Job search & network activation advice for LinkedIn

I posted the following— https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bobgalen_hello-network-ive-been-in-the-agile-community-activity-7109145066731966464-ybjO

in late September 2023. As of October 14th, it’s received 87 comments, 147 reposts, and +48k impressions.

I’ve also received hundreds and hundreds of direct messages. Most of them have an attached resume requesting me to speak with them and directly assist them in their job search.

I was and continue to be overwhelmed by the responses. I’m also confounded when others think that an offer for help equates to my doing their job search for them.

Even if I intend to help, and I do, I simply don’t have the time for hundreds of conversations or directly handling a thousand resumes.

So, I thought I’d write this post with some advice & examples of what I think might be more useful strategies for using LinkedIn in your job search and better activating me and your networks.

Carol King is one of my favorite artists from the 1970s and 80s and You’ve Got a Friend is one of my favorite songs of hers. So, it sounded like a good theme for this post.

This article is inspired by all of the layoffs I see in the technology community—particularly the agilists who are finding many companies not valuing their contributions. There are also quite a few thought leaders in the community using this as an opportunity to (1) foretell the end of agile ways of working or (2) to explain how their new-fangled agile approach (Agile 2, SAFe, Elon, Flow, whatever) will deliver us from all the chaos.

I know quite a few of you are caught up in these challenging times, so I thought I’d share the following story and some related advice.

My story

It was the year 2000. I’d moved to North Carolina 4 years earlier and just joined Lucent (Bell Labs) as a Director of Software, leading a large team. I felt like I’d just won the lottery to find the job of my dreams. Then the telecommunications bubble burst in 2001.

Layoffs were rampant across the industry, tens of thousands of jobs were lost, and our entire optical networking facility of ~300 folks here in Raleigh, NC was let go. To say that I was devastated is an understatement. To add insult, I was selected to be on the leadership “closing crew” who helped everyone pack, leave, and turn the lights off in the building.