I left Amazon, came back, and was laid off. My old job-search strategies no longer worked — here's what did.

Jack Nguyen worked at Amazon for over seven years across two stints before being laid off in January. He subsequently rejoined the company a year later but was laid off again in January. After being laid off, he started job searching immediately and found the process more difficult than before. Nguyen shared his experience of securing a new role within months and offered advice for other tech workers.

This interview, conducted as-told-to, features Jack Nguyen, a Deloitte employee in his 40s residing in Virginia, who previously worked for Amazon before being laid off in January. The following account has been edited for length and clarity. In January, Nguyen learned he had been laid off from his engineering role at Amazon after spending more than seven years with the company across two separate stints.

While he had not been directly affected by the company's significant layoffs in 2023, his concern for job security had increased. The company's implementation of a return-to-office mandate in late 2024 felt like a soft layoff, encouraging employees to leave voluntarily. This policy, announced by the company's top management, made Nguyen believe Amazon might be reducing headcount.

After being laid off, he began looking for work after about a week, despite still receiving garden leave paychecks and knowing severance was forthcoming. He decided to start the job search right away, finding the real-world job market to be quite challenging. Nguyen faced intense competition, experienced ghosting, and observed companies increasingly using AI to screen résumés before a person could even be interviewed.

In previous job searches, he could simply update his LinkedIn profile to indicate he was open to work, update his résumé, and submit cold applications. However, this time around, the majority of the interviews he landed came through referrals or people within his network. One strategy that Nguyen believes was crucial to his success was posting about his layoff on LinkedIn, which connected him with a referral for an engineering role as a project delivery specialist at Deloitte.

In March, after several rounds of interviews, he secured the job. Nguyen now works in a more customer-facing role, helping clients achieve their business goals, and enjoys the greater flexibility in his in-office schedule, allowing for more time with his family. His advice for other job seekers is to rely on their network, reach out to people they know, ask for referrals, and continuously build their skills to market themselves more effectively.