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Wish I had known before layoff, retirement, or leaving: Part 2 - Job and Career. We asked HPAA members "What do you wish you had known before you left?"
The responses are organized into five articles: Also use our ASAP Checklist. Member advice on what to do before losing access to company systems -- and in the following few weeks. Supplements the official checklists. (No password required.) Heads Up! These comments were posted from 2011 to 2023. Some things have changed. Question? Email: info@hpalumni.org Job and Career - Wish I Had Known #2 (Most recent additions Feb 18, 2023)
"Look into
claiming for unemployment. Depending on the reason for your departure, you may,
surprisingly, be eligible. I was part of the HPE VCTP, but spent much of the
last 2 months transferring my role to India. That secured me an unexpected
payout from the state (Colorado)"
"...how do you keep up with this next generation of IT and how do you
bring people into this company for whom it isn't something they have to
learn, it is what they know. ...we put in place an informal rule... when
you are replacing someone, really think about the new style of IT
skills."
"...we need to return to a labor pyramid that really looks
like a triangle where you have a lot of early career people
who bring a lot of knowledge who you're training to move up
through your organization, and then people fall out either
from a performance perspective or whatever..."
--former HP and HPE CEO Meg Whitman to stock analysts in
2013.
"...eventually you will wear out. Not many people can last
for twenty or thirty years, which is why we need to attract
young people."
--Antonio Neri, former HP SVP, now CEO of HPE, quoted in the 2016 book "Becoming
Hewlett-Packard"
After half a decade
of litigation, HP and HPE have escaped significant
consequences from
lawsuits alleging age (and sex) discrimination . Members recommend spending most of your job-hunting time searching outside the company -- you are a stronger candidate while still employed. Very few members report landing during their "redeployment period" -- losing critical time and wasting energy on discussions that end abruptly without explanation.
---
If you are approached about -- or apply for -- a direct or
agency-contract position, be very clear about your HP
history. Many report spending time and energy on discussions
that ended without explanation. Details: https://www.hpalumni.org/Employment --- At least research what skills and knowledge you will need to get your next job. It is almost certainly not what you have been using for the past 10 years. Start taking classes immediately to get up to speed on the new stuff. --- To compete with new EE or CS grads, I would have had to gone back to university. Two years of undergrad courses and a year for an MS. Would have been very challenging, but also fun and invigorating to learn in depth about all the powerful new tools and technologies.
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--- --- You will come and go to several smaller companies and realize that small company politics are just as poor (if not worse) as are the very large corporations. Do not feel badly if you accept unemployment insurance. [HP paid into your state's unemployment fund for many years on your behalf. Only in Alaska, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania are there employee deductions for UI. If you take PRP instead of being WFRed, you do not qualify for unemployment benefits -- because you voluntarily retired.] Try a different industry for a real change and a growth path. Everyone gets into real estate sometime….not recommended. Read the book "Who moved my cheese." Join a Toastmaster Club and speak your mind while improving your communications skills and your résumé. Just a few thoughts that bounced around in my mind as I went through the withdrawal symptoms and established a much more fulfilling life. --- How scummy a lot of today's companies are with respect to ethics/privacy – I could not in good conscience apply at many of them today --- -- -- --- Keep up with your LinkedIn profile, it is the primary way I have been contacted by recruiters for new opportunities. ***Do not use your company email address as your email contact on LinkedIn***. [Even if not currently looking for a job, you need to be on LinkedIn. Reconnect with people who know you and your work. Be found by recruiters. LinkedIn works differently than you might think: LinkedIn Tips and Traps ] Setup a Gmail, Outlook.com or other email where you can be contacted privately and that will remain with you if you part ways. --- My pay may be half what it once was but I have full benefits in my job and that is worth the difference in pay! --- --- --- --- --- I ended up going with a contracting firm and then got hired by the company that used their services. --- a) Employment would be easy to find, b) Medical insurance would go along with it. (Medical insurance of the kind that we get at HP costs about $1400/month. If you don't have this money to spend, don't retire UNLESS you have the fully subsidized HP insurance.) c) Responsibility/expertise levels would match those at HP (by salary ranges) d) Organizations are willing to grow your knowledge and capability (as at HP). I applied for and successfully interviewed for promotions within jobs that I had, that I wasn't yet qualified for. I didn't realized that the risk was "all yours" as opposed to a shared risk at HP. I was given a year to prove that I had the capability, not to grow it. Expect to have to work as hard when you start a new job as you did right out of school.
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--- One more “GLAD I thought to” thing. Glad I thought to change my cell-phone, that was HP-pay at the time (if that’s even still done now), to personal-pay of the number AND started the process of an official transfer of the number (so I could keep the same cell-phone number) to me -- with a vendor I chose. From what I’ve heard, if you cell-phone is still on HP-pay (for the service), there really is no way to transfer the number to your own cell-phone/cell-phone vendor after you’re out the door. --- --- But, you will find others that left HP have started their own little companies and may want your help in making it work. There you'll find the companionship you thought you'd miss, the dreams you thought you'd dropped, and the enthusiasm you thought you left back in your youth. As odd as it sounds, every time HP had a layoff here in Corvallis the number of jobs created by those leaving eventually outnumbered those lost. To be sure, don't count on the same pay level since all "startups" are a struggle but the excitement in being involved with something you can make a difference in and the personal connections you'll revive and create will take you back to the early days of Bill and Dave, John Young and Lew Platt's HP. Obviously I stayed the "engineer" course after leaving but there are a lot of other directions people can take and find the same sense of community and commitment. Volunteer at you local library, art center, community theater, or soup kitchen. Yes I said "volunteer" and this may not be a viable option for someone needing income but if you are worried about what you'll do with yourself after leaving the HP community you'll find a whole wide world waiting for you. --------------------------------------------- |
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