Is market really very bad? Is there chance of getting offers from outside? I am one of the unlucky ones who got LRd, my whole team got LRd and started searching for a job.
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Most Job postings I have seen are just market probes. For example a large credit card company posted the exact same role as 12 different jobs for a Distinguished engineer. When I contacted the recruiter they said the role was filled for all of them.
"Please ignore the negative nonsense on this site about ageism, race, gender"
These factors affecting employment opportunities are objectively and provable with data.
@OP and others in search of jobs , I am @hmp+1u83DVBa who responded before.
Another voice of experience:
Please ignore the negative nonsense on this site about ageism, race, gender, blah, blah. Please stay positive keep training and keep looking. Paying heed to conspiracy theories about Cisco and their policies will NOT help you get a job. That will simply depress and demoralise you.
Addendum to my post before:
- People in the UK organistaion who are interested in getting a head-start in AI related stuff: feel free to contact OutShift AI lead at 02nd Floor Bedfont Lakes, Building 10. Stellar guy. Venerable, decent and totally commited. can guide you.
- Reach out to JP Vasseur's team. JP is a guru
- Stay poistive. Harbouring negative nonsense and paying attention to conspiracy theories will not help you.
From my two posts after at least a year, I am almost sure that people who knew me at Cisco know who I am. But that's fine. :-)
Over and out. Now, all the naysayers can feel free to downvote me. I am done here.
Well, we now the USA Gov lied about employment numbers. Not surprising.
We are in a bad recession and have been for over 6 months. Thanks to the labor data being "manipulated" the FED didn't reduce rates when they could have nipped the employment disaster that is in full swing and going to get much much worse.
Be as proactive as you can as fast as you can. Downsize. No new cars. Do everything possible to reduce spending. It's going to be a long road. It doesn't matter who gets elected, the die is cast. The economy is imploding.
If you don't get hit this round, you will in the next ones (if you are in the USA). Act accordingly.
But don't worry about the ELT. They can live off 10's of millions of year just fine. I don't want you to worry about them. Even if some get booted, their severance will be more than 100 average workers make in a lifetime (if not more).
It is not going to be easy, but you will find a new job. However, you are competing against many factors unfortunately:
#1 Cisco experience is not the best on a resume
#2 What you were making and what you will be making is drastically different
#3 You are competing against AI, college graduates, and companies expanding roles of current staff. You 6-figure income may be going to a 5-figure income.
#4 Remote work allows companies to find cheaper labor in other locations. Your expensive area may command 6-figures, but someone in podunk Arkansas can do it for $60k.
#5 Other factors you won't be told is your age, race, political beliefs, religion, etc will all be factors as well. If you are a heteros-xual, white male born before 1985, married in a Christian home, with kids, well you get it.
I am based in UK and must say never seen as bad, feels worse than 2008. I never had issues in finding new jobs paying well now it seems impossible. Sorry to hear about ur role being eliminated, keep looking and hope for the best don't give up.
I don't often come to this site. Left Cisco couple of years ago. Dropped in because of all the noise in media, FB etc. and because I am on PTO today (quiet morning) :-)
It's a tough job market out there for sure. Depends on how senior you are or what skillsets you have and which direction you wish to go career wise. Do keep in mind that Cisco is still a good place to be if you can curve out a corner for yourself and keep fattening your CV.
If you are technical and interested in upcoming tech such as AI, cybersecurity etc. then you may have a better chance than most. I made sure I started off on AI and next-gen security related internal Cisco projects when I was still at Cisco's UK org. That helps.
Face of cybersecurity is changing wildly leveraging AI. Know Encryptions - what they are, the most relevant ones at least : RSA, AES256, SHA256 hash, DES - why use them, why not, especially from a Post Quantum Crypto lens. Know the NIST announcements for PQC that came out last week and all other vendors who have a PQC solution of some sort. For example Cisco has SKIP, Juniper and PAN now has something very similar based on RFC 8784. So does Checkpoint, Fortinet, Google etc. Stay relevant.
More senior you are harder it is to find something even if you are not particular about the pay package and just wish to be employed somewhere. In this case, most employers assume that you are over-skilled and/or too experienced and hence using them as a stop-gap solution and, will leave after a short while.
Hiring decisions are complex and I know experienced people even with PhDs, MBAs who are unemployed for a staggering period of time. Many technically savvy people out of very well known teams are out of jobs right now.
If you are looking into AI/cybersecurity then please know:
- Cybersecurity is no longer FWs, plug and play and hand-waving solutions. It's now XSOAR to say the least and then comes the challenge of deploying security across the unprecedented, complex threat landscape of GenAI deployments. Need to know how to handle threats leveraging AI models across prompt injections, poisoned data (model definitions, inferences, cost of training, handling unknown threats...)
- If you are going for AI related stuff then KNOW the math and the intricacies of the models. Don't worry too much about the code. Coding is the least important part of AI deployments, as counter intuitive as that may sound.
- KNOW why and HOW specific AI solutions will improve business - just ranting AI on ppts will not fly at interviews.
- If you are still at Cisco then reach out to internal teams at ET&I (I think that's called OutShift now) and see if you can participate in projects of your interest during your free time. They used to work on a lot of next gen stuff (AI, quantum, security, distributed computing...), hope they still do. Ask your manager's permission if you do find such a project before joining. Nothing like cutting your teeth in a real life project.
- If interested, then try to get into at least the basics of quantum computing and communications. 2025 is officially identified as the year of QC. Be ready.
- Cisco has a fantastic patent community. Write a patent via CPOL on AI/ML/Security or whatever else takes your fancy and is relevant to Cisco. If it gets approved then you have something published in your name which goes a LONG way to establish your credibility in the field.
- Last but not the least, network and try to get a recommendation BEFORE you apply for a position. But be aware, knowing people at a specific company will not guarantee a job in this market, may nor even guarantee an interview (depends on some of the stuff i mentioned above)
- Know the variations in GenAI related tech. Not everything is LLM and LLMs are not really revenue generation machines as the industry is finding out currently belatedly.
If you are religious, then Pray, and pray hard!
All the best.