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Layoff Bounce Back: Resilience through Personal and Professional Networks with Dave Stevens

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Imagine your work day starting off like any other only to find you’ve been laid off. What would you do next?

Dave Stevens lived this reality a couple of years ago and joins us this week in episode 354 to share the lessons from that experience. We’ll take you through how Dave processed the news of being laid off, the warning signs he missed, when he knew it was time to begin searching for a new role, how he thought about what to do next, and the critical importance of his personal and professional network throughout this process.

Regardless of your age or the size of your professional network, Dave shares actionable suggestions for building professional connections that we all may be overlooking.

Original Recording Date: 10-28-2025

Topics – Background and the Impact of a Layoff Event, Initial Forward Progress and Reliance on a Professional Network, Skills Gaps and Unexpected Positives, Elements of the Personal and Professional Network, Reaching Closure and Reflecting Back on the Lessons

2:27 – Background and the Impact of a Layoff Event

  • Dave Stevens is a Field Solutions Architect at Pure Storage. In this role, Dave is a technical overlay for pre-sales technical personnel at Pure across North America. This is the role Dave took after he was impacted by a layoff.
  • What was Dave’s role before he was impacted by a layoff event?
    • For context, the layoff event we discuss in this episode took place around 2.5 years before this recording.
    • Dave was classified as a systems engineer or pre-sales technical resource at his employer supporting multiple account reps. It was more of a solutions architect type of role, and Dave highlights his entry into this organization and role was via acquisition.
    • Was there an element of technical marketing to the role? Nick mentions that Dave often had to attend trade shows in this role.
      • Dave had a virtualization background and went to a lot of events to discuss how his company’s products integrated with those different technology ecosystems.
  • The day Dave was laid off started as a normal day at his home office. His boss was based in Europe, so most 1-1 calls were usually late in the day his boss’s time (early afternoon for Dave).
    • A meeting popped up that was earlier than usual, but Dave didn’t think anything of it.
    • Right after Dave joined the remote session for the meeting, someone from HR joined followed by Dave’s boss.
    • Dave wasn’t quite sure what to expect and didn’t know what was happening. He didn’t know if it was a layoff coming or some other kind of situation happening at his company.
    • When Dave was laid off, they told him it was not for performance reasons, but there weren’t really any other details provided on why he was being laid off.
    • “So, at that point it was just like, ‘what do I do?’” – Dave Stevens, on receiving layoff news
    • After receiving the news, Dave’s access to company systems like e-mail was quickly cut off. He went downstairs and spent the rest of his day relaxing. Dave did not want to talk about what happened any further that first day.
  • Did Dave struggle with separating his identity from his employer or the job he held at all when this happened?
    • Dave says he did, at least a little bit.
    • Dave wanted to be successful in whatever role he found himself, and the reason he was in the systems engineering role at the time of the layoff event is a result of his drive to be successful in the years leading up to that role.
    • “I also wanted to make sure that…the people that I worked with that I enjoyed working with. If I didn’t enjoy working with them, then there was no reason to continue staying there. So that’s part of my identity on how I interact with work.” – Dave Stevens
    • In the early days of Twitter (now X), Dave defined an identity there. He also created a personal blog. Dave says his identity was often tied to where he worked.
    • “Once this all happened, I just kind of cut that off. And I needed some time to really digest what I just went through that day.” – Dave Stevens
  • Is there something Dave wishes people had done for him when this first happened?
    • Dave says he wishes he would have listened to his wife. Before experiencing the layoff event, a number of colleagues who had entered the company through acquisition like Dave were either leaving or had been laid off (including his boss being laid off). At the time, Dave didn’t think much about these events.
    • Dave’s wife had encouraged him to look for other jobs before the layoff happened, and he feels he should have listened.
    • “It’s much easier finding a job when you have a job. There’s not as much pressure on you. You can take your time and really find the job that you want. That’s the one thing that kind of took me by surprise….” – Dave Stevens
  • Did Dave’s wife also point him in a direction or provide feedback on the type of work he should pursue?
    • We’ve spoken to previous guests who had spouses that provided insight into the type of work that made them happy.
    • Dave feels like there has been an element of this in place since he and his wife got married.
      • When Dave got a job opportunity to relocate to the New Hampshire area, his wife had some interesting feedback.
      • “It’s great that you’re going to make more than you’re making at the job you are currently, but I don’t want you to take a job just because of money. I want you to take a job because it’s something you’re interested in doing and you’re going to be happy at. So, I’ve always kept that in the back of my mind every time I go and look for a job….” – Dave Stevens, quoting his wife’s advice
      • Dave considered this same advice when pursuing his current role at Pure. Because he enjoyed meeting and speaking with people during the interview process, the decision to accept the role was easy. Liking the people he would be working with was more important than a pay increase.

10:53 – Initial Forward Progress and Reliance on a Professional Network

  • How long did Dave need to process before taking the first actions toward a new role?
    • For the first 3 weeks or so, Dave relaxed a little bit. There were a number of projects at home that he needed to do and some that he wanted to do. Working on the projects helped take his mind off what had happened.
    • Dave mentions he was given a severance for about 3 months and wanted to find a new role within that time period if possible. But if he could not find something in that time period, it would not be the end of the world.
    • Dave tells us it was easier to find work when he was laid off than it is currently. Close to the time of this recording, AWS announced job cuts for up to 30,000 people.
    • He made the conscious decision after those first few weeks to spend the first part of the day searching for new jobs and then continued working on different projects in the afternoons.
  • How did Dave know who to reach out to first? Nick argues that most of us likely don’t have a list of who we would call if something like this happened.
    • When Dave came to the New England area, he started working for Dell in tech marketing. Through his work, Dave built a tight bond with many of his co-workers.
    • Dave remembers sending a text message to many of his former co-workers (none of which were still at Dell) asking if they knew of any open opportunities. Dave wanted to understand what former colleagues were working on now and what the culture of their company was like. He started by seeking out people he already enjoyed working with and analyzed whether it made sense to go and work with them again.
  • Was Dave open to different types of roles in his job search, or did that not matter?
    • It had to be interesting work and involve people he wanted to work with or enjoyed working with. Dave says as long as it was something in the tech field, it didn’t matter too much.
    • Dave began his career in systems administration and tech support and had experience in the storage industry, with backups, and with Active Directory to name a few areas. He had also done technical marketing and was open to returning to it. Dave also looked at pre-sales systems engineering or solution architect roles.
    • What about taking roles that moved him deeper into a business unit like product management?
      • Dave says product management is interesting work, but depending on the company, the work may not always have the technical aspects he likes.
      • Many of the product managers at Pure are quite technical, but most of the product management roles he observed at other companies were not as technical as he would like.
      • “It just didn’t interest me. It wasn’t technical enough in nature for me.” – Dave Stevens, on moving into product management
  • It sounds like Dave had done a good job of keeping in touch with people in his professional network over time.
    • “I have always made sure to have a small group of folks that I can just reach out to at any time and…chat about anything…. I’ve always made sure to have that…. I didn’t talk to them all the time, but we all interacted in some way, shape, or form whether it was an e-mail or text messaging…even some stuff on LinkedIn. We all kind of kept in touch…. I had people that I could fall back on and reach out to and get advice from if I needed to. This is the time where I really needed some advice on where to go to next.” – Dave Stevens
    • Dave says he was lucky enough to find a new job before the end of his 3 months of severance pay.
    • Dave’s wife commented that she wasn’t too worried about him. She knew he had a strong professional network.
  • Did anyone in Dave’s professional network ask him what he wanted to do next, or did they just start making recommendations based on what they knew about him?
    • Dave says it was a little bit of both.
    • Some people pointed Dave to specific open roles in the same group where they worked (still in tech, of course), while others directed him to the company job site and offered to act as a referral for him.
    • Dave tells us he’s very willing to give others a referral.
    • “I want to make sure that people that I know and I like to work with come to work with me.” – Dave Stevens
    • Dave says he also turned on the Open to Work banner on LinkedIn.
      • While this did result in many recruiters reaching out to Dave, many of the opportunities they contacted him about were not interesting.
      • Dave is hearing from many in our industry that bots are reaching out to people and trying to take advantage of them. His advice is that we need to be guarded in our interactions on LinkedIn as a result to avoid scams.

19:10 – Skills Gaps and Unexpected Positives

  • What kinds of skills gaps did Dave see when seeking new opportunities?
    • For context, this was roughly 2.5 years ago. Dave says at that time, AI wasn’t as helpful as it is today and was not something that was interesting to him.
      • Dave tells us he uses AI heavily today compared to back then.
    • Dave felt confident in the knowledge and skillset he had built through years of industry experience. Ideally, he would land a new role that overlapped those areas, but if a new role required coming up to speed quickly, he would do what was needed.
    • Dave started looking at public cloud and certifications related to Azure and AWS.
      • “Although it was interesting, it wasn’t really what I wanted to do.” – Dave Stevens, on public cloud technologies compared to the technologies with which he was familiar
  • What were some of the unexpected positive outcomes of getting laid off even though it was difficult in the beginning?
    • One positive, according to Dave, is the amount of people in his network he was able to reach out to on LinkedIn. So many people were open to helping.
      • The only negative Dave thinks is maybe not acting quickly enough in starting his job search.
    • “It’s really about building not only your personal network but your professional network. And my professional network really came to my rescue and helped me understand that…it’s not the end of the world. You’re going to make it. You’re going to do fine. But let me know if there’s any way that I can help you in that journey that you’re on right now.” – Dave Stevens
  • Were there any things Dave and his wife had done (conscious or unconscious) to prepare for the layoff event based on market trends?
    • Dave says his wife is very good at managing their home budget, and since they got married, they intentionally build a financial nest egg they could lean on in the event Dave was out of a job.

22:27 – Elements of the Personal and Professional Network

  • What are some of the things Dave is even more intentional about now with his professional network than he was in the past?
    • Dave received some great advice from a co-worker to reach out to one person in his professional network each week. Many times, Dave will do this on LinkedIn or even via text if he has the person’s number.
    • “Keep that personal connection going. As much as AI is taking over, as much as we do a lot of things on Zoom, I’ve learned over my years of working in the industry that there’s nothing better than the face-to-face interaction…. It’s so much more fun and relaxing to just get out of the office or home office…and just sit down with people and keep that personal connection going.” – Dave Stevens
    • Dave mentions he likes to get together with co-workers in the area every now and then, even if they have the same conversation in person that they would have had on Zoom. It’s different and more relaxing.
  • How can younger listeners who may be trying to break into the industry build a professional network when they might not have a deep contact list or large network like someone in the industry for a long time?
    • Nick and Dave talked about this before hitting record and thought it could be helpful to share during our discussion.
    • Dave has a newfound perspective on this from being around his nephews and nieces. The job market is very different today than when Dave first began his career.
    • “Nowadays, resumes just go into a black hole, and you don’t necessarily know if you’re still in the mix for a current job.” – Dave Stevens
    • Dave has encouraged his nephews and nieces to leverage their personal network to build a professional network. He may know someone who knows someone in the field they want to pursue, for example.
    • “There’s no shame or harm in utilizing all your resources…. Utilize your personal network because you don’t have the professional network built up yet to help you get that foot in the door.” – Dave Stevens
      • Young people could even use their parents as a way to broaden their own network. It’s an opportunity to get introduced to others.
      • Dave uses the example of a chance meeting at a concert that could result in a new connection for someone.
    • Nick would encourage younger listeners to get out to in-person meetup groups on any interesting topic. Go ask people what they are learning, why they work where they work, how they got there, and see if they have advice for you.
      • Dave agrees and has leveraged both local professional groups and meetup groups in the New Hampshire area to meet new people. This is expanding your local professional network as Dave calls it (not to be confused with your global professional network) and is a great thing to do when you move to a new place.
      • You never know when a conversation at a local meetup might help you get a warm lead on a job that will be posted soon.
  • Did the layoff come up in interviews at all? How did Dave handle that?
    • Dave says some people brought it up. In other cases, he brought it up in conversation, wanting people to know he was not let go for doing something wrong.

28:22 – Reaching Closure and Reflecting Back on the Lessons

  • How did Dave know he had reached closure on the layoff situation?
    • Dave thinks he was motivated to take action toward finding a job due to a fear of boredom. He had been working on various projects but knew he would run out of them at some point.
    • Dave had enough time to adjust to not having a job, and he was ready to begin doing some kind of work again.
    • “I didn’t want to get bored. I hate being bored. I hate being bored at work. I hate being bored in general. That’s really what the impetus was for me to go out and start looking…that fear of relaxing for too long and being bored.” – Dave Stevens
    • At this point Dave reached further into his professional network beyond that first group of friends and former colleagues he mentioned earlier.
    • Does taking action in a direction mean we’re ready to move on from what happened? Is it when we have to discuss what happened in an interview, or is it something else? How do we measure this?
      • Dave says it was easier to accept and felt mostly behind him when he was actively looking for a new position. He knew only he could take the actions to move forward.
      • The feeling of what happened before went completely away when Dave accepted a new job at Pure.
      • Dave feels he was very lucky to find a role.
      • Lining up multiple interviews gave Dave momentum and a feeling of positivity.
      • “I feel that people understand that I have the skills for these jobs. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have gotten 5 job interviews as quickly after I really started taking action to look for a job. So, I got lucky.” – Dave Stevens
  • If Dave had to do it all again, what would he do differently?
    • Dave feels he has about 10 more years left working in the tech industry.
    • For now, Dave enjoys the job he has, wants to excel doing it, and wants to continue growing.
    • Dave currently works for the best boss he’s had to date.
      • “He not only pushes me, but he pushes our entire team to just get better….” – Dave Stevens, on his current manager
    • Dave tells us he does not want to be a people manager or a product manager.
      • “I want to continue to excel and expand my depth of knowledge across the virtualization industry and the storage industry.” – Dave Stevens
      • The work at Pure is very interesting to Dave, which is also motivating him to continue learning and excelling. Part of this is using more AI-focused tooling as it becomes available to use.
  • What does Dave think the role of AI tools is in helping with one’s job search?
    • There are a number of tools out there we can leverage to analyze our resume. Dave suggests keeping track of which tool we’ve used to analyze our resume because that could be used to train a model.
    • In addition to this, use AI to research companies. Use them to help you understand what companies are like and what their culture is like. Many people in a sales role within Pure, for example, use an AI tool of some kind to learn more about their customers.
  • Nick reiterates the nuances of acquisitions. Dave worked for a company that was acquired by another company. Over time there was a pattern of people from the company which was acquired being laid off. Perhaps this is a sign we should watch for and prepare.
    • Dave says we need to be looking at and listening for the signs coming toward us. He listens to his wife more intently when she makes a suggestion.
    • Dave continues to check in with people in his professional network and offers advice when they need it.
  • Dave would encourage all of us to use our personal and professional network if we end up in the situation he was in (experiencing a layoff).
  • “Not everybody is going to be able to help you or is willing to reach out and help you, but when someone does…don’t just brush it aside as they want something out of this. They probably genuinely want to help you. So, take advantage….” – Dave Stevens
  • If you want to follow up with Dave on this conversation,

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