The past few months have seen huge numbers of layoffs, particularly in the tech industry, who have laid off over 150,000 workers already this year.
Now, recently laid off workers looking to rejoin the industry are facing a new hurdle, as they may now face the stigma of being “damaged goods” among hiring managers and recruitment consultants.
Reasons For Layoffs
Publicly, one of the most commonly cited reasons for companies making layoffs is as a cost-cutting measure to improve profitability.
However, Chief Career Advisor at Resume Builder, Stacie Haller, in a recent article, said that this is “cover for firing employees.”
Most Layoffs for Performance Reasons
The statement was backed up by a Resume Builder survey, which asked business leaders their reasons for layoffs.
Over half of the respondents said that over 75% of their layoffs were not necessary to balance the costs and revenue of the business.
Stigma
A recruiter and career coach, Brian Creely, believes that a damaging stigma has built up around the cast off employees.
Creely thinks that many layoffs have nothing to do with performance but, despite this, believes “there’s an unspoken bias.”
Damaged Goods
Creely was unable to change the mind of a director at a California automotive tech company in a particular conversation regarding recruitment.
The director was steadfast in their unwillingness to hire laid off workers, which they saw as “damaged goods.”
Table Scraps
While some saw layoffs as an opportunity to hire hungry workers, Slack messages in a group Creely is in suggest others are less interested.
In reference to whether Meta layoffs are an opportunity, the chief HR Officer of the company messaged that they did not want to hire “somebody else’s table scraps”.
Meta Elite Hires
The career coach argues that those hired my Meta in particular represent the elite in tech workers, and laid off Meta workers should be given more of a chance.
He believes getting a job at Meta is exceedingly difficult “so to say that they hired a bunch of jokers … that’s something I have a big issue with.”
Rejects
Clutch Talent’s founder, Jovena Natal, who finds workers for tech companies in San Francisco, offered up some potential reasons companies might not want to hire tech layoffs.
One of the reasons she suggested was that they are put off by workers who have received too many rejections.
Less Effort
Natal says job hunters may not be making full effort in their job hunt, which is reflected in their interviews and their approach to applications.
They may be “resume spamming,” she says, on LinkedIn. She estimates that “95%” of applicants “aren’t even close to qualified.”
Interview the Company
On the other hand, Creely offers some condolence to disheartened workers, suggesting that this is a way to filter out bad employers, rather than the other way around.
He says that companies that do not see the potential in laid off workers are “not companies or leaders that I would want to work for anyway.”
