The struggling Yahoo laid off 1,000 workers this week. Gone are its vice president of marketing, senior manager of integrated campaign strategy and vice president of content and programming. A few search marketing executives, at least two senior directors, a news general manager and 900 other employees whose jobs came with less newsworthy titles are updating their resumes now as well, while plotting their next move.
Though it’s likely to be little consolation to these folks, but recruiters assure that there are worst things to be than a Yahoo castoff.
“You could be in a worse place than on the street with a resume from Yahoo,” Jim Lanzalotto, vice president of strategy and marketing for Yoh, a talent and outplacement firm, told eWEEK. “A company like this has huge intellectual capital. Good, smart recruiters have been after these people the whole time.”
In fact, it took less than a day for Silicon Valley firms, startups, recruiters and venture capitalists to get the word out to some of these newly unemployed folks: we’ll hire you!
A surprising number were former AOL employees, also cut loose when the company’s finances went south.
But the vast majority of recruiters had ramped up their efforts weeks before the layoffs, zeroing in on Yahoo software developers, user interface designers, project managers and even key executives who may not have wanted to work for Microsoft should the deal go through.
Bruce Brown, managing partner at executive search firm Daversa Partners, told CNN, “Ninety percent of our clients are asking for Yahoo talent, particularly in the last two weeks.”
All of this begs the question: Do you really believe that Yahoo’s laid off workers will have an easier time getting back on their feet than the average Valley worker?