ex-Cisconians, tips on landing a new job in this market
This week, it was sad to see some of coworkers being let go and I was in one of the high growth BU, so it came by bigger surprise.. And after spending a year at Cisco, it is not the safe place nor products are interesting for me to want to stay any longer and I want to leave asap.. With that said, for folks who were laid off in last 1-2 years, do you have words of wisdom and tips on landing new offer with Cisco on the resume? I know Cisco is low tier dinosaur companies, so its not as appealing to recruiters compared to folks at FAANG and other higher tier companies and how can we really compete with these folks in this market?? tc 180 #cisco #jobhunt #layoffs
I am sorry people have to go through this LR. But this is a very good opportunity for you to move away. No company is safe (maybe except apple).. with that said, might as well choose somewhere which is growing good. Don't worry about those FAANG engineers.. with good interview prep you would be surprised how well you could do in interviews..
This is good advice. The more you interview the better you will be at interviewing. Just keep going. For every failure, apply to 10 more. You can do it! đȘ
Network, prepare and explore outside. There are lot of ex-Cisco folks in the renowned companies. Cisco has its pros and cons, but with clueless leadership for past few years, future is bleak.
LRâd in October 2023, signed job offer at a new company last week before I even had to touch my Cisco severance. I applied to 58 roles, got rejected from 36 and never heard back from 22. Thatâs actually a higher percentage of responses than others are getting. Thatâs advice #1 - get used to hearing crickets from employers, not even rejections. Just keep going. #2 - when you apply to a job, go on LinkedIn, find the companyâs page, click on âpeople,â then click on the filter (have to scroll to the right) for âhow youâre connectedâ and choose 1st and 2nd connections. Usually youâll have 2nd connections, so scroll through the list to see who your mutual connection is. When you find one who is a close friend or colleague or champion, message them and ask them to introduce you to the person they know at that company (if they actually know them). Do this for every application. This got me a lot more interviews than others who are job hunting. #3 - you donât have to customize your resume for every single application like youâll hear some people say but you should do one or two tweaks each time. For example, I have a 2 sentence professional summary at the top and I may change a couple of words to better match the role. Also compare the skills listed in your resume to the skills listed on the job on LinkedIn. Add or change words that fit, donât lie, but use their terminology. Like if they say âtrainingâ instead of âlearning and development,â list your skill as training. #4 - there is no such thing as an ATS compliant resume. I didnât believe this at first but I listened to A LOT of recruiters who are trying to bust this myth. You just need a resume without columns, uses plain text, had clear dates and titles. Then aligning your skills list like in my #3 will flag for recruiters.
This is really good advice. Just plain applying does not go anywhere. Reach out to connections for referral, thatâs the best way to get interviews.
Oh and to address the Cisco part of the OPâs question - the company Iâm joining is in tech, theyâre a Series E startup so relatively mature but still innovative and leading the way in a lot of areas. I flat out addressed the âCisco in the roomâ my first call with the recruiter and with two other interviewers along the way. I basically said I know being at Cisco 7 years can look like I donât know how to thrive at a small scrappy company thatâs innovating, but I was in security supporting 10 different products at the most and had to adjust to new acquisitions coming in every quarter. The security division of Cisco is much faster paced and you constantly learn new technologies (that Cisco later ruins) each time an acquisition comes in. Itâs not like the old stuffy Cisco stereotype thatâs out there. That was enough to assuage their worries and move me along.
Move to anywhere to break the chain (Cisco) and then move to FAANG. Itâs not that easy and definitely not difficult too