Being An Ex

Now, as a tech veteran, we’re supposed to brag about who’ve we’ve shilled for? My LinkedIn feed is full of colleagues whose title line says “ex-Amazon, ex-Google, ex-Facebook,” as if the collective experience of working at those tech titans is reason alone to hire you. Maybe it is.

I was backcountry camping this past fall (in a group) with a woman who’d spent her entire career, nearly twenty-two years and change, at Apple. I asked if there was truth to that very well known rumour: that once you join Apple, you don’t ever leave. (insert Hotel California joke here.) She admitted that yes, somewhat, that had been her experience and that of many of her colleagues, so she’d have to say yes, probably-so. She went on to caveat things, saying that her generation, (she was nearing 50 years old) was different than the incoming millennials, so to speak, who seemed to be, in her estimation, a little more willing to job-hop in order to better their salaries, better their opportunities, better themselves. Perhaps in the near or far term future we’ll be seeing more Ex-Apple on the title line what with the millennials job hopping, but I kinda doubt it. Apple’s cult is sticky, it runs deep, (I hear that folks marry their colleagues over there!) and, well, you can’t change a culture overnight, or even at all. (Can you?)

With the recent massive layoffs at Twitter and a few other major tech titans, there is plenty of recently cut-loose talent out there, some of whom are looking for work, or hustling up consulting gigs this holiday season. Keep your eyes peeled for the ex-insert-name-here title line, coming your way on the LinkedIn feed near you.