Controlled and Proactive: Managing Your Career During Uncertain Times

How should we be managing our careers during times of uncertainty? News of layoffs and economic uncertainty induces paralyzing fear and anxiety in many of us. What can we really control in the midst of it all, if anything?

This week in episode 329, we’ll talk through a 5-pillar framework with actionable steps you can take now to be more proactive in your career even when it’s a difficult job market. Whether you’re employed and feeling uncertain or recently unemployed, we’ll share prescriptive advice and helpful AI prompts for forward progress so you can work through the challenges and not get frozen in worry. Be sure to check out our free Career Uncertainty Action Guide to access the AI prompts discussed in today’s show.

Original Recording Date: 05-15-2025

Topics – Facing Uncertainty with an Actionable Plan, Pillar 1: Building Financial Resilience, Pillar 2: Maximizing Current Job Performance and Visibility, Pillar 3: Execute Strategic Skill Development, Pillar 4: Effective Networking and Relationship Building, Pillar 5: Managing Your Mindset and Control Your Narrative, AI Prompts and the Call to Action 1:30 – Facing Uncertainty with an Actionable Plan

• Though not feeling 100% when this was recorded, John and Nick wanted to get this episode on an important topic out in order to help our listeners.
• Maybe you’re coming into this episode with a lot of anxiety.
  • We continue to see news about tech industry layoffs and economic uncertainty. It feels pretty heavy.
  • We spoke about fear, uncertainty, and how to take control in Episode 70 – Taking Control During Uncertain Times.
• Maybe you feel secure but are hearing whispers about layoffs at your company and are beginning to worry.
• Maybe you’ve been impacted by a layoff.
  • We see you. We hear you.
• Maybe you’re trying to recession-proof your skills, feel stuck at your current employer, or have become highly specialized and don’t know what to do.
• Wherever you happen to be, those feelings are real. The biggest challenge we each have is the risk to job security and financial stability.
  • Though it may seem wrong, forces outside of our control do affect our careers.
  • Today our intent is not to sit and dwell on problems like a difficult job market. We’re focusing on a practical plan to help you regain a sense of control with actionable steps you can take to proactively navigate this period.
  • Our purpose is to provide career advice we wish we’d had earlier in our careers. We want to help listeners accelerate career progression, increase job satisfaction, and be more effective in your existing role.
  • When things feel unstable and when we see layoffs at our company or in our industry, it’s ok to take more of a defensive approach.
  • It’s rational to feel anxious when finances and job security are threatened by layoffs or economic uncertainty. It’s ok to feel that way.
  • We’re here to help channel that energy into proactive career management.
• We’ve broken this down into 5 pillars / 5 areas where you can take action starting right now.
  • Building financial resilience
  • Maximizing your current job performance and visibility
  • Executing strategic skill development
  • Engaging in effective networking and relationship building
  • Managing your mindset and controlling your narrative

5:01 – Pillar 1: Building Financial Resilience

• A buffer against the risk of layoffs and income instability is having a savings account with 3-6 months’ living expenses.
  • Do you know the real numbers for your household expenses? If you don’t, take time this week to determine what they are. What is that bare bones minimum set of expenses? How long could the savings you have right now actually last based on your expenses?
  • In Episode 299 – Chronic Stress: Connecting the Dots between Layoffs and Burnout with Cait Donovan Cait Donovan mentioned You Need a Budget or YNAB as one option to help track your expenses. There are certainly other tools to help with this.
  • Maybe you could decide right now which subscriptions you would cancel or what you would stop spending on if your source of income was suddenly cut (i.e. job loss).
  • We covered some of these items in Episode 57 – Preparing for Unexpected Opportunities Part 5 – Personal Finance.
  • Having a liquid savings account that you can easily access and eliminating high interest debt will bring greater peace of mind if something happens to your job.
  • John is thankful for the jobs and roles he’s had over time enabled him to build an emergency fund. He shares how much peace of mind it brought after being laid off from Google in 2023. Catch the full story on that in Episode 220 – John Got Fired.
    • “It let me basically wake up, read the termination e-mail, and go back to sleep. I didn’t even wake up my wife to let her know. This is not great news, but we are in a financial position to survive. And it’s not a problem.” – John White, on the peace of mind that comes from having an emergency fund
  • Nick mentions he’s had success with building up savings by making it automatic. Maybe you could make an automatic draft from each paycheck to consistently save more starting right now.
    • John mentions he has a separate savings account for his emergency fund that money goes into every time he gets paid. It’s a great psychological barrier to spending any of it.
    • Having an emergency fund in an account that is separate from everything else is step 1. Once you have started this and are contributing to it, then you can begin shopping for a high yield savings account which could earn you something on an annual basis.
• It’s important to know and understand the benefits you’re getting from your employer.
  • Do you know, for example, what the company policy is on severance packages in the event that they have layoffs? Is that in an employee handbook somewhere?
  • Consider the cost of things like COBRA in your state (continued health insurance after job loss for a period of time). Expect an increase from what you were paying through your employer.
  • In the case of a mass layoff, there may be a 60-day WARN period in your state. Do some research on this. John mentions if it’s a small layoff, the company may not be required to do this.
  • Make sure you understand the vesting schedule for any applicable retirement accounts tied to your employer or RSUs (restricted stock units) that are part of your compensation package.
  • We’ve created a guide that we will reference again a little bit later in the discussion.
    • In the guide is an AI prompt focused on finances that you can use with ChatGPT, Claude, or your favorite generative AI tool. This prompt will interview you to help work through assessing the current state of your finances (which is often a high stakes emotional process). It considers things like understanding savings, retirement funds, current cost of living, and what you could cut out in an emergency. The prompt also has some examples of how the conversation might go. We hope you find it helpful!
    • The link to our uncertainty guide and a link to the above prompt can be found here: nerd-journey.com/uncertaintyguide.

10:50 – Pillar 2: Maximizing Current Job Performance and Visibility

• Our best defense against being let go or laid off is demonstrating that we are providing value to the organization. Visibility builds internal leverage and credibility in both uncertain times and in more prosperous times.
  • Ideally, we want our personal brand and reputation to stand on its own and make people hesitate to cut us because of our importance to the organization.
• Action points for this pillar…
  • We talked about some of this in Episode 70 – Taking Control During Uncertain Times, and it’s worth your time to go back and listen.
  • Track your accomplishments, and focus on the quantifiable results you have delivered or the impact you’ve made. Quantify whenever possible!
  • Think about reduced process time, value delivered to a project, etc.
  • Leverage feedback from others to quantify your impact.
  • Think about how you can be valuable and adaptable. What is the unique combination of skills you use to bring value to the organization?
  • Proactively make your impact known by:
    • Giving your manager updates
    • Sharing wins in team meetings when appropriate (not in a boastful way) and offering to help others
    • Documenting your contributions
  • Documenting our accomplishments / contributions is the required input to be able to tell the story of what you are doing.
    • Remember that writing is thinking as we discussed with guest Josh Duffney back in Episode 156 – Better Notes, Better You with Josh Duffney (1/2) and helps us formulate the way to say things.
    • We should be sharing our accomplishments with our manager in 1-1 discussions. That would not be the entire conversation, but if you can share something that worked really well, share it.
    • Keep a copy of your accomplishments saved somewhere in your personal files so you have access should you be separated from your company.
    • Documented accomplishments should translate to bullet points on your private resume or LinkedIn describing the quantified results.
    • John suggests we consider practicing the 30-60 second value statement out loud so we can easily explain it if someone asks.
    • It’s important to understand whether you are or are not delivering value to the organization. One way to get feedback on this is sharing with your boss. If your boss says something wasn’t valuable, at least you will know.
    • An episode that pairs nicely with this advice is Episode 284 – Draft Your Narrative: Writing and Building a Technical Portfolio with Jason Belk (2/2).
  • It’s important to acknowledge that we can follow all the advice given in this episode very well, be valuable to an organization, and still be impacted by a layoff.
    • The advice we’re sharing is critically important because if you are terminated, the work you have done turns into something that builds your resume with quantifiable value statements that you can demonstrate and speak to effectively. From there you can customize your resume for an application based on what they are looking for in the job description. It’s worth putting in the effort now.

15:31 – Pillar 3: Execute Strategic Skill Development

• We want to give ourselves industry longevity in our careers and increase the optionality, regardless of whether we stay at a company or go elsewhere.
• Think about the key skills you have today. What will be resilient and valuable in the market?
  • Maybe it’s knowledge of public cloud technologies, a scripting language or automation framework, cybersecurity concepts and principles, or foundational awareness of AI (artificial intelligence) and machine learning. Don’t overlook the fundamentals!
  • As you think through the skills you want to build or sharpen, consider the following:
    • What will help you be better at your job right now and prepare you for a future opportunity?
    • Is the skill area you’re looking at focused on a technology your company already uses and plans to use long term? Do you need to go deeper in this area or learn more about it to make what you’re doing more valuable?
    • Does this focus area provide growth for you? Joseph Griffiths told us in Episode 327 – A Passion for Growth: Storytelling and Interpersonal Skills with Joseph Griffiths (1/2) that growth can take different forms throughout our careers. Growth for you may mean technical skills, but it could also be communication skills.
    • Will the skills you are building be valuable to other companies? Investigate job descriptions to get feedback on the skill(s) to intend to sharpen or build before taking action. Look at job descriptions for roles similar to yours, closely related to yours, or something you aspire to do. Each job description will have required skills that you might not have today.
    • Nick says you’re looking for a double check mark.
  • How can you execute on either building a new skill or sharpening an existing one?
    • Employer training budgets – do you have funds from your employer to use for this purpose?
    • If paying for training yourself, consider cost-effective options like Pluralsight, Udemy, Coursera, or many others. Consider free options like YouTube as well.
    • What if you blocked 2-3 hours of your week for learning? Maybe it’s during work hours, but maybe it’s on your own time. Be consistent, and treat it like an important meeting you cannot miss to build skills over time.
    • John mentioned a resource called Google Cloud Skills Boost that is somewhat neutral in its technology approach which helps you learn transferrable skills even outside Google Cloud technologies.
    • Many companies have public facing training / lab resources which are free to low cost.
  • What if you only have limited time for strategic skill building? How does one decide what to learn?
    • If you had a list of 3-4 things that give you the double check mark as we discussed, you should think about which one is most valuable to both what you do today and what would be next (i.e. longevity in the market).
    • Nick suggests weighing value to your current employer at 60%. It’s important to be good at what you do to continue doing it for the time being.
    • John says this also depends on how uncertain you feel about your position. If your company is having consistent layoffs and things in your role feel very uncertain, for example, you may want to prioritize the skills that are more valuable in the job market. It’s important to tailor the selections to your situation.
    • Also consider your learning style. Do you prefer to start with going as deep as you can in a new area or with a high-level conceptual overview?
    • Think about technology waves and trends. What is interesting to you? What is real vs. just hype? Consider investigating areas that might be the next technology wave.
• These suggestions are great to keep in mind as we proceed to the next pillar.

21:46 – Pillar 4: Effective Networking and Relationship Building

• Invest in this now because your network is your safety net, information source, and opportunity, engine. It becomes even more important when things are uncertain.
  • John references an epidemic of AI-generated resumes and AI screening tools that’s causing a bit of a grid lock. Employee referrals are even more important now.
  • Remember the people who refer you for a job role are going to get asked about your strengths and if you are a fit for a specific role.
  • Even an indirect referral such as someone telling you a company is hiring for a specific type of role is helpful. You can investigate this role, see who you might know at the company, and determine if you might be a fit.
  • We don’t want to start building a network when we begin to feel uncertain, but if that’s you, now is a great time to begin. We want to do it consistently and continuously over time if possible.
  • We want to nurture network connections but adapt to what is happening right now. John recommends leading with empathy and checking in on people in your network. Ask how they are doing right now. Offer to help or share relevant information before you ask for anything.
  • Don’t forget to do networking inside your company. Understand the challenges of others outside your team. Who are those leaders within the greater company that you might be interested in working for?
    • Many times, in an economic-based layoff, people will be given time to find other roles within the organization upon being terminated.
  • For networking external to your company, LinkedIn is extremely valuable. Consider participating in online / in-person communities related to your job or the technology you use. Stay engaged with these communities!
  • Actions you can take…
    • Identify 3 people in your network that you haven’t spoken to recently. Reach out this month just to connect with them and see how they are doing.
    • Nick suggests combining this with pillar 3 and asking people what they are learning about and why they are learning about it. This is not asking for a job referral but rather a curiosity and opportunity for feedback on what you want to learn / the skills you plan to develop.
    • John went to LinkedIn and downloaded his connections to a CSV file. He chose a few different people at random to contact based on the strength of connection to that person. This exercise only costs you time. Each person you contact will have a different perspective on the job market, the technology community at large, and the skills that are needed to thrive within it. It provides a diversity of thought that we can learn from.
    • John would highly encourage a similar process for you. Start with people you can think of inside your network, and don’t forget to choose some people randomly.
    • For more tips on professional networking, check out this recent episode for advice – Episode 307 – Sales Skills: Professional Networking and Continued Practice with Ramzi Marjaba (1/2).

27:27 – Pillar 5: Managing Your Mindset and Control Your Narrative

• The actions we’ve discussed may seem difficult to take. Fear can cause paralysis and lead to poor decisions.
• It’s ok to feel fear, but we want to shift our focus to the controllable things we discussed in pillars 1-4. Combat paralysis and inaction by taking action. Consider breaking larger tasks into smaller tasks.
  • If you need to update your resume, it might seem like a mountainous task. What’s the smallest possible step? Maybe it’s updating a job title. Could you schedule 15 minutes to do that today?
  • Even small progress is still progress that we can celebrate. It’s about small, incremental gains over time.
  • See also our discussions on Finish by Jon Acuff with guest host Jason Gass, specifically the one about using data to celebrate progress:
    • Episode 272 – Book Discussion: Finish, Part 1 – The Day after Perfect and Cut Your Goal in Half
    • Episode 273 – Book Discussion: Finish, Part 2 – Deliberate Time Investments and Avoiding Distractions
    • Episode 274 – Book Discussion: Finish, Part 3 – Get Rid of Your Secret Rules and Use Data to Celebrate Your Imperfect Progress
    • Episode 275 – Book Discussion: Finish, Part 4 – The Day before Done and Perfectionism’s Final Roadblocks
  • Try reframing your perspective.
    • Could this time of uncertainty push you to learn something new you had deprioritized?
    • What if this leads to a role that is a better fit for you?
    • If nervous or anxious energy keeps you up at night, what if you worked on learning something fun for an hour to make yourself tired? Reading a book is a great way to learn and to wind down in the evening.
  • John recently took some time to reboot his blog site – vjourneyman.com and made a blog post describing the way he setup the new site.
    • When John started, he wasn’t even sure his WordPress site was still running. But he broke the task down into smaller pieces, eventually changing to a static site instead of just a WordPress site.
    • John says it was a fun small project he did on his own time that got him energized to write more content. The energy carried through to his day job, and he’s been energized to write more content moving forward as a result. John mentions an article he’s working on about effective use of AI prompts. Stay tuned for that once it is published!
    • Nick says when he takes a break to work on podcast stuff he can feel a difference in energy.
  • John and Nick remind listeners that they are not immune to times of uncertainty. John’s blog project is an example of something he did to energize and empower himself.
    • John is also modeling a pattern we’ve seen – developing proof of work / learning in public. We talked about learning something new in pillar 3. If you’re learning something new, could you write about it and publish what you learned or put your scripts on GitHub?
    • Think about what you can generate that is public facing so people can understand what you’re learning and how you think. This is one way to own your story. John’s blog project illustrates adaptability, resilience, and proactivity. He built a new blog site and is planning to write content on topics he’s not previously written about.
• When the task list gets long, it’s hard to decide what you should do next. Sometimes we just need to pick something we can finish instead of spending energy picking which thing.
  • If something is easily classifiable as in the top 5 things we need to do, it’s fine to go ahead and do it.
  • If someone needs to reclassify your tasks and let you know something is an emergency, you will probably hear from them.

34:17 – AI Prompts and the Call to Action

• John created an AI prompt to help with our mindset.
  • This is another outcome from John’s tinkering with generative AI. He prefers Google Gemini, but the tool doesn’t matter so much for you.
  • The mindset prompt can be found in the uncertainty guide. Copy and paste it into your generative AI tool of choice.
  • The prompt will instruct the AI to be a helper and motivator for you and help unfreeze you. It will interact with and brainstorm with you on the most important actions to take a positive step forward and could even create a prioritized checklist for you. The page on our site containing the prompt will have an example output for reference. Your interaction will be unique to you based on the answers you provide.
  • Remember this does not have to be perfect and that something is better than nothing.
  • If you do use the prompt, we’d love your feedback! Reach out to John or Nick on LinkedIn or e-mail us – nerdjourneypodcast@gmail.com.
• Your action challenge is to visit nerd-journey.com/uncertaintyguide to download the free career uncertainty action guide which includes the advice from today’s episode with checklists and AI prompts to help you.
  • The resources inside the uncertainty guide are divided into two categories – employed but feeling uncertain or recently unemployed.
  • This is about helping people. If you can help us, help people, we’d really appreciate that.
  • Remember we also have a Layoff Resources Page that you can utilize.
• We believe you can do things to influence your career path even during difficult times. You cannot control everything, but you CAN control what you do. So, what will you do?

Contact the Hosts

• The hosts of Nerd Journey are John White and Nick Korte.
  • E-mail: nerdjourneypodcast@gmail.com
  • DM us on Twitter/X @NerdJourney
  • Connect with John on LinkedIn or DM him on Twitter/X @vJourneyman
  • Connect with Nick on LinkedIn or DM him on Twitter/X @NetworkNerd_
  • Leave a Comment on Your Favorite Episode on YoutTube
• If you’ve been impacted by a layoff or need advice, check out our Layoff Resources Page.