Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

I was LRd in the fall of 2019. Impacted employees were told we'd be given priority for open internal reqs but I never felt prioritized by the recruiter for a minute. Did have several interviews but nothing panned out and my time was up. However, I did get re-hired 3 months later (& had to re-pay a portion of my severance package). Three lessons learned: (1) Don't mention you're on the LR list during your interviews if you can avoid it. (2) Don't show desperation in keeping your job at Cisco during your interviews. (3) It's not what you know it's who you know.

@qwa+1k5zRUIK If he’s one of the rare good managers he’ll probably be laid off too.

I happen to know for a fact that my team has an open req currently and the hiring manager has stated to us and the recruiter that although people are already applying to the req, he doesn’t want to really start interviews until after December 12th… he purposely wants to give folks affected by the LR a fighting chance to try for the role. He doesn’t want to entertain external candidates at all. So there ARE good hiring managers (and actual req’s) out there folks.

If you are in RTP who gives a cr-p. There's over 15k unfilled jobs in tech right now. A severance package in RTP is a windfall for anyone. If you can't find another job in RTP then the limiting factor is your own skills

Notification and termination dates are very different.

US, and Canada?, employees will be notified on Mon, Dec 12 that they are being laid off. There will be two options, the details of which have not yet been disclosed, but basically amount to opting to being terminated in early Feb and taking a larger severance package OR opting to look for internal jobs and being terminated in mid-Mar if you fail to find an internal transfer, upon which time you'll get a smaller severance package that is reduced by the number of additional days you stayed employed between the early-Feb date and the mid-Mar date.

They've said that the severance package will be the same total amount regardless of your separation date, so you can opt to leave early, especially if you've found another role at another company between being notified and Feb, or you can opt to leave late so that you can still contribute to your 401(k) and get that 4% matching for the extra 4-5 weeks. And possibly accrue 18-19 hrs of additional PTO for the 3 extra pay periods you're still an employee. Or they may be giving people who take either option the same accrued PTO hrs based on the later termination date.

But, if all things remain the same from previous LR's, once you are terminated, you can't be re-hired for 6-mo, although I've heard about some exceptions being made, but it takes a lot of red-tape and high-level approvals and most directors, sr. directors, VP and SVP's don't want to go through all that extra effort. If one of them wants you that badly, they've have pulled strings to get you hired into a new internal role before you got terminated.

So far, the "party line" is that Cisco is encouraging managers and directors to fill their open internal req's with potentially departing employees, but as other's have said here, all the req's are still open externally and they're bound to take the best candidate that applies, internal or otherwise. Why would they take a lesser candidate? There's a strong perception that managers are being quietly encouraged to not look at internal candidates, or at least not hire them but interview one or two for form's sake so they can say they tried.

The ELT said in the Cisco Check-In the day after the LR was announced that the "Talent Migration" plan had not worked as well as they had hoped it would, which is what has led to this LR because they failed to pull enough people from areas that are losing money into areas that are making money, or have the potential to do so. Is that a "white lie" and the whole Talent Migration plan just a whitewash coverup, that's for you to decide.

Hope that helps clarify things.

yeah, in India.

Yes