With the current economy heading toward a recession (if not already in one) there is widespread concern among developers about being let go from their current positions and needing four to six months to find a replacement position. Every day brings another batch of posts asking how to protect from being fired or the all to familiar: are these *insert random thing* that I’m seeing at work pointing toward me being laid off?
So why would the advice you need be found in this article? Well, for starters, I’ve never been fired nor let go from a position. Knock on wood. So either I’m very lucky, or I’m good at keeping my job. Or perhaps I just have some latent talent that makes it very difficult to fire me. I like to believe that I have a special skill when it comes to timing. Simply put, I have good timing. I seem to naturally know when to get in and when to get out (unfortunately this only applies to work and not the stock market).
So here are my top tips for not getting laid off:
1. Notice when the writing is on the wall
It’s generally not a surprise that you’re on the chopping block, provided you’re paying attention. Anything out of the ordinary is a strong sign. Have portions of your work been assigned to someone else? Are you suddenly getting bad reviews? Stray comments? Do you find people suddenly seem aloof or distant?
The warning signs are always there if you’re paying attention, and generally, if you have a sense that you’re going to be laid off soon, you probably are.
Trust your instincts. They’re smarter than you are when it comes to reading people and situations.
So how does this information help you not get laid off? Well, the second you detect something is off, update your resume and start looking. You want to search and interview while you still have a job as you’re a hotter commodity at that time.
You’re like a brand new car being purchased. So long as you’re on the lot you have extrinsically boosted value. As soon as you’re off the lot, your value drops. Immediately and without warning.
2. Notice when the ship is sinking
Simply put, don’t stay on a sinking ship. Find the nearest life boat and get on it.
If you’re just noticing that the ship is sinking, it’s probably already halfway under.
From your position on the ocean liner you didn’t have the visibility to know that the ship has been sinking for quite some time.
Once again, trust your instincts here. The worst-case scenario is you’re wrong and you find another job that probably pays more. Here are some signs to look out for:
- Layoffs of any kind that are unexpected, unexplained, or explained poorly
- Loss of customers
- Other employees are abandoning ship
- Typical raises and bonuses are cut
- The company flat out tells you
- Budget cuts
- Employees leave and are not replaced with new employees
- “We need to do more with less”
- If you’re a publicly traded company and your quarterly reports are down. Possibly multiple consecutive quarters in a row
3. Avoid failure at all costs
Achieving failure avoidance is a bit of an art. In general, it starts with picking successful ventures. Don’t take on a project that has more than a 50% chance of failure. Stay on winning, successful projects if you can. I cannot advise you in this area because I ALWAYS am placed on failing projects because my job is to turn them around and I excel in this. If you can’t do the same then you need to stay away from this at all costs. I’ve seen people fired or passed over for promotion, not because of their personal performance, but because they were connected to a project that was unsuccessful.
If you ARE placed in such a project, it’s important that you are the shining star of that failing project. You will need to work extra hours and put in more effort than you’re going to want to stay afloat. You need to excel in your job and expand into other areas. You want it to be clear that you’re not the reason that this project is failing.
Unfortunately, there’s little you can do here. If you have bad leadership, you should yet again look for work elsewhere. If you have good leadership that recognizes a project that failed despite your best efforts, it still won’t look good but you’ll survive.
4. Become an expert
Become a critical piece of the machine. This is easier than it sounds. Find something important that no one has deep, expert knowledge in and become the expert in that area. There are many areas like this. If all areas are covered then just pick the weakest one where perhaps only a single other person has that knowledge.
Your goal here is to make cutting you a hard decision. You never want to be in a position where you are easily replaceable. You want to be the person that knows too much (but in a good way). Whose experience would be hard to replace. I’ve many times in my career been in a position where I knew for a fact that I was un-firable. Other developers think this is hard to achieve but all you need do is submerse yourself in one or two critical areas. It takes a couple months at best.
5. Get good with people
“The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.” — John D. Rockefeller
If you can develop a skill that allows you to work well with other people and get the most out of them, you will have an advantage over almost everyone else when it’s layoff time. Over the course of my career I’ve discovered that I have an innate ability to get people to want to do a good job for me. They work hard. Extra hours. Because they’re working for me. Because they want to.
How do I achieve this?
I genuinely care about people.
Apparently this is a rare trait in business. My primary driving factor is I want people to succeed and do well for themselves. I want our product to be amazing. The talk of the town. I want the team that I’m on to be the team everyone wants to be on and is jealous of. I want the company that I’m working for to be successful and a place we can be proud to work at.
Oh, you work there? That’s impressive.
The hard part is actually caring about these things. If you’re a person who the powers-that-be know genuinely cares about the company, they’ll be hard pressed to get rid of you. A company is generally maintained by a core group of individuals that stick with that company over a long period of time and form its backbone. If you’re part of the backbone of the company, removing you sends a very negative signal to the rest of the company.
They don’t want to do that.
You wouldn’t either.
These are some of the things that come to mind on how I’ve stayed gainfully employed for almost twenty years. Well, this combined with an unhealthy dose of paranoia that I’m about to get fired at any moment, though I don’t recommend anyone acquire that trait! Good luck out there and best wishes on your employment adventures!
