I thrived in the dotcom crash while I watched many of my friends go to companies with generic names like "Global Digital Media" with silly business plans like putting Internet kiosks in U.S. airports. It was incredible - their entire business plan was to ramp up over the next 5 years with a massive capital outlay just in time for smart phones to make them completely obsolete. This is an actual example:
I thrived by staying put. I got retention bonuses while my friends got tons of equity in companies that became 0. When they lowered their salaries to conserve money, they gave them more equity to compensate. Again, all the equity became 0.
Everything you said about networking is spot on. I would add to it - don't waste time. Don't think, "I'm going to ride on my severance and unemployment for six months and start on x date." Start literally today. If it's the holidays and nobody is hiring, get a certification. Learn a new technology. Work on networking. Exercise. Do 8 hours of productive something every day.
I have a friend who has been unemployed the last 2.5 years. He now wishes he didn't take a year off without improving himself / looking for a job.
In the dotcom crash, when I was laid off I think the first email I sent the next day was to someone who we were a client of at a previous employer. And we had stayed in touch because I had moved onto a competitor of his (until I was laid off). Just a "Hey. I was laid off. Love to pick your brain." sort of thing. Took me out to lunch with his COO the next week. Discussed some contracting but they ended up making me an offer in about of month.
Things got rocky for the company later. And it was touch and go for a bit. Not the greatest period for me financially but I was never really unemployed and it was a pretty great job in a lot of ways which set me up for my current one. Had I decided to take the autumn off, I could easily see myself being unemployed for 2 or 3 years. Other people I knew never really recovered from the dotcom bubble bursting.
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/22/technology/the-web-withou...
I thrived by staying put. I got retention bonuses while my friends got tons of equity in companies that became 0. When they lowered their salaries to conserve money, they gave them more equity to compensate. Again, all the equity became 0.
Everything you said about networking is spot on. I would add to it - don't waste time. Don't think, "I'm going to ride on my severance and unemployment for six months and start on x date." Start literally today. If it's the holidays and nobody is hiring, get a certification. Learn a new technology. Work on networking. Exercise. Do 8 hours of productive something every day.
I have a friend who has been unemployed the last 2.5 years. He now wishes he didn't take a year off without improving himself / looking for a job.