Dave Atkins was officially laid off Wednesday from Spire, an Internet media company where he worked as a technical operations manager for two years. But Atkins began blogging about his layoff weeks ago at blog.davewrites.com, and in his newfangled job search he has heavily used social media like LinkedIn and Twitter. Atkins, 41, recently started a consulting business, Dave Atkins Media! A MIT graduate, he worked in Silicon Valley from 1995 to 2002 before returning to this area. He is the editor of Westwood Blog. He lives in Westwood with his wife and three kids and is the family's breadwinner. Atkins says his layoff "has made me realize that there's no security in a job," but he has also decided he can always land on his feet by being "more engaged with a lot of people."
Q: You heard your layoff news on Nov. 23. During that company meeting, you began texting your friends on Twitter and got your first job lead?
A: We had a company meeting, and while the CEO was explaining the reason for the layoffs, I used my cell phone to Twitter to a friend of mine that I was now looking for a job, and he sent me a message and said he knew a recruiter who was trying to fill a position. Ultimately, that job didn't pan out, but it did illustrate the potential for making connections online. When I found out that I was going to need to find more work, my first reaction was to start using all the tools I could find to communicate with people, let them know about my availability.
Q: So blogging about your job search and putting yourself out there on Twitter, LinkedIn and Blitztime was a natural move for you?
A: Yeah. I've been blogging for two years at Dave Writes, and Westwood Blog is 1 year old. At Dave Writes, I've talked a lot about career issues, and so this was a big wake-up call on managing my own career. I wrote a piece about the start of my job search, and I circulated that. Personally, it helped motivate me to get moving, to talk about it publicly. I started off with that, and then I began blogging about my two different strategies - to find another technical operations manager position, but also to start a consulting business. ... (Westwood Blog) led to my first consulting project. Not directly because of the blog, but because I'm out there and people can see the way I talk about stuff and what I do - they can see my work - it makes it easier to consider hiring me, whether it's for a job or for a consulting project. The blog and Linked In, Twitter, Blitztime, and Facebook, they all provide a way to show what I'm capable of doing. Instead of just sending a resume to somebody, and that's the first contact they have, they can see the history of what I've done - I put myself out there, and it's not a secret that I'm looking. And so it's a little different approach than previous job searches.
Q: What advice do you have for other people who are in your situation, given the broader economic environment as '09 begins?
A: Stay as positive as possible. There's a lot of people being laid off, but there's also a lot of opportunity. ... Don't blame yourself for being laid off, and realize that there are opportunities because there is so much changing right now.
