours a day as a kid to improve my abilities, I know first hand the importance of the habit of practice and developing strengths. When my kids were little I found it difficult to know the great importance of practice and see them neglect to practice, because it ultimately did not align with my kids’ interests. I became a musical tyrant in trying to conform my kids to my model of developing strengths: practicing musical skill. Although all of my kids are gifted musically, none of them have developed the same love that I had for the habit of practicing and improving musically. It was hard for me to let go of that, but I had no other choice. You don’t know when your kid will reveal their area of passion. When they do start demonstrate passion for an area, that is when you can help nurture developing disciplined practice habits.

During my son’s junior year, I was trying to figure out what could possibly motivate him to study for the SAT. He is good academically, but doesn’t love school. I asked him point blank: “what would motivate you to study for the SAT?” His answer, “buy me a squat rack*”, was a window into what he was developing a passion for. He was developing a love for exercise and fitness. He ended up studying daily for the SAT, and I bought the squat rack for him, it was a win-win.

A little backstory is needed, during Covid my son was in eighth grade, and he did what most other teen boys at his time: play video games. Even though he had grown up doing sports, the draw of the competitive 1P shooter games was too alluring, so he spent A LOT of time playing video games. Because he prioritized this above all other activities, including being active (not even going for walks), he got out of shape. 

As his school opened back up mid-sophomore year, he decided during the summer break to get back into shape. At first, he focused on improving his cardiovascular health, by using the elliptical machine. He transformed his body and got the svelte shape of a marathon runner. He decided at that point to pivot to develop healthy muscle tone by weightlifting. He was hooked and quickly transformed from a marathon runner physique into what can best be described as a linebacker: muscular.

He was demonstrating his passion when I observed this transformation, which was driven by intense habit forming around improving his (literal) strength, and started observing him coaching others to improve their strength. It was him developing that practice skill/habit that I wanted to instill in him for music, but it expressed itself in the area of his passion: fitness.

On a vacation during spring break, his junior year, he challenged me to start lifting weights. Now while I won’t share any before and after photos, because my body shape hasn’t changed much, my strength and mood have both improved. Recently, using my fitness tracker app, Strong, I hit the 200 workout milestone (over 1.5 years). I have him to thank for modeling his discipline, and encouraging me to exercise the habit of strength training. Thanks son, I’m proud of you. Your grit and determination to improve yourself is admirable, and I love seeing the habit and discipline.

• Squat rack is a piece of workout equipment that allows a person to rack weights on a barbell and do heavy duty squat exercises.