I was laid off during dot-bomb and was lucky enough to land a good (actually better) job through someone I knew pretty quickly. Pay wasn't great and they barely came through dot-bomb themselves later. But whatever.
I can't say I was surprised when it happened. I knew things weren't going well and I wasn't really bringing in business. Was actually happy to move on except for the fact that the job market was really tough at the moment.
But, yeah. Under most circumstances knocking yourself out isn't worth it most of the time. I have had some product launches and on-job site projects where I sort of did for a while and that was OK. But don't make a practice of it in most cases.
Yeah, I think the first email I dropped was to this guy who owned a small company we had been a client of in an earlier role. He invited me up to lunch and was there with his (later) COO. It was basically a casual interview. Later, we discussed some contract work but he basically decided to just hire me. Which was nice because it was basically nuclear winter during dot-bomb--nothing else that even vaguely resembled a lead.
I think this sort of thing bugs a lot of people here because they think that some sort of theoretical skill assessment should be what matters. But that's not how the world works for the most part.
I can't say I was surprised when it happened. I knew things weren't going well and I wasn't really bringing in business. Was actually happy to move on except for the fact that the job market was really tough at the moment.
But, yeah. Under most circumstances knocking yourself out isn't worth it most of the time. I have had some product launches and on-job site projects where I sort of did for a while and that was OK. But don't make a practice of it in most cases.