Layoffs, Recession, Inflation, Oh My!

Happy Saturday Everyone! 👋

Welcome back to the UpEmployment newsletter.

We’ll help you get more dream job offers faster and with less stress each week.

Every day I talk to tech operators from all around the world.

Ambitious people like you, looking for their next career-accelerating life-changing role.

It’s common for me to hear similar questions from the people I speak with.

In fact, I expect it.

But this week, I heard the same question again and again and again.

Typically this wouldn’t phase me.

But this week, I heard it asked more than five times using the same language, so I think it’s important enough to share.

So what was the question?

It didn’t have to do with how to create a clear picture of your dream role.

It didn’t have to do with building confidence on the job hunt.

It didn’t have to do with the nuts and bolts of building meaningful networking connections, creating value, or nailing your interviews.

No, the question was about…

Layoffs, Recession, Inflation, Oh My!

The question went something like this,

My answer may be slightly surprising.

The state of the economy doesn’t matter.

It shouldn’t change anything.

“What?! Why the hell not?”

“The world is going to hell in a handbasket, and here you are telling us we shouldn’t change any part of our strategy?”

That’s right.

If you let me, I’ll explain.

The Best Athletes In The World

What are the habits and strategies of the best athletes in the world?

Here’s a handful of them:

• They set a goal of where they want their career or season to go.

• They carefully craft their nutrition intake.

• They get high-quality sleep to allow for proper recovery.

• They exercise to get stronger, faster, and more precise.

• They constantly practice their craft.

• They visualize success and work to conquer negative emotions.

• They work with performance coaches.

• They analyze the competition.

• They study the cutting-edge tools, systems, or techniques that could give them even the slightest edge over the competition.

Does each athlete prepare differently based on their opponent's perceived competitiveness level?

Do they prepare harder if they think their opponent will be more competitive and less hard if they believe their opponent stinks?

Do you think Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Serena Williams, or Tom Brady prepared to play someone in first place differently than they prepared to play the person or team in last place?

If you answered yes, you’re mistaken.

They know better than anyone that if you ease up on your preparation and move away from the proven performance fundamentals, the worst team in the league can come into your house and put a beat down on you.

The best athletes in the world prepare the same regardless of the level of competition across from them.

They always prepare like champions.

They consistently follow the playbook that set them up for success regardless of the conditions.

If anything, they go harder on that tried and true playbook.

But what’s more important is why they don’t change their approach.

It’s A Matter of Control

So why doesn’t their strategy change based on the competitive landscape?

You'll hear a common theme if you listen to interviews with top competitors.

The only thing you can control is yourself.

You can’t control external factors.

You can’t control the weather, the economy, who’s hiring, and who’s not.

If you can’t control them, why focus on them?

You can control how you approach your job hunt each day.

You can control the strategy that you employ to land your dream job.

Regardless of the economic climate, there is an ironclad way to land a dream role.

If we’re in a recession, there’s high unemployment, and fewer people are hiring, the best strategy is:

1. Creating dream role clarity

2. Crafting confidence in your story and digital reputation

3. Connecting with the people that you can help and can help you

4. Crafting value at every step of the way

5. Competing when it’s your time to shine in an interview

If we’re in an expansive economy, there’s low unemployment, and lots of people are hiring, the best strategy is:

1. Creating dream role clarity

2. Crafting confidence in your story and digital reputation

3. Connecting with the people that you can help and can help you

4. Crafting value at every step of the way

5. Competing when it’s your time to shine in an interview

The strategy doesn’t change.

The strategy is the strategy because it’s the tried and true proven best practice.

Could I tell you where I think the economy is right now and where I think it’s going?

Sure.

But it won’t matter because it doesn’t change anything.

The system is still the system, and the best practices still work.

But isn’t the landscape becoming more competitive?

Yes it is.

Remote work, hybrid work, the ease of application, and layoffs from tech companies have made things more competitive.

But that’s not an excuse to throw up your hands and accept that your job hunt will take longer and be harder.

It’s more of a reason to continue to employ these strategies because they give you the best chance to stand out to the right people.

What can you control? How you approach your job hunt.

What can’t you control? The number of other people in the applicant pool.

Control what you can control, don’t worry about the rest.

There are countless examples of people in the height of recession with fewer resources than you that employed this same set of tactics and ended up with career-accelerating life-changing jobs.

Your best chance of becoming a member of that list is by employing the same strategies, tactics, and tools they did.

That’s the strategy I’ll share in the UpEmployment Newsletter and what I teach in hands-on, step-by-step detail in the UpEmployment Program.

So I Should Do Nothing Different?

If you are employing all the strategies I cover in this weekly newsletter, on my LinkedIn posts, and in detail in my UpEmployment Program, and it’s working, then yes.

You have nothing to change.

Those are the best practices that, if followed, will make it a matter of when, not if, you land the best job.

If you aren’t employing the 5 C’s of the dream job hunt, that’s where you need to start.

• Phase 1: Creating dream role clarity

• Phase 2: Crafting confidence in your story and digital reputation

• Phase 3: Connecting with those that you can help and can help you

• Phase 4: Crafting value at every step of the way

• Phase 5: Competing when it’s your time to shine in an interview

This is the recession and layoff-proof way of landing a dream role.

Oops, I Guess I Lied

I lied slightly when I said that the world’s best athletes do nothing when the competition increases.

Oops!

It’s true that in times of increased competition, the best athletes in the world continue to focus on the proven strategies of top performers.

But they also do one more thing.

They bring on an expert coach.

Suppose they know they have an exceptionally large goal or a competitive hurdle to overcome.

They want to be the best in the world, win a Super Bowl, or get over a nagging knee injury.

In that case, they’ll bring on a highly skilled coach to hold them accountable, structure their preparation, and ensure they are training correctly.

They bring on a coach because it eliminates the guesswork.

They don’t need to think about the best way to be prepared because their coach tells them what to do.

They don’t need to worry about falling off the wagon because, at 4 am, their coach calls them to wake up and get their ass in the gym.

They don’t need to think about whether the path works because all they have to do is look at the prior champions the coach has trained.

So, in your job hunt, if you have ambitious goals for where you want your career to go but are frustrated because what you’re trying isn’t working.

Or if you just want to cut through all the BS and get straight to employing what works.

Look for someone who has been there before, has driven results, and can hold you accountable.

No athlete goes into preparation for a career-defining season all alone.

Neither should you.

There you have it, my thoughts on what you should do with your job hunt strategy in the current economic and hiring climate.

Stick to the systems I cover that allow people to stand out from the crowd and land dream roles because they work in any economic climate.

And if you have ambitions of taking your career to the next level and want to make the process a matter of when, not if, you land that “I can’t believe I get to do this” role, then look to hire a coach to give you the playbook, monitor your progress, and hold you accountable.

Let’s become career champions together 🏆

Kyle

P.S. Whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

#1: Free Job Hunt Strategy Call: Request a free job hunt strategy call with Kyle to get closer to landing your dream role tomorrow. On our call, we will walk through your vision and how to make it a reality, cover the obstacles standing in your way, and help determine the best next step for you to take based on your short-term and long-term goals. Schedule a call today!

#2: Want the proven playbook to get more dream job offers in less time with less stress? Discover how to build a proven system to land your dream job in a matter of days.

#3: Follow me on LinkedIn for more job hunt systems, productivity tools, and networking templates.

💎 Job Op of the Week 💎

Each week I’ll highlight a different job opportunity I think is cool and give tips for how I would approach getting into the role.

This week we have the Associate General Manager, Virtual Primary Care position @ Included Health.

What the company does: Included Health is on a mission to raise the standard of healthcare for everyone with an all-inclusive, fully integrated, virtual-first healthcare experience.

Why is the role awesome: You will own the company’s Virtual Primary Care product, one of the most innovative products they have released. You’ll be responsible for product growth, customer retention, patient satisfaction, and profitability. The whole shabang! When I was at Uber, the GM’s were the mini CEOs of their markets. You’ll be the CEO of this product.

You’ll also be reporting to this guy, Gil Kazimirov. Gil was one of our early hires on the Uber Connecticut team and is a fantastic operator, manager, and one of the most dynamic person I have ever met.

Why is Included Health awesome: I’m not sure how much awards matter, but they were named as a Best Startup Employer and were voted a Glassdoor Best Place to work and a 4x Career-Launching Company by Wealthfront.

How would I approach getting in: I would watch videos (like these 1,2) and listen to podcasts (like these 1,2) to get as much information as possible I could about the company and the people that work there in their own words.

I’d then reach out to the people on the team I would be joining with a personalized LinkedIn connection request message and email. From those conversations, I would look for areas of pain that I could alleviate immediately using my prior experience.

Ex: I would share a dashboard I created for a previous product to monitor and analyze product health and describe how they could create a similar dashboard, as well as what each metric means and why it’s important.

Apply for the job here and DM me on LinkedIn, mentioning this newsletter, send me your resume, and I’ll forward it to my connections there.

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In fact, if you surround yourself with other career champions, you’ll land your dream job quicker.

So share this newsletter with anyone you know that is currently looking for that next career-accelerating opportunity so you can win together!

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See you again next week!