What Is 'Career Cushioning?'

With Blind Bytes on "The Blind Ambition with Jack Kelly" podcast, Jack Kelly and Rick Chen reveal insider tips about professional life, which you can use immediately to level up your career. In this episode, we take on "career cushioning."

Jack explains what so-called career experts and media pundits mean when they talk about career cushioning. In short, it's the plan that professionals should have to protect their futures and perhaps even survive a layoff or reduction in force. He breaks down the trend and provides actual things you can do to get started. Finally, Jack tackles the future of quiet quitting amid concerns about a recession and all the layoffs, hiring freezes and job offers getting rescinded.

Hey, hello, everyone. This is Jack Kelly with Blind Bytes, and today, I want to talk about career cushioning.

First of all, how horrible is that title? I don't want to use it, but you know how we have the Great Resignation, acting your wage, quiet quitting, you know, now this career cushioning, so I'm just going along with the trend, which I probably shouldn't do. But let's put the name aside. Put it aside because even though it sounds like a weird name and silly name, here's what's happening.

We all know at this point in time, the Fed has, you know, took away the punch bowl, the everything bubble burst. Interest rates are high. Inflation is out of control, and consequently, there's just crazy amounts of layoffs in all industries, all sectors, particularly with white-collar professionals. And it's a challenge, man. It's tough. Things are not as great as they were just a year ago or so.

So we really have to be smart. Prepare what to do. So, put aside the titles. Forget about acting your wage, quiet quitting, all that. The bottom line is this (and this is coming from a guy who has placed thousands of people over the last 25 years in mid to senior-level executive roles), this is a time where you have to take action.

You can't just be complacent and say, hey, when is it going to get better? No. Could it get better? Yes. Will it get better right away? No. It's going to be a tough slog, and it sucks. But we always have these things. You know, I've been recruiting during 9/11 and the aftermath, which is horrific, as you can imagine, the financial crisis, even the dot-com boom and bust, and pandemic, and now this kind of thing that we're going through.

So what I want to suggest to you people, to everybody, is to hyper-focus on your career and not take anything for granted. Career cushioning, even though it's a lame name, really, what it means is you have to have a game plan. You can't just hope everything works out well. You can't just hope you show up to work and you're going to your job is going to be safe, so you have to put a plan together. And the plan together is this, if you like your job and you want to stay, let's take that first. You need to make yourself indispensable. You have to work hard, produce exceed expectations. Now, you might say, hey, I try to do that anyway. Well, great, then keep doing it. You want to make yourself so valuable that if and when there are layoffs, they're going to say, oh, there's no way we're letting off Joe. There's no way we're laying off Jane because we have to have them. They're amazing.

You want to be that person that's above reproach, somebody who they say got to have that person. Don't care well, no matter what goes wrong, this person stays.

How do you do that? Find out from your boss. Get a vibe. Check with your boss about what's going on. Find out what he or she needs to accomplish to do well for herself. Then, you want to make sure you make her life easier and help her succeed. You want to find out about her boss, find out what they need, and help that person.

Make sure you, when you interact with coworkers, help them because you can position yourself as that person who really cares and is really motivated. You also want to come in with a good, positive attitude, even if you don't feel like that. You don't want to be spreading rumors and gossip or complaining because that's what a lot of other people are going to do. So, you want to stand out by rising above it and showing that you're motivated. You want to make things happen.

It's not easy. It's not easy to do when you're afraid or worried about your job, but you have to put that into perspective. You could get mad at me for saying this, right? You're going to get a little upset, but I owe it to you because, with these, you know, Blind Bytes, I'm just going to be transparent. You can agree with me or disagree. Think I'm a jerk, not a jerk, but at least I want to share, you know, my knowledge from recruiting for so many years, placing people for so many years, what works and what doesn't.

I would suggest you, even though people love remote work, go into the office. Go into the office five days a week if you can. And the reason I'm saying that is because there's a proximity bias. If you're in the office and people see you around, and as I mentioned before, you're doing a good job and working hard and exceeding expectations, you're going to be golden. Because they say, wow, I'm always seeing Jack around. He's really working hard. He's really contributing. And then you juxtapose that with people who don't come in; you kind of forget about them. Sounds harsh, but you kind of forget about them. Or if you see them, they're on a Zoom call, along with like 50 other people, and you get lost.

And think about it: If you were a hiring manager, if you're a manager, you're executive, and there's a person who's always in the office, working hard, doing the right thing, and you kind of like the person, because you see them all the time, proximity bias.

But then there's these folks you haven't seen in a year, two years, literally, you know, during the pandemic, haven't seen two years. And if you have to choose who's going to go, wouldn't you kind of probably keep the person you see all the time that you know you feel comfortable with, as opposed to somebody who you haven't seen in two years and you're not sure what they're up to?

And let's be frank, a lot of executives and managers, they're always questioning if you're remote, especially boomers. And no offense to Baby Boomers, but I'm a Gen X, just full disclosure. And you know, they're going to think, hey, are those people really working hard at home? Are they really working? Are they hardly working? I don't know, hmm, so there's this bias about that. So, if you're in the office and people see you all the time, then you have a better chance of succeeding.

Now, here's another part. Here's another part of the career cushioning part. It's that you want to also hedge your bets because you could do everything I mentioned, working hard, exceeding expectations, staying away from gossiping, being positive, being motivated, coming into the office five days a week, but it still might be tough, and you're gonna you know you have to worry about maybe getting laid off.

So you want to hedge. And what I mean by hedging is to get in touch with some recruiters who specialize in your space. Maybe find a career coach who could, if you have an interview in a long time, who could help you role play. Get an elevator pitch. Find a resume writer who could punch up your resume and your LinkedIn profile. Reach out to your network of folks who you know, who can maybe turn you on to job leads, get involved with some events, conferences where you can meet other people, so you can kind of get a vibe of, like, what's working, what's not working, you know, what jobs are open, who's still hiring?

So, while you're doing your best at your job, you're simultaneously keeping your eyes open. You get having recruiters look for jobs, for you to look on your own for jobs. Tap into your network to find people who can give you leads, so that this way, if and when you get that call from HR where they're like, Jack, we'd like to speak with you, can you come up to our office at four o'clock on a Friday?

So yes, it's gonna be terrible, but at least you had a plan in place so that when you go home, you're not like, oh my God, I've got to start from scratch and get my resume, my LinkedIn, and who do I call? What do I do? So this way, if you have it all planned out, this is just in case you're like, alright, this is terrible, but I've been planning for it. I have it set. I have things in motion. I've been softly interviewing. I've been going on, you know, some interviews. I've made some connections. I got people looking for leads. So I don't feel that stress and anxiety because I have it going.

Another thing, last thing, even though I'm trying to do Blind Bytes, I kind of probably talk too much, so I go longer. But, the last thing to do: Here's kind of an interesting quirk I've seen over the years. When people are just frustrated, anxious, stressed, feel pressure. It shows. And then, when you interact with folks, whether virtually or in person, they feel uncomfortable with you because like they could feel you're just not you're on edge.

So what you want to do while you're working? If you're in the office or you're doing the video, you just want to smile. Be happy, whatever your boss says, even if he or she is a complete jerk or moron or a micromanager. Let it go all down your back. Don't let it bother you. Smile. Bide your time. Play the game because you want to make sure you don't do anything that jeopardizes you so that you're targeted to be let go. You want to just be. I'm a good guy. I'm a team player. Nothing bothers me. Everything's okay. So, hopefully, you just kind of the same way, being indispensable. You're that person who's just like, yeah, he's cool, let's keep him. So it's a strategy. It's a strategy.

And this is where I will go in-depth with other podcasts, but just to give you a taste of it, with your career cushioning, put aside the silly name; it's really taking control and ownership of your career, not putting it on autopilot, not taking it for granted, not just hoping for the best, but taking assertive action to make sure either you stay with the company and could even benefit from it. Because what happens sometimes, if there's chaos, there's opportunity, and maybe people get scared, and they quit, they leave, they get let go. And you could kind of maybe rise in the ranks, or if not, you want to have a strategy that if you're tapped on their shoulder and they want you to leave, you are ready or set up so you don't panic.

So, I hope this episode of Bllind Bytes gives some starting points. I'm not saying this is everything. This is just getting you started, getting a jump start on this, so you get food for thought. And then you can, kind of, you know, take what I was talking about, but then add to it and do your own homework. And then, do some more research.