Navigating Layoffs in the Tech Industry

Speaker 1 0:00

This is the Art of Network Engineering podcast . In this podcast we'll explore tools , technologies and technology . We aim to bring you information that will expand your skill sense and toolbox and share the stories of fellow network engineers .

Speaker 2 0:23

Welcome to the Art of Network Engineering . I am Tim Bertino and I am joined by my good buddy from the south , Howdy Packet , Dan Richards . What's happening , Dan ?

Speaker 3 0:32

Howdy , Howdy . Oh , not too much . How about yourself , Tim ?

Speaker 2 0:36

Same old . It's a time of this recording . Dan and I actually got to see each other a few weeks ago . Yep , we got to ride together . This time , instead of AJ and Dan coming to pick me up from the airport , dan and myself went and picked up AJ and we got to sit and talk and talk about a lot of the world's problems , like data center , segmentation , supporting old protocols . We didn't solve any of the world's problems , but we sure talked them to death .

Speaker 3 1:03

Yeah , we complained a lot Then on the ride over to the airport . I am from a small town When you throw me driving into a big city . it just didn't go well . At one point this airport had like what would you call those ? Were they toll booths , i guess ?

Speaker 2 1:22

Yeah , it was like a whole bank of toll booths Yeah .

Speaker 3 1:25

But there was like different options , like a ticket option and , i don't know , a card option or something like that . I started getting closer and I'm like Tim , what do I do ? I don't know what to do here . I was hoping that there would be somebody at the toll booth to at least like okay , this guy's an idiot , he doesn't know what he's doing , we'll have pity on him . Then , as we got closer , there was nobody in the toll booth . Yeah , i was like , oh no , not a soul . I'm kind of setting in . But luckily it was just one of those . You just pull up to it and hit the button . It spits you out a ticket kind of thing . But it was a free entertainment for Tim .

Speaker 2 2:02

It was a quick traumatic experience , but we all made it through .

Speaker 3 2:05

Yeah .

Speaker 2 2:06

Well , dan and I are also joined in this episode by Brittany Muset . Brittany has been on the show with us a couple of times now . The first was to introduce us all to what she does . She's a technical recruiter . At the time you had been recruiting really specifically for network engineers . We all thought that was pretty fascinating , because that's obviously our background . That was a really good conversation . Then we had you back later on with Tim McConaughey and some of us here on the show to talk about salary negotiation . This one is going to be a little bit different than both of those . It's going to be a bit of a scary topic , but Brittany has just lived through it . Brittany , why don't you introduce what we're discussing tonight ?

Speaker 4 2:50

Yes , hello , hello . Thank you for having me again . I always enjoy coming to chat with you guys . Yeah , since the last two times I've been on , i feel like I've gosh aged like 27 recruitment years . Through that I've already had two different companies . That's kind of our topic today navigating layoffs . After my first five years at my first company , I was out of college , I was introduced to the fangs of the world and I got to go join Amazon Web Services . Unfortunately , it was affected by their first mass layoffs in January of this year , 2023 .

Speaker 4 3:29

10,000 people laid off the talent acquisition team being a big , big part of that first round . Yeah , Luckily I was not unemployed for long . I'm at a new company now called Lissalle Networks . It's similar to where I was at before external recruiting again . Hopefully we can start working more networking roles . I've been seeing a lot more on the infrastructure side as well and more clients versus being internal . But I was excited to come talk about how I did navigate that layoff situation , what I did , steps anything I would go through , But yeah , it was an interesting time . So thanks for having me and letting me talk about it .

Speaker 3 4:07

Yeah , now one thing that you said that kind of piqued my interest a little bit off the bat . there is you said that the talent acquisition department was one of the big ones to be laid off first . So how would that work if they had to rehire ? Would they have to contract , or what would that process be ?

Speaker 4 4:26

So I know my team , for example , that I was on the whole team was not eliminated . I know I'm not sure of any talent orgs that were completely eliminated . There was so many recruitment teams there The way mine came down to was tenure .

Speaker 4 4:41

I had only been there right at that 11 to 12 months . I was one of the newest on my team , so there's still recruiters there . I've seen people from former colleagues posting on LinkedIn that they are hiring again and that So from that perspective from Amazon , they didn't completely wipe out everyone , so there's still a possibility to hire .

Speaker 3 5:00

Yeah , Well , so that's a good point , though that it was your tenure . So whether you were a good or a bad egg , it didn't really matter . It was just because you were the newest person in there .

Speaker 4 5:12

Yeah exactly , and you'll even one of my managers actually left me a referral and recommendation . you know that I had the highest , one of the highest productions of my org not even on my team , so it ultimately doesn't even . it didn't come down to that .

Speaker 3 5:26

Yeah , that kind of sucks .

Speaker 4 5:28

It does . Yeah , for lack of better words . that's what .

Speaker 2 5:30

I said So , before we get too deep into what you had to go through during the , the layoff process , let's let's talk about getting into AWS , kind of what drew you toward AWS to begin with , and and what was the onboarding process like ? Was it something completely new to you that you've ever experienced before ? What ? what was it like ?

Speaker 4 5:53

Yeah , so I wasn't looking at all for a new position , right , the person who ended up becoming my manager had recruited me and they they weren't going to be my manager . It was interesting . Two weeks into me I'll I'll go back to onboarding . But two weeks into me , starting at Amazon , my manager had had left , had put in their notice , they were moving on to become a director of talent acquisition and another big company . So the person who actually reached out to me on LinkedIn is like , hey , i think you'd be a good fit for Amazon . He should come interview with my team . I ended up becoming my manager two weeks later after I came . So that was an interesting but I he was one of the best managers I've ever had . I loved him . I love .

Speaker 4 6:36

That was a great , unexpected change . That happened , right , um , but it was . It was onboarding was very smooth , right , it was all . It was all remotely . Everything was virtual . It was very like step by step . I think it was laid out very clearly .

Speaker 4 6:52

Um , i've also being a recruiter . I kind of knew the questions to ask for , like onboarding , what to expect , am I going to get a laptop ? and all the different steps . I think I have that unique advantage too . You're extending you know offers and seeing people go through onboarding Um , so that was awesome . I you hear people talk about how working at you , know you , google , meta , wherever , microsoft , facebook or Amazon like they have their own cultures of their their own and people can love it or hate it , like it can take certain people to thrive in it . I love the self-paced of of my onboarding everything there . Right , it was very like it's your oyster , Here's your resources . Do what you , what you can with what you have . And that's kind of what I found with everything there . Throughout the 12th the year I was there , right , onboarding to the job , to even in towards the end whenever it was like we're in a hiring pause Um , you know what are we supposed to do ? So , yeah , does that answer that ?

Speaker 2 7:45

Yeah , for sure . And then , once you were in the role and comfortable going to to acquire talent , um , what was that like ? Can you kind of walk us through ? um , how did you , did you do a lot of reaching out to potential recruits ? Were you doing active recruiting or were they really mostly coming to you ? What was that like ?

Speaker 4 8:06

Yeah , yeah , and so this is .

Speaker 4 8:09

It's interesting for sure . So one thing you asked , like , how , how did I go about getting the job as well ? Like , once I realized I was , i was getting interview requests . I I did prep for two weeks on this interview , right , like , amazon had their 16 leadership principles and there you get question over them , very scenario based , and I had I didn't know anything about the star format . Are you all familiar with that ? How to answer questions and interviews ? Um , yeah , it's called . It stands for situation or situation task , action , result , and that's how you'll structure your answers . It helped me so much because I ramble . It's like , okay , get to the point , right , and it'll help you . Like the situation . Okay , i um need to do a podcast , right . So I was tasked with joining these guys today to do it . The action was we talked for two hours and the results were we put out a podcast , right , and then , hopefully , like I could quantify that more , put some data and make it make sense for the role

Interview Preparation and Autonomy at Amazon

Speaker 4 9:05

.

Speaker 4 9:05

But that was one thing like if , even before I got the job , amazon literally has so much interview prep out there , it's . They have answers everywhere . They have how to like , what to expect some questions . They may ask Yeah , like it's , it's everywhere , um , so I would . I prepped , i wrote out my examples So that I literally went through the process , right , so , get the job and then I'm recruiting there . I know the interview process like the back of my hand . I know how to prep these candidates because I had just prepped for it , you know , for like two weeks myself . Um , and now I have an internal perspective to what they're going to ask on these candidates specifically . So that's how I would help . I would prep the heck out of my candidates , right , like I would say you know , there's 16 leadership principles You're not going to have , you're not going to be asked , overall 16 of them . They may focus on these . I don't know the exact questions , but prepare on those right , um , and so with that , you can imagine I would see so many applicants for internal roles at Amazon versus , if I you know , at other companies , smaller right , um , for the roles , for the applicants I received , trying to think how to word them , i would receive really good applicants , but not for my , not for that job , not for that role , and I would look at that resume and say , okay , they're not right here , but I'd still like to talk to them because I think I can work with them here And that was one thing I saw a lot of success in at AWS because they're so large , right .

Speaker 4 10:33

So if someone I there I was on the security team , the foundational security team If I would see someone that looked like a fantastic , like infrastructure program manager , right , like I would try to make those dots and be like , okay , maybe they can go to this team . So it would be a mix of for my roles . I found I did have to actively go recruit and source and find those people because they'd be very specific type of roles when you figure out what that team is doing . But I've never seen as many good applicants just at my hands like that .

Speaker 3 11:02

Okay .

Speaker 2 11:02

So , that's that kind of sounds like . It sounds like you had a fair amount of autonomy too , that if you had a candidate , like you said , that wasn't maybe the best fit for the role you were trying to fill , but you knew of other places that they could be a good fit . It sounds like you had the ability to kind of make that judgment call . That's pretty cool .

Speaker 4 11:20

Exactly , yeah , it helps . Um , their systems are huge , right , like I'm I'm very good at using our applicant tracking systems and making sure , like a candidate hasn't already interviewed at Amazon a million times before I start like going down that or they're not already in contact with 10 different recruiters . So , as always , like I'll say this a million times , like it's recruitment is so different for every person , like it's even at the same company , right , you're not going to get the same experience with me at the same company that you do someone else . So it just kind of depends on who you get to work with . And like , luckily , when I what I learned from Amazon too , just seeing all those good applicants and seeing how even they would get passed on just because they didn't tick those boxes for other people's roles right , that helped me in my search too , because I was thinking my resume might not get looked at . Who knows , like how am I going to stand out ?

Speaker 3 12:13

Yeah , you got a lot of data to kind of look through to see what's hitting and what's not hitting , right .

Speaker 4 12:19

Right , yeah , for sure , but I enjoyed my time there . It was great . I learned a lot . For sure I think I would do it all over again , even knowing you know I would have gotten laid off It's . I remember thinking like when I did leave my first company okay , now I can talk to people more about actually putting in a notice , how to handle those nerves , a little bit Like I've been here for five years leaving my first job , finally , and now it's like okay , silver lining , i can actually talk to people more about what to do when you're like oh okay , messed up .

Speaker 4 12:51

Well , i'm out of a job now .

Speaker 3 12:53

Right , but you can . you're more relatable to it now because you had to put your notice in , kind of thing , yeah definitely .

Speaker 2 12:58

So not to bring up any bad wounds or anything , but can you take us through the day that you found out you were no longer going to be at AWS ?

Speaker 4 13:09

Yeah , it was interesting . So the first in January , there was actually a leak that there was going to be internal layoffs before that first round . So we knew everyone , amazon , everyone in Amazon knew two weeks before January 18th that there was going to be layoffs . So that kind of sucked Actually . I don't know . I don't know what's worse . I've asked people this like would you rather just wake up and not know , or like still not know , but doomsday is coming maybe .

Speaker 3 13:39

But did you ? did you kind of know that you would probably be one of the ones ?

Speaker 4 13:42

Yeah , so they even narrowed it down even more closer to that , to where it targeted the groups . Now , my group , my org , was huge . I think it was like , i think I want to say 20,000 people anyways , right , so it maybe couldn't have been me . I knew our team , our group was highly successful , but you know there's I thought so I'm a Debbie Downer for the most part , so yeah , so that night I didn't sleep , whatever .

Navigating Layoffs and Finding Support

Speaker 4 14:08

And then the day comes and it's like nine o'clock and I'm just sitting here and I'm like , come on , like let me know already .

Speaker 1 14:15

Yeah .

Speaker 4 14:16

Nine , 10 o'clock , and my boyfriend he was home that day and I was like I can't , like I need to go do something , and so we go to Goodwill and I would just , i'm in there shopping , right , and I think we were in there for five minutes and then my manager calls me and I'm like crap . One of those no news is good news situations .

Speaker 1 14:37

Yeah .

Speaker 4 14:38

So I was like I answered the phone and he was like hey . And I was like hey , i had to step away from my computer . He's like I get it And he's like well , and I was like did I get an email ?

Speaker 3 14:47

Yeah , Oh no , yep .

Speaker 4 14:49

And he said he only found out two minutes before I did . They didn't even know . Yeah , the managers had gotten a couple of emails like just who would be affected . Yeah , and I was in Goodwill . I ended up going to the bathroom because I had started crying a little bit , like it does catch you up guard , right ?

Speaker 2 15:05

Yeah , I'm sure .

Speaker 4 15:05

Yeah , and I'm one of those , like I want things to be on my terms . I wasn't ready .

Speaker 2 15:10

Right .

Speaker 4 15:10

Yeah , right , so it's that it was a mess there , like that first day . Actually it was Wednesday . I only know this because it's at Dave and Buster's . Here's a plug They have half price games on Wednesday , so me and my boyfriend I was like I just want to go throw some balls or something .

Speaker 4 15:28

So we went to Dave and Buster's as well , and I think we had some Mexican food , but it was , it was a blur of a day . I was sad . I was definitely sad , but I don't let myself wallow too long . I gave myself like two or three days , right , Like I don't think until that next Monday , because it was a Wednesday . Yeah , i took those those days until the weekend And then I was like , okay , like man up or woman up , it's life happens that you're not in , i'm not unique , right ? Like ? I started seeing people you know , 18 years , 20 years , at Google , wherever , and like am I okay ? You're going to be okay , you know . So , yeah , i wallowed . I was sad , of course , like it , it sucks , like for lack of better words again , but yeah , that was the day Goodwill , dave and Buster's Mexican food .

Speaker 3 16:16

Good old , goodwill , yeah , yeah .

Speaker 2 16:18

Sometimes you just got to go thrifting Yeah .

Speaker 4 16:20

Yeah , yeah , if we didn't even get anything .

Speaker 2 16:24

You said that there were rumors a couple of weeks before and there was a thought that your team might have been affected . Did you happen to start thinking or doing any prep of what your next steps were ? Were you just kind of hoping for the best ?

Speaker 4 16:39

Yeah , i was completely hoping for the best . Okay And looking back like that , that maybe it ended up being okay because I had a ton of support , like for updating your resume and things like that . I wish I would have gotten a little bit more of a heads up on that , because or like a heads up on that because it does it makes it a little bit harder to update it when you're sad and you're not there , right , it's like you know how to , like I want to put what I've done before it . It hurts , you know . But yeah , and that's kind of one advice too I'd give , like you'll see people say all the time like use your , like reach out to me , let me update your resume , or I'll give you pointers or whatever . Like I take advantage of that . People actually will . I ended up sending my resume around like so many different times to different people at Amazon , right , like they would just look at it , give me pointers and I edit . You know , plug and play , whatever .

Speaker 4 17:31

And that helped me , like it takes off so much pressure if , when , people will help you and they will , i find .

Speaker 3 17:38

Yeah , That's interesting . So the ? so you're saying the people at the , some of your co-workers at Amazon , were willing to kind of help you with your resume ? Yeah , Like after you you were laid off right .

Speaker 4 17:49

Yeah , One thing too , I tried . I was lucky enough to at least have the heads up right , So I did save a lot of my stuff and like try to just any documents or things I thought I would need , And luckily you still have access to your computer for a while , right .

Speaker 3 18:04

Okay .

Speaker 4 18:05

But yeah , there was some things I didn't get either , like more data , specific things , like as a recruiter , you know that's really important as far as like how many resumes do I submit or how many placements , And and so those were some things I didn't have in my manager and colleagues .

Speaker 4 18:22

They were able to help me quite a bit with that as well . Those are a few like regrets I have . I didn't really I think I was hoping for the best and it's like you kind of expect the worst , just always expect the worst , in a way .

Speaker 2 18:33

Yeah , i think that's a Boy Scout lesson You got to maintain access , you said , to your computer and and resources . Did they give you any immediate next steps ? Did you have a direct line to HR to figure out what was next If you would be compensated in any way ? Yeah , Like that just seems like a whirlwind . I can't fathom . Yeah , Going through that and what's going through your head and what , what do you do next ? And hopefully they had some resources set up to help you . So what was that like ?

Speaker 4 19:05

Yeah , they did And , and I think that's obviously a benefit of working at somewhere like an Amazon or an AWS right Is is those resources , but it was a little delayed too , and I think that's something I would , i would definitely recommend . Like , if you are laid off , take a minute to fully understand the situation , because one like I was coming from my first ever job of five years where it was fully commission based . You know , well , i had base in commission but that's it . And then I moved to having like a stock option , a sign on bonus , rsu , a 401k , you know so many different parts of it And I all of a sudden was like holy cow , where's all my money at now ? Like , you know HSA .

Speaker 4 19:49

I'm just thinking of all these things . And and so the first I didn't think I got my severance letter with the details on it , eight or nine days after I found out . So , yeah , like , and as someone like I'm younger in my career and I'm like I want to know where's my money at , what's going to happen , and all of this like .

Speaker 4 20:10

So that was scary for sure . That definitely caused me to , like , start looking immediately . Right , i didn't understand how good the severance package was . It was good as far as , like , you were paid . You got to keep your your normal pay for 60 days , right ? So I was laid off January 18 . I would get paid as normal until March 21 . So unless I accepted a new position before March 21 , then everything would be fine And then your severance would come down to then your tenure . So on March 21 , that that was whenever I would get my severance . Does that make sense ?

Speaker 3 20:49

Oh , okay .

Speaker 4 20:50

Oh okay .

Speaker 4 20:51

Yeah . So it took me a minute to understand this . And then when I did , i was able to breathe for a minute because I was like okay , so you're telling me I haven't till March 21 . Like that first week I was just like , or whenever I started looking aggressively , i was just interviewed like trying to just I thought I would be not being paid like super soon . So it like try to understand your situation right . Like it kind of depends in and I knew , coming from that company , coming from a company like that , i was more than likely going to take a pay cut right . So it made sense for me even interviewing , telling companies I'll start March 22 , which is exactly what ended up happening with my timeline .

Speaker 1 21:32

I got paid as normal .

Speaker 4 21:33

I'm still getting my , my severance and all of that , and I started , yeah , march 22 . And that's perfect scenario . Yes , I mean an ideal world . I wasn't laid off , but that that was how I wanted to do it . It took me a minute to really understand that . That severance , though And with Amazon , they do had . They had an internal even like career services to , where they helped edit your resume , so I did use that .

Speaker 4 21:58

I still recommend using like personal colleagues or , you know , teammates and things , but any service right , anything helps , but yet we had access to like our internal HR and benefits and everything . So I felt I felt like they looked out for us . For that I felt informed It . Just getting the severance details like eight days , nine days later , it was a little worrisome , gotcha .

Speaker 3 22:23

Now another thing too . You're talking about benefits and whatnot . How did like insurance work ? Was it like a normal job change type situation , or how did that flow ?

Speaker 4 22:32

Yeah , So for me it was because I was able to start a new position right after my date of employment ended . So I did get Cobra information sent to me . I did not have to enroll in that , But the benefits they would have . Ended the month of March , the end of the month you're employed .

Speaker 2 22:50

So okay , so you did get to keep your health insurance benefits until the March date The severance like kicked in .

Speaker 4 22:58

Yeah , and for all intents and purposes , and this is , it's so confusing . I know people will be like I don't know when my last day of employment is right , but like my W2 will say March 22nd or 21st , yeah , because I was paid until then . You know normal hours Basically . Yeah , it's . I don't know all the rules behind it in laws . It's . This would be a whole , nother specialized person . But there's a reason why big companies do it like that . Give you those two months .

Speaker 4 23:28

I'm not sure exactly why , but there's laws and reasons why . So if that makes , I have no idea .

Speaker 3 23:35

Yeah , no , it's that . it all sounds very scary to me So .

Speaker 4 23:38

Yeah , but it is what it is . They give you the . They say you can look for an internal transfer as well From for other skill sets . it's very possible for recruitment . It wasn't so much because we weren't hiring at the moment Like , well , you know , i could have maybe looked at being they were very Amazon's good on like internal transfers or progression or whatever . So I could have looked at maybe going a program manager route or something like that . But I wanted to keep recruiting .

Speaker 4 24:05

So I've looked out but yeah , they definitely take care of you as far as resources and internal benefit .

Speaker 3 24:12

I got you Now just going back on the severance thing again So you said you were paid to like normal till . Would you say March , march 21st , something like that 21st . But then then you said then you got a severance package , right , yeah , so like not not number amount , but like how many months of a severance , like pay , would that have been on your , your normal pay scale ?

Speaker 4 24:36

I think a less than one .

Speaker 3 24:38

Less than one , okay .

Speaker 4 24:39

Yeah , i wasn't there very long . That was all the severance was off Okay . Yeah , like paid out PTO , and yeah , pto and then 10 years . So I wasn't there very long .

Speaker 3 24:50

I got you .

Speaker 4 24:51

Yeah .

Speaker 3 24:51

Now how ? how long were you actually there ? for You might have said that earlier , but I missed it 11 months Yeah right at 11 months Gotcha .

Speaker 4 24:58

Right at that year ish .

Speaker 2 25:00

Well , i'm glad you highlighted , like some of the different benefits and and other things that you had to think about , because I I wouldn't have thought about some of those things day one . But I think after kind of the shock wore off , you start thinking about okay , i had a retirement , i had an HSA , i had whatever else that are all like different accounts , right ? So how , how difficult was a process of a process was that to get those transferred or to figure out how to access that , and how long did it take ?

Speaker 4 25:29

We will let you know .

Speaker 3 25:35

TBD .

Speaker 4 25:35

But I've . It's not been that long . It's May 18th and I wasn't eligible for transfer until like a couple of weeks ago with my new company . So it's just , yeah , i don't , but it doesn't seem like it's that hard . Everything's been pretty simple . I'm able to use my HSA , that money is mine , right ? I'm able to use my card for that , like my prescriptions . So , yeah , i'll keep you posted on that . But it everything is still like I haven't been locked out of anything or or anything of that regards . And so there I was going through Fidelity too , and I found Amazon . They have , like their own groups at these , these different service providers they'll use , right , and so there's been good context through that , like how to transfer your money and how to have a hold of it . So I think it should be okay .

Speaker 3 26:23

Fingers crossed Yeah .

Speaker 4 26:24

So I can answer more on that .

Speaker 2 26:27

So let's shift a little bit to the process of finding the next role . How did that that work for you ? Did you reach out to any recruiters ? Were you just because you have the experience of being the recruiter for as long as you have ? did you just go after different job boards on your own ?

Speaker 4 26:46

Yeah , so it . this was interesting to me , the whole , the whole search

Job Search Strategies and Success Stories

Speaker 4 26:52

. I found LinkedIn was actually my favorite for finding job postings .

Speaker 4 26:57

I could not stand indeed I could not stand it looking at jobs there for some reason , and so I at first I would try to use a couple of other job boards right , like I would just look around and search and and find . And then I got tired of it . So I went to LinkedIn And then I find out that I didn't know this . Okay , but I've never used the LinkedIn job postings right As a recruiter , so you know how you can easily apply for jobs .

Speaker 4 27:25

Yeah , i've never used that as when I'm hiring So I didn't know that recruiters actually they have to go in . That's a whole separate thing of applicants to look at , versus like their internal system . For the most part There may be a few systems that integrate to where you can look at them all in one list . But one of my colleagues who's a recruiter at another big company , he mentioned like no , like you have to go look at them separately . He said sometimes he forgets , or people will forget , that they have it there . There can be like 200 applicants there .

Speaker 4 27:55

So if you also easily apply on LinkedIn , i found also go apply on the company website directly too , and like that's it's not a double application on their system , it like that's not a bad thing , you can do that , it helps your chances . And so I found I wasn't getting any responses when I was just doing the easily apply , obviously right . But one thing I found was funny was I remember when I used to ask people like well , where are you interviewing at or whatever they're like I don't know , i can't remember . There's so many . I'm like , yeah , right , like how do you ? how do you not remember , like where you've applied ? Oh my gosh , okay , like it is so possible .

Speaker 4 28:36

I realized very quickly I needed to stay organized . Like that's the biggest thing . I made an Excel spreadsheet and I still have it because it could come in handy for someone someday , who knows . But and and I was looking at it before here and I ended up getting to 105 applications total . But I quickly was like I don't know where I've sent my resume at anymore . Like , definitely stay organized , you know that's that helps . And then how I what I found my biggest success was was not through recruiters at all . I don't , i didn't have . I had nine interviews , 105 applications , nine interviews . No recruiter initiated any of those nine interviews , right , and yeah , none through talent .

Speaker 3 29:21

So now hold on a second . You kind of you're kind of talking bad on your people here .

Speaker 4 29:27

Trust me , i know I it's , it's . it's tough out there , and recruiters they'll say it too , that like right , that we're not the best out there , we don't have the best reputation . That's why I say it comes down to the individual . the who's going to give a damn right , who's going to look at your resume for more than one second for the key words .

Speaker 4 29:45

And so this is what I found my success is . I knew I . I knew I want to be a technical recruiter . I know the people and the roles I want to fill , and so I found I would message like a network security engineering manager . But hey , I saw a recruiting role at your company . I feel I love to fill teams like yours . Can you help me expedite my application ? That helped me so much more than than internal stuff or than internal talent .

Speaker 4 30:14

One thing I wanted to mention too , because it's one of my biggest pet peeves as a recruit , when I receive messages and they just say I need a job .

Speaker 3 30:26

Can you ?

Speaker 4 30:26

help me .

Speaker 3 30:27

Like no details , no nothing .

Speaker 4 30:30

No Or oh , at Amazon . Hey , brittany , can you get me a job at Amazon Hey ? Brittany I'm interested in Amazon , aren't we all Okay ?

Speaker 4 30:37

Yeah , so this is when staying organized also helped . One of my favorite things as a recruiter is when someone will message me and say hi , brittany , i don't know if you can help . I applied for this job . sends link or job ID number on this day or whatever . Send as much information as you can , can you help Whatever ? Again , it comes down to the person If they'll actually look into it and give a damn . But I also had multiple placements at Amazon off of just looking at the person's what they applied for me . Like yeah , you are a good fit for that , let me help you . Like let's move it along . So when I would do that , i would just send the exact job application . Like you're helping them do the work too right . Like because you're asking them to go put in a word for you internally and do something . Like do some of the legwork for them .

Speaker 4 31:25

Give them all the information right Like right . Anything , anything , and so I would even keep track of that in my , like my Excel sheet , right . Like I would sure I would contact more than one person at a company , like if I was targeting big companies or whatever , and I would even try to mention that like , oh hey , i've reached out to so and so or whatnot . Does that make sense ?

Speaker 3 32:47

Yeah , yeah . I think that's pretty smart . What you did there of like going , like you said , with the security manager and saying , hey , i see your company's hiring for this a recruiter in this position , that kind of thing , i think that's that's a really great way to attack that .

Speaker 4 33:02

For sure And at the time like I'm recruiters , recruiting to it's very competitive right Like there's a lot of talent acquisition , recruitment being left laid off . So that was one thing . like I've , i've been good . You guys , everyone has helped me build my network and brand over the years , so of course I use my LinkedIn . like I went kind of viral . I was not expecting that Like yeah .

Speaker 4 33:25

I know it was an insane . Yeah , and I was . I was just trying something different . The first day when I got laid off , i made a post . You know , your typical oh .

Speaker 4 33:34

I was laid off today And I got some good traction . But then so my birthday's February 9th , so that was only a couple weeks after the layoffs And I had barely gotten any responses then . Right , and so I posted . I was like I'm going to try something different . Tomorrow's my birthday , and I just put like three stats . I was like I've placed as many people , and then I put I'd also like recommendations or referrals for my birthday , whatever . And it got I think it's at like 4,000 likes or something I mean that's not viral , viral , but it's viral for me , you know , yeah , but yeah , it still gets likes today , three months later .

Speaker 4 34:09

Everybody loves a good gimmick Yeah , yeah , yeah . And I had people hate on me too . But it was funny Like .

Speaker 3 34:18

I mean that's .

Speaker 4 34:19

That's what makes a good post . I guess They're like how dare you ? That's kind of cocky And I was like the facts are facts , man Help me find a job Like I got to get a job Yeah .

Speaker 4 34:29

And yeah , so that helped And I actually had people reach out and be like Hey , i saw your post like and they would send me leads And you know I I realized how much I've loved recruitment to like even throughout the layoff situation and and how , like so many people that I've placed or even just gotten interviews throughout my like the six , six , seven years now like they were sending me leads , and my old contractors that I used to work with they're like sending me job , you know applications and internal referrals . So that was that was really like heartwarming . In a way , it kind of made me like look at recruitment again , like okay , like you know , we all can help , like it's not it's not that bad out here 105 applications .

Speaker 2 35:12

What was the ? what was the span of time between leaving AWS and landing the new job ?

Speaker 4 35:17

Yeah , so I accepted my new role March seven . So , yeah , i had three weeks of breathing time there , from the seven to the 21st . So there was a lot of I was hunkered down there like applying every day .

Speaker 2 35:33

Well , that was going to be my next question , So would your advice be for somebody who's trying to find the new role after being laid off ? Did you ? did you feel like you treated it like a job ? Did you structure your day ? How did that whole process work ?

Speaker 4 35:49

Yes , absolutely Like I . It would have drove me crazy not to feel like I had any type of purpose . Right Like I did play a little bit more golf because it was prime golfing weather in Texas at the time .

Speaker 4 36:03

But no , i made a point like I needed I wanted to have at least one one recruitment type phone call a day , like talk to someone about , like recruitment . I don't care if it's an interview , if it's just a professional type networking , just do something . That was really my goal , like , at least do that one today . I even spoke with someone one of AJ's cousins , i believe , or something just to help . He was like I don't know if you want to chat with them about something , and I was like , yes , like just help me feel useful , please . But yeah , i would structure it like a day . I would . I would have a goal of how many applications I'd want to do in a day .

Speaker 4 36:41

Or even like if it wasn't applications , it'd be like , okay , I want to do this . Many reach outs to this company that I've already applied for this role . So yeah , I would , absolutely . I would have shorter work days , you know , but I would structure it like a work day . I would try to for the most part .

Speaker 3 37:00

You're leaving at two o'clock to go play some golf , right , yeah ?

Speaker 4 37:03

Oh yeah , oh yeah , you know that 10 to two day .

Speaker 3 37:06

Yeah .

Speaker 2 37:07

And you said , you said , you said you kept a spreadsheet too . So when you applied for something , did you have , like , reminders set up ? Did you have a specific amount of time in between when you applied for something to when you would try to follow up ?

Speaker 4 37:22

I didn't really stick . No , not really . My goal was to follow up with at least one person for everything . So no , i didn't have like a timeline . That probably would have been a good thing , because I feel maybe I missed out on a couple , like I know how quick things were filled too , but I don't feel like I missed out at all .

Speaker 3 37:43

But Tim over here is like , did you create a Kanban board ? and like you , know , your different buckets for .

Speaker 2 37:49

I'm just , I'm sweating here just thinking about this .

Speaker 3 37:52

I don't even have to . You have such good questions , man . I didn't even think about that . That's such a good question .

Speaker 2 37:59

Well , i think you have to like treat it like a job if you're really you know serious about it and wanting to take that next step . So you don't have to answer this if you don't want to . But did you ever get to the point of going to file for unemployment , going through the government to work through to see what different programs are available ? Did it get that far ?

Speaker 4 38:24

It got to where I was Googling it and on the websites right .

Speaker 3 38:29

Okay , doing some research on it .

Speaker 4 38:31

Yeah , yeah , i will say with the company I'm at Lissau . they moved very quickly too , and it's something I actually enjoyed . I'm a big process person , right Like . I like to do things the right way and like in line , and one thing that drove me crazy throughout my interview experience and looking , was no one seemed to have processes anymore , right Like . It's like what are we doing ? Is it an interview ? you know , first stage , second stage Are we just having informal conversations ? Are you hiring or not ? I'm looking for a job .

Speaker 1 39:04

Yeah .

Speaker 4 39:06

And especially coming from somewhere like Amazon where everything is so structured and , like you know , very , very process . I wasn't finding that and I just really liked that about Lissau Like they were following up with , like interview prep and giving debriefs and , you know , like it was very structured . And then I also love my boss as well . He's great , but they moved within one week from it . That was interesting too .

Speaker 4 40:01

Lissau is pretty large . They have a big internal recruitment team too , so I understand how my I think I actually applied for a job that they were recruiting for a client , not even for an internal role . So I give them the pass here and why maybe my resume got me , but that's how I got this job is I had messaged my boss , who's the director of network of our network services unit , and I was like , hey , i applied for a job two weeks ago at Lissau , could you help me expedite my application ? Interviewed me the next day and I had an offer within a week . So , yeah , maybe on your point , tim , had I made that board and messaged him two weeks before , i could have been golfing a lot quicker .

Speaker 3 40:41

Wow , tim , i need you to make a template and a sauna board template for job hunting , yeah .

Speaker 4 40:48

Yeah , But I mean those , that's kind of the main things I would say . Like stay organized , for sure that helps . Being like being honest throughout my job search , too , with people I was interviewing with , that helped a lot . Even the other day I was talking to someone . They had just been laid off and they're talking about money and they're like what's the best way to go about it ? And I was like to be honest , right Like when you're talking to people , like I told people what I've made , this is what I've made , but this is literally what I need to pay to keep my lights on , to pay my bills to live and that they won't be shocked , than if you don't accept an offer or something at the end of it .

Speaker 4 41:29

It's like just honesty goes so far . It's when you start getting in those things where you tell people like one thing and then you do another thing . It happens everywhere .

Speaker 3 41:39

So let me ask this too . This might be changing gears here , but like in your interview processes , did you like ? was the question asked like , hey , why were you laid off ? or anything like that , like it ? or is it kind of known , if you

Interview Questions and Job Offer Dilemmas

Speaker 3 41:55

had the layoff from AWS , that it wasn't necessarily performance based , it was more tenure based , or like how does that normally go in an interview ?

Speaker 4 42:03

So I wasn't asked at all that once . And from my perspective , when I talked to candidates that are laid off , it kind of don't really , it doesn't really matter . to be honest , like 10,000 people , can it really come down to anything one person did If 10,000 people ?

Speaker 4 42:19

laid off at once like you know what are you going to do , as long as you it's the same basics references . You know , like what did you do there ? Can you explain what you've done ? and that I don't . I even before I was laid off , i mean we've never . It's crazy to me now that , like even being young , i can say I've seen like the industry change , right .

Speaker 4 42:38

But we haven't really seen this many massive layoffs like this . But I would never even ask people like why were ? like you know , i would ask why were there layoffs ? and try to get to the bottom of it and you can suss things out and get references and find out , but these days , with especially the big companies doing massive layoffs like I'm not finding , people are asking I wasn't .

Speaker 3 42:58

So , like one question I've asked in interviews is like is there a certain , is there a particular reason why you're leaving where you're at ? Is there something that they're not offering that you're looking for ? And you kind of fill out that question right Like leave it open ended , in a sense . And so I wasn't sure if , like you know , if you were asked that question or something like that , and your answer would be because I , you know , we went through a massive layoff , or you know , Yeah , yeah , that was pretty much my answer , straightforward , and I did use LinkedIn as my main avenue , so I had done this .

Speaker 4 43:30

Two posts about being laid off .

Speaker 3 43:32

Yeah .

Speaker 4 43:32

I was there too , But yeah , it was just everywhere at the time .

Speaker 3 43:38

Like you know , you couldn't really go on LinkedIn without saying AWS , layoff , AWS layoff Right , so it probably wasn't that big of a shock to a recruitment team or anything like that anyways .

Speaker 4 43:47

Yeah , yeah .

Speaker 2 43:49

Yeah , i see where you're coming from , dan in . Like how do you , how do you advertise that without advertising it ? Like if you were at a company for a handful of months and all of a sudden you're looking for another job . You were laid off but you know the hiring company may not know that They may question why , hey , why were you only there a handful of months ? Now ? like you said , brittany , in the situation you were coming out of , it was probably a pretty good assumption as to why that happened . But if it was a smaller company , that was maybe less well known .

Speaker 3 44:23

I can see that being somewhat awkward Yeah .

Speaker 4 44:26

Yeah , yeah . So what you did in your time there and how well you can interview and explain , that is key . It helps , right .

Speaker 2 44:34

So completely hypothetical question . You have somebody , it's hypothetical , I'm not .

Speaker 3 44:39

I'm not .

Speaker 4 44:39

I'm just kidding .

Speaker 2 44:42

So let's say you have , you're talking with somebody that was laid off . They've got , you know , three interviews with three different companies that they feel like they're getting a ways with . They get an offer from one . They don't . They feel that it would be enough to get them by , but they aren't feeling really passionate about the company . They think there may be an offer coming at some point . They want to kind of feel it out from one of the other companies they applied to . What would be your advice ? Do they ? do they try to pump the brakes install ? Is it okay to take the offer And if one of the other ones comes up , that is a better offer after you've already started at the other company ? do you feel bad if you shift to the other one ? What would be your advice ?

Speaker 4 45:28

A couple parts there .

Speaker 3 45:29

Yeah , Basically he's asking do you be a jerk or not ?

Speaker 2 45:32

Yes , Yes that is exactly it , Thank you .

Speaker 4 45:36

Dan Dan understands me . Is it a contract role ?

Speaker 2 45:40

Direct hire See Yeah good point , yeah , good point . I'm thinking just , we'll just make it easy . Just a direct hire role . No , no contract , no , you have to be here X amount of time , whatever , just a direct hire role .

Speaker 4 45:53

Yeah , It's not great , I wouldn't advise it . And that's just one of those like don't say you're going to do something you're not going to do right .

Speaker 3 46:04

Yeah .

Speaker 4 46:05

You accepted a full-time role Most of the time , you should know , like what you've signed up for , right ? And yet I know bait and switches in roles can happen , right , yeah , like you sign up and this is not what I sign up for , sure , go ahead and leave that . If this is not it right ? Like that's not doing operations and I'm not an operations person , whatever , right , the money motivator being the key thing . Like , yes , that is a big thing for some people , but there's always got to be something else . That's like a true motivator , right ?

Speaker 3 46:36

Like . So in that scenario that Tim gave , though , would you , would you ? Would you suggest , like like he said , pumping the brakes ? maybe just try to stall for a little bit ? Or should you bite on it , even though you might not be as passionate about that company Like , are there tactics there that can be done tastefully ?

Speaker 2 46:53

My biggest fear would be okay , i'm down to the end of the rope , i really need a role soon . I say okay , i'm not getting any feedback from these other two companies that I think would be decent roles . This one's giving me an offer I accept . Two days later , the other one comes back and says hey , we'd like to offer you this role and it's you're more passionate about the role , it's better paying . Like what do you do ?

Speaker 4 47:20

Yeah , yeah And okay , sorry , i understand fully now . I think that's definitely like when it comes down to the very beginning , you be honest with what you're looking for , right ? So if you told them why you I in that scenario if at the very beginning you told company A that this is what you're looking for , but you accept an offer and they know that maybe at the lower end or whatever , or something like that And then two days later they're not going to be surprised that you accepted an offer that was way above the range they gave because you told them this is what you're making .

Speaker 4 47:55

What the thing is and it's happened to me in the past too like a candidate will tell me yeah , i'll fit in hours , good , but then they'll just decline it or something right , if an offer comes and they're like no , i'm not taking that , i'm like what do you mean Like ?

Speaker 4 48:08

you know , and had I known , like I've gotten better at this part I'm , you know , at this part was recruiting . but you know , had I known that you wouldn't actually accept that I would have pushed for more or I wouldn't have submitted you or whatever It's , i'll never be mad at someone for doing what they said they were going to do or what they'd want .

Speaker 4 48:29

I got you , yeah , so we got to say you're okay If you're , if you don't have anything in your hand , but you were honest from the get go , i don't see that you would have any bad references , even if you accepted it as long as you would know like . does that , does that make sense ? No , it does . Like being slimy Yeah being upfront is possible .

Speaker 2 48:48

Yeah , that makes sense . So we've got an interesting question in the chat . with your experience as a recruiter , do recruiters really actually look at applicants blog posts or YouTube videos or other content creation ? Do they , do they have time for that ?

Speaker 4 49:03

Yeah , i do . I definitely do One of my things . I have it on my calendar every week social media sourcing . To where I'll just go like discord .

Speaker 3 49:10

Twitter .

Speaker 4 49:11

Reddit Yeah , just to try to spend more time there , right ? So , yeah , definitely , When I was at . What is it ? Is it GitHub ? Yeah , GitHub , right . Is that where you they do more like software type projects ? Yes , Yeah , cool . So I would go on there and look at there when I was at AWS too . But I've read a lot of blog posts . I look at people's websites a lot too . Yeah , I think I think recruiters definitely do .

Speaker 2 49:37

No , that's cool . So let's , let's shift a little bit now into your current role . We know the role before Amazon . You were I don't know if it was exclusively , but you were at least really heavily like . You were recruiting network engineers . What , what kind of role is this now ? Are you across the board , across the IT stack ? Are you focusing on specific types of roles ?

Speaker 4 49:56

Yeah , so it'll be . It'll be across IT , but predominantly infrastructure , network infrastructure , cybersecurity . I'm I always love PMO , so project management , product anything , and that . I do enjoy that too , but always on the technical side right . One thing with LaSalle is we're they're huge in Chicago , so a lot of things I'm finding which is good , i'm enjoying they're . They're more for entry level too , but they are hybrid , so that's kind of a struggle at the minute . So anyone in Chicago let me know , hit

Hybrid Work and Job Searching Tips

Speaker 4 50:29

me up . We've got a lot of roles there , but we also have an office in Dallas , so that's good . I'm hoping Texas builds out quite a bit with that , because Dallas is a huge tech market as well , definitely . But but yeah , we , we see a lot of remote roles hybrid to Chicago , so hopefully we can grow that . I've seen a lot of a lot of data lately . A lot of like Power BI type roles has been interesting .

Speaker 3 50:54

Okay .

Speaker 4 50:54

Yeah , but network security I'll still be working with with any networking . Hopefully we can find some more roles can wide for everyone .

Speaker 2 51:02

Here you go So from your , from your role before Amazon to where you're at with LaSalle now . are you seeing a dramatic decrease in 100% remote jobs ? Has it stayed about the same ? What's the percentage look like ?

Speaker 4 51:21

I think people are getting strict again with , like , returning to office . It was , yeah , so around COVID time , when everything went fully remote , i think up until this year . Right is whenever people have started returning back to office past couple months . I know even Amazon did , for example , they did a return to office . But I have found things are back to hybrid but also still very flexible . But I'm just not seeing the commitment to 100% remote anymore .

Speaker 3 51:49

Yeah , that's kind of how our , our company did was hybrid , kind of like a work from home three days , come in the office two days , kind of pick your days that you want to come in , not very , not like a super set schedule or anything like that .

Speaker 2 52:02

That's what I was going to ask . So the , the , the roles that you're seeing that are advertised as hybrid , is it pretty set in stone of you will be here these days , or do you see that it's more negotiable between the hiring manager and the in the recruit ?

Speaker 4 52:17

Yeah , Definitely negotiable right . Okay , and even Chicago , for example . People live everywhere and it can be , yeah , if someone lives , you know , two hours train right away , versus someone that lives in the city , they may look at things differently , or or have more flexi hours to beat traffic or whatnot . Yeah , i find that is . it always takes both parties to be flexible to make something happen right .

Speaker 2 52:40

Give and take from both . So , looking back at the experience you had earlier this year , is there anything that you would have done differently or that you would tell yourself today , back then , that you would handle any differently than you did ? Yeah , way back then .

Speaker 3 52:56

Yeah , way back then .

Speaker 2 52:58

Does it feel okay ? that's another question . Does it feel like it was a long time ago , or is it still pretty , all pretty fresh ?

Speaker 4 53:04

I don't . It feels like it was a long time ago already , like it's I was just I don't know so many processes . It's insane . I'm Blink and I just learned there my . I just remembered my password for login there . Now I have a new email address , like , yeah , it's it's been a lot of change but I like I , i have enjoyed it , though I do feel like it's one .

Speaker 4 53:25

It's made me so much more confident , comfortable , like embrace change and like nothing will kill you . Honestly , well , some things will , but some , but anything in like recruitment or like work , work , it's not going to kill you , right ? And also , you know , i've been in situations where I haven't had a work life balance . I've been in situations where I've absolutely loved my job . Now , where I've absolutely not loved my manager to , i've absolutely loved my manager And it's just kind of helped me . I've learned more about myself . So if anything I would have , i would even go back and be pickier about jobs I I did apply for Don't just , don't just apply for everything , right ? And then maybe at the beginning I think I was a little like the first week I did like applied , you know , and just hurry up and like frantic mode . Take a minute . Understand the situation right , like don't don't think it's doomsday , even though it can seem like it is right .

Speaker 3 54:18

Yeah , i think , like what you were getting at , though it's similar to dating right , like after you've after you've dated several people and whatnot , you're more . You know what you want , what you don't want , right , what you like , what you don't like . You know traits that get on your nerves and traits that you enjoy being around . You know that kind of thing . That makes sense , that all makes sense .

Speaker 4 54:38

It's kind of helped me learn to like being more patient and work like . At first I thought this is just so annoying . About this one company or this one person is like gosh . Okay , every corporate or environment kind of has the same tendencies , don't they ?

Speaker 3 54:51

Yeah , it's like . which red flags do you ?

Speaker 4 54:57

know Yeah exactly But but yeah , i'm happy with where I did land , like I felt really good throughout the interview process with how they handled everything and just the resources they have to . They are great to get my little plug in there . So we also we do contract and direct hire too , so happy to help .

Speaker 3 55:18

We'll have to put something in the show notes about that . Oh yeah , for sure .

Speaker 2 55:22

So let's start . Let's start kind of recapping some key takeaways From the beginning . At the at the current role I'm hearing you know , make sure that you understand what your any severance package , any , any benefits that you're leaving behind or getting to bring with you . Make sure you understand that . As far as finding a new role , try to be as organized as you can , potentially set schedules for yourself or set goals . At least I want to make it a certain amount of connections a day . I want to apply for a certain amount of jobs a day , follow up on certain amount of things per day . And then also , you know , step back and make sure you understand your situation , make sure you understand what you're applying for , and that kind of thing Did I . What did I miss ?

Speaker 4 56:07

No perfect recap That helps . There was one thing too , I realized it just , which did help me stay organized I made a separate job email , job searching email , And I'm still like I find you'll never be able to turn off the alerts , by the way , once you're in once it's out there , it's there So it's like a burner phone .

Speaker 3 56:28

You have a burner email account for job . That is super smart . Yeah , exactly .

Speaker 4 56:31

So I set up like you got some good notes here , yeah , yeah , i set it up on like last door , like all of them , really , you know just even set up save job searches too That's something I , you know , i've learned from being a recruiter like I'll set up save searches for candidates for as soon as you guys go it's open to work . I get I get alerts , you know , and so I would do the same thing for me with jobs , like give me an alert And so that that second job email it helped me stay organized .

Speaker 3 56:59

Hmm , that's . That's very interesting . I would . I would have never thought of that . To be honest with you , i never would have thought of that . I like it though .

Speaker 2 57:07

Cool , Yeah for sure . So if , if people want to learn more about what you do , Brittany , or potentially reach out to you directly , how , how can people find you ? How can people learn more about yourself in LaSalle ?

Speaker 4 57:19

Yeah , so I'm on LinkedIn , brittany Massett on LinkedIn , and I also am on Twitter at TechRec , britt , and on my email bemassettatlasallenetworkcom .

Speaker 2 57:30

Awesome . Thank you , Any any last minute advice for anybody that may be going through this now or in the future .

Speaker 4 57:37

It does suck We've said that a couple of times but you know , reach out to people , use your resources that are given and just yeah , do what you can try to find people at the companies that you're targeting and and have a targeted approach . What helped me ?

Speaker 2 57:52

Awesome , dan , you got any last minute thoughts .

Speaker 3 57:55

No , i think I actually . I do Definitely , if you're looking in the market , create a job hunting a son con bond board . We'll have an art of network engineering template that . Tim will create for 599 .

Speaker 4 58:15

Yeah , yeah , there we go . We're onto something here .

Speaker 3 58:20

It's been great though , yeah , it's good seeing you , brittany , it's it's been a minute since I've seen you . I I took a kind of an absence on the on the show here . Leave , if you will , had a little girl and whatnot , but I'm starting to come . Thank you , but it's . It's good seeing you again .

Speaker 4 58:36

Yeah , y'all too , and thank you for having me again . Always happy . I'm trying to do more again on Twitter and stuff , so hopefully I'll be active and maybe we can chat about another topic . Yeah definitely .

Speaker 2 58:45

Yeah , thanks for bringing that up , dan . We , we did not lay Dan off .

Speaker 3 58:49

He took a short leave of absence . Wait , I think it's Severance package , Yeah Well . AJ's always thrown zeros around , man You know , yeah , just with no other right side of the decimal point .

Speaker 2 59:01

So , brittany , thank you very much . So this is again . This is the third time you've been on . There's been a lot of good pieces of advice , each time in different facets . Like you said , we'll have to do this again . We'll have to find another topic for you to to come on and educate us .

Speaker 2 59:15

I know I learned a lot of things . I think this is going to be really beneficial for a lot of our listeners , maybe that haven't had to go through this in the past and and something may hit in the future , because we all know life happens and and it does suck . And I like your , your mentality about it , that you you always seemed to be grounded throughout the process and saying that , hey , i know other people have been through this , i'm going to get through this too . This is going to be okay And clearly it's going well . So great advice . Thank you all for listening . You can find us on Twitter and other social media platforms , at Art of Net Eng , on our website , art of Network Engineeringcom . Also check out wwwcablestocloudscom and on the socials at Cables to Clouds . This has been another episode of the Art of Network Engineering . Thanks for listening . Goodbye now .

Speaker 1 1:00:10

Hey everyone , this is AJ . If you like what you heard today , then make sure you subscribe to our podcast and your favorite podcatcher . Smash that bell icon to get notified of all of our future episodes . Also follow us on Twitter and Instagram . We are at Art of Net Eng , that's Art of N-E-T-E-N-G . You can also find us on the web at Art of Network Engineeringcom , where we post all of our show notes . You can read blog articles from the co-hosts and guests and also a lot more news and info from the networking world . Thanks for listening .