How to Navigate Job Hunting During a Period of Layoffs and Extreme Unemployment

I kept my job during the 2008 meltdown, and I suffered from a bad case of salary compression [1]. Although we didn't lose our jobs, our salary froze during the first 4 years. Our bonuses got cancelled, so effectively our income went down. On the fifth year we started getting meagre raises, and when I finally left after 7 years, my salary went up dramatically. I estimate that when I left I was getting paid easily half of market rate.

Moral of the story, I could have left after a couple of years in a recovering economy rather than keep the same grossly underpaid job for so long.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=salary+compression&oq=salary...

I don't see any value in this article posted here.

1. It's general content

2. It's not related to technology (or other STEM knowledge/innovations)

3. Many tech companies are hiring

4. covid is not effecting many software engineers as much as other occupations since we can work from home.

Perhaps the hardest of the suggested things to do, but the most productive.

When will you get a chance to elevator pitch someone while on lockdown?

What do you do if you don’t like data privacy practices or dark patterns of platforms like LinkedIn or social networks?

In reality this article is written only for white collar workers in industries likely not as strongly impacted by the recession who are looking at job options at other white collar positions also not heavily impacted. And in that case the advice basically boils down to “do what you would normally do.”

In that sense it’s kind of a frustrating article masquerading as though it’s helpful to people hitting hard times.