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Comment by kelnos | Hacker News Reader

> I had no stigma whatsoever attached to the fact that I had been laid off.

This point in the article was weird to me, that you should creatively avoid saying that you were laid off. Sure, some layoffs are just an excuse to get rid of people who the company believe are low performers, so if you were laid off from a prominent company where recruiters know why the layoff happened, this could be a problem for you when looking for a new job.

But if you were caught in the string of layoffs happening this year (or at the beginning of the pandemic), I can't see how there'd be stigma attached to that. And I'd worry that being evasive about why you're no longer at your previous company could be a red flag to recruiters; just doesn't seem worth it.

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It is none's business about why you left (or are leaving) your previous job, unless perhaps it is due to some legal issue that would show up on a (criminal) background check. Interviewing for a new job is all about the future, and it's totally up to you to reveal only the facts about your past that paint you in a favorable light.

Whether or not saying you got laid off would hurt your chances is a separate question. My guess is most of the time it wont. But as a flip, would saying you got laid off improve your chances of getting the job? If the answer is no, then its not worth saying - focus instead on the things that for sure portray you positively.

The same goes for jobs with short tenures - if you stayed at some place for a few months and left just leave it off your resume. It doesn't do anything to sell you, so why waste time on it?

Just remember, an interview is a short period of time to sell the best parts of yourself that are most applicable to the job. It is not a 100% confession of all the good and bad things that happened to you.

Yes, when lots of companies are cutting back to their most essential employees, it helps provide a little cover.

But, y'know, regardless of the environment, what does it say about your abilities that your employer didn't consider you essential?

This is a very pessimistic way to view things that I don't fully believe, and of course any reasonable person knows that being part of a layoff is very rarely just the employee's fault. But to perhaps state the obvious, being laid off is never gonna look good, or even neutral. There will always be stigma.

Being able to reframe your layoff in as positive of a light as you can is important.

To add, usually companies layoff low performers first.

At my previous job, the company laid off 1000 people, but only 3% of engineering…

> But, y'know, regardless of the environment, what does it say about your abilities that your employer didn't consider you essential?

In the case of a startup, there's often not much you can do to be seen as valued if you're not a founding engineer.

I've been a part of 3 layoffs. 15%, 90%, and 75% reductions, all at small or medium-sized startups. At a startup, they're going to keep founding and early engineers first. There's a selection bias, but those engineers aren't probably "dead weight" if they were there since the early days. Plus, there's a cliqueness to startups that will favor them.

Yeah, and all of this is relevant, and the kind of stuff you would wanna talk about with a new potential employer. Maybe you did really amazing work with a killer team, but that team got cut as the founders tried to reduce scope.

But... it's still set against the default backdrop of "they kept some people, but not me", so it's important to be able to tell your story well.

    But, y'know, regardless of the environment, what does it say about your
    abilities that your employer didn't consider you essential?

I think it depends on the company. If you're laid off from from a small or medium sized startup, with more or less one product, then I can understand how being laid off can be seen as a reflection of your skills (or lack thereof) as an engineer. But if you were laid off from a larger company, all it means is that some director saw a team (or teams) which were working on more speculative projects, which could be axed as a way of saving money during a recession. It doesn't mean that you're an unskilled engineer. It just means you were unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when the ax fell.

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