hiring managers are not that dumb ... if you prior job is amazon, and you are applying for a new job 2 months after 18K have been laid off - they can put 2 and 2 together pretty easily. Even if you did leave on your own accord, they will likely assume you were let go.

It's almost always easier to get a new job, when you still have one.

Maybe. They also might see the opportunity to get some inside skinny on Amazon, and anything they pay you will be cheap compared to the value of the intel.

I've seen good people get laid off. So I certainly don't fault people for being laid off.

Plus, being an ex-FAANG is a huge bonus when applying for jobs at "normal" places or starts ups.

>Plus, being an ex-FAANG is a huge bonus when applying for jobs at "normal" places or starts ups.

YMMV on this one, depending on what you consider "normal" companies (non-tech, non-coastal, non-advertising).

Plenty of those hiring managers have their own opinions about FAANG employees

Any hiring manager who thinks that getting laid off in 2023 is some kind of black mark against you is dumb.

Some people are being laid off for performance. Most are being laid off because they were unlucky.

Well, they actually ARE that dumb (because they don't care), and it's none of their business. I had a 13 year track record building a series of apps with a user base of over 500K as a solo dev before I was laid off because of corporate mismanagement of funding. I interviewed with 9 companies, received offers from 4 before I stopped looking, and was still in the race for the remaining 5.

Hiring managers don't have time to be super sleuths. If your interview and reference process can't weed people out, then you shouldn't be in charge of hiring people. Either way, the person who gets laid off from Amazon is going to have already shown the capacity to jump through a dozen stupid hoops by sheer process of being offered a job to work there.

I agree with this as a hiring manager who has reviewed hundreds of resumes in the past. I'm not going to say that I wouldn't hire someone who had been laid off (good people get laid off too due to bad luck), it's a data point that could make me not want to hire them in light of other signs.

But if you're a big executive, "wanted to spend more time with my family" is a popular one.

"Need to explore other opportunities" is a little weaker but still works.

"This chapter in my life is over" is also popular.

I think I should make a bingo card out of these.

Many people would assume you got laid off if your creative differences happened to coincide with the layoffs.

As a hiring manager, I wouldn't even ask a question around departing an old company, whether they were laid-off or not. I'd have questions that were more along the line: "what will you miss from your old company, work day, etc." "what do you imagine your new role/work day would look like." "What won't you miss", etc...