Career cushioning: A trend gaining popularity at the time of layoffs

Career cushioning: Experts suggest that it's never too late to start cushioning your career as it is all about adding multiple layers of new knowledge, making good connections, updating and preparing a decent job profile.

Career cushioning: Career cushioning is the practice of creating a backup plan at a time of growing job risks. (Representative image from Reuters)

The news of layoffs in major software companies like Meta, Google, and Twitter in the past few months has created tension among salaried individuals. While on one hand, layoffs have grabbed our eyeballs, similarly, quiet quitting and moonlighting also stirred some major controversy. While the salaried class is dealing with several such issues, one new term — “career cushioning” — has gained prominence in the job market.

What is Career cushioning?

Career cushioning is all about having some control over one’s career trajectory.

Career cushioning is the practice of creating a backup plan at a time of growing job risks.

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Yogita Tulsiani, Director & co-founder of iXceed Solutions, says, “Career cushioning is the process of looking for more security in the chosen career and preparing for a sudden layoff. This can be done at the start of a career to start planning for a job search or by aggressively looking for a new job that feels more secure.”

Experts suggest that it's never too late to start cushioning your career as it is all about adding multiple layers of new knowledge, making good connections, updating and preparing a decent job profile.

Experts say that at a time when concern is growing due to mass layoffs in companies like Amazon, Meta, Facebook, Twitter, and Cisco, and the fear of recession gripping the minds, job security can’t be guaranteed.

Growing fear of layoffs

For the last 3 months, several tech companies have laid off employees to cut costs or in the name of "rebalancing" acts.

Meta, Twitter, Intel, Cisco and other major companies have already announced major layoffs. Amazon and Google are in line to announce mass layoffs.

At least 800 tech companies worldwide have laid off about 137,492 employees, and the tally is only going growing by the day.

Job layoffs and recession are traumatizing and scary, but they’re less stressful when you’re prepared. Take action to cushion your career, asserted experts.

What the employees have to say?

When Zee Business spoke to several employees from the IT industry, one trend seems very evident: the growing sense of lack of job security.

Atikant Singh, who has worked with the IT sector for the past 10 years, said, “Career cushioning is not wrong, it's just that an individual is preparing himself or herself for future growth. We try to update ourselves to cater to the need of the ever-changing industry. ”

Even several other employees from the software industry seconded his thoughts.

"Career cushioning is not a new concept, every professional and even students do it to upskill themselves. But this came to highlight because of the current layoff scenario,” said Abhishek Sinha, a team lead who has been working in the IT sector for 8 years.

How can one do career cushioning

"It all comes down to investing in yourself, which includes developing new skills based on your marketable strengths and opportunity areas, upgrading your current skill sets, maintaining connections with your professional network while developing your personal brand, keeping up with industry trends, and, most importantly, being prepared for new opportunities," said Vikas Kakkar, founder of Amara.ai.

Also Read: Tech Lay-Offs: Are you working in one of THESE 'recession-proof' industries? Experts advise how workers can prepare for job loss, slowdown in employment market

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