Cushion the potential blow to your career.
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Half of US employers are planning layoffs. Already, giants such as Amazon and Meta have cut staff.
It helps to be prepared — to “career cushion” — so you’re not blindsided if you lose your job.
Start by updating your LinkedIn profile, networking more creatively, and thinking about your goals.
It can be terrifying to watch colleagues across your industry get the ax, wondering whether you’ll be next.
Half of the 722 US executives PwC surveyed in August said their employers were cutting staff. Already, top employers including Amazon, Walmart, Meta, Peloton, and JP Morgan have laid off chunks of their workforces.
Knowing you’re prepared for whatever comes next can help mitigate some of that terror. LinkedIn is calling it “career cushioning,” which, according to Blair Heitmann, a career expert at the company, describes “cushioning for whatever comes next in the economy and in the job market.”
“Cushioning” in a romantic context refers to keeping potential partners on the back burner in case your current relationship fizzles.
Career cushioning is getting a lot of attention lately — likely in part because it’s a catchy term akin to “quiet quitting” and in part because it helps to know that you have some control over your career trajectory.
There are a few key ways to make sure you’re ready — for a recession, for layoffs, or for anything else that might affect your professional success. They’re all pretty simple.
Update your social-media profiles
Heitmann said the first — and potentially easiest — thing to do is update your LinkedIn profile. You can update your presence on other social-media platforms too while you’re at it — to “demonstrate the scale of your expertise.” She recommended making sure your profile reflects your latest job experience and skills, so that recruiters can see that you’d be a good fit for certain positions.
It helps to have on-hand copies of recent performance reviews, client testimonials, and “anything that you could use as fodder to help you update your LinkedIn profile and your résumé,” Amanda Augustine, a career expert at TopResume, previously told Insider.
Ramp up your networking efforts
It’s the wisdom most every professional knows but doesn’t want to hear: It’s easier to ask someone for a favor when you’ve stayed in touch, and maybe even helped them, compared to when you drop in out of nowhere.
Heitmann shared some relatively passive ways to do just that. For example, you could post some insights about where your industry is headed on LinkedIn or comment on something a colleague shared. “Your network and relationships are two-way streets,” she said.
Think about what you want
It always helps to think about what you’re hoping to accomplish in your career — knowing that those ambitions might evolve. “Even if you love your job and you’re happy, it’s always a great moment to take a step back,” Heitmann said. In the event that you lose your job, it won’t be the first time you ask yourself what you might actually want to be doing all day.
Once you’ve identified some goals, you can start reverse engineering your success by pinpointing the skills and experiences you’ll need to get there. The authors of “The New Rules of Work” advise browsing job postings all the time to get a sense of the qualifications you’ll need to land your next role.
In the past, Heitmann said, she’s jotted down her own plan for getting to the next step in her career. “It’s always helped me to really think through how to be prepared,” Heitmann said. “Write it down and make a game plan.”