Right now is a great time to be employed in the IT space. But it doesn’t mean that your current employment has any guarantees, especially if you work for a small start-up, or if your employer has been taken private. There are a few steps that are worthwhile no matter how secure you feel:

• Keep a running list of the recruiters that have reached out to you. This gives you a list to reach out to when the unexpected happens. And those contacts are more warm. You can use a template where you mention what role they had reached out to you in the past about. Think of something like:
  

  Hi Steve, back in December you reached out to me about a position as a Sales Engineer for a new APM firm. I’m sure you’ve since filled that role, but I thought it would be worthwhile to let you know that I’ve recently entered the job market . . .

  If a recruiter had attempted to reach out to you in the past then in their mind you are worth reviewing again. I used OneNote and did a page per recruiter sorted by first name. This helped me keep track of who was calling or who I had talked to. Ten days in I had conversations going on with 18 recruiters and was juggling 4 different opportunities. Being organized really helped here.

• Keep an “atta boy” (or “atta girl”) file. This is where you store your small wins. Deals you helped close, spots where you helped save money or created additional income for your employer, etc.. These are good to have for two reasons. One is to review prior to your interviews. You’ll often be asked about things you did that made a difference and it’s even better if you can pull up an example that is relevant to the position you are interviewing for or that are hot-buttons for the interviewer. The second reason is that it helps to review these to keep your moral up while you search. Attitude and confidence are important, but the reality is we are all human and being cut can cause even the best of people to have some self-doubt.  Do NOT keep this on your work system.  Print them and keep them at home.
• Keep your LinkedIn profile current. It’s hard to track down things like how much revenue you helped create when you no longer have access to the company systems. You’ll find your access is often cut off during the call with HR, or within minutes of your last meeting.  It has been going on for decades, your access gets cut right before the call that ends your job.  I still remember being a system administrator and waiting in the server room until 10AM to pull the plug on an ASDL box that allowed access to our network for a remote worker.
• Create (and maintain!) a CV. This is different than a resume. Some recruiters (especially out of Europe) prefer this format. It also is a great place to store extra details that you might not put in your LinkedIn profile.

I had the running list of recruiters going before I recently entered the job market again, and felt it really helped. I also wished I’d been doing the other items prior. It would have accelerated my search and perhaps gotten me a few other offers to consider.

And I can’t stress how important these steps are if your employer has been acquired by a private equity firm. You will hear the same lines about how they value the team and plan to keep a majority of the employees. (Remember 51% is a majority.) The changes they’ll want to implement to streamline processes and increase revenue take time. And if your company isn’t bringing in the numbers the PE firm will act fast. Any losses are basically extra profits that have to be earned later on – an even higher level of efficiency that has to be attained.

The quickest fix they can make is to cut employees. Dynatrace saw an initial 10% cut, the Riverbed layoff was close to 15%. These were followed by more “pruning” and the later packages continued to be only 2 weeks. I have friends that worked at Keynote and LANDESK – they also saw multiple rounds of cuts. And I know as Keynote and Dynatrace merged the went through through even more cuts. Not just where there are overlaps (and this includes Sales and Sales Engineers), but also because merging applications like this delays new features and slows growth in revenue.  Sometimes it is merely a “let X people from this department go” and other times it will be strongly influenced by politics.

Any other items you suggest to help stay prepared? Let me know!

Editors note:  This is a reprint from an older blog.  It was originally posted in June of 2015 and will be updated to be more current.