Looking for a New Job? Follow the Pink Slips

From the Wall Street Journal | Oct 26, 2009

By ALEKSANDRA TODOROVA FOR SMARTMONEY

Bristol-Myers
Squibb intends to lay off 113 full-time employees at its facilities in
Evansville and Mount Vernon, Ind. Sun Microsystems plans to eliminate
3,000 positions world-wide in the next 12 months, and Expedia expects
to close a call center in Tacoma, Wash., leaving roughly half its 170
workers unemployed.

For job seekers, those companies - and others making headlines with
work-force cuts - may not sound like the most fertile territory when it
comes to landing a new opportunity. But just the opposite may be true:
Companies cutting jobs are often hiring in some areas, even as they
shrink in others, which means they can be overlooked but potentially a
smart place to hunt.

In the case of all three big names above, for instance, the
companies' latest job listings show a substantial list of openings. Sun
Microsystems had 43, Bristol-Myers listed 165 and Expedia, 166.
Bristol-Myers and Sun declined to comment. In a statement, Expedia said
it plans to relocate some of its affected employees to Bellevue, Wash.,
and others will be offered the opportunity to move to Las Vegas.

Hiring and firing employees simultaneously isn't unusual, says John
Challenger, the chief executive officer of outplacement firm
Challenger, Gray & Christmas. "Larger companies, especially, are
big, complex organizations, often with many different lines of
business," he says. "It's certainly not impossible for a company to be
laying off in one area of their business and be holding steady or even
growing and doing selective hiring in another."

That's particularly common at companies that relocate facilities -
warehouses, production plants or even headquarters - in order to cut
costs, says Jared Lubitz, president of AllPinkSlips.com, a job search
engine that also tracks layoffs.

For example, earlier this month, Wichita, Kan.-based Coleman said it
plans to move to a larger new warehouse in Gardner, Kan. That's great
news for workers there, as the company expects to hire 200 people for
the new facility, but bad news for its Wichita employees, who will lose
their jobs. Company spokeswoman Delaina Lee declined to disclose the
number of Wichita employees who will be affected.

Other employers simply use the economic environment as an excuse to
clean house, Lubitz says. "Whether it's to clean out senior-level
leadership that's just been making too much money or cut costs in
anticipation of tougher times down the road, they'll start to hire
again shortly after," he says.

At some companies, the cuts represent strategic moves to swap out
"C" players for "A" players, says Seymour Adler, a senior vice
president in the Human Capital Practice at Aon Consulting. "They are
exploiting the economic environment to find great talent."

However, at most companies, such staffing dynamics are simply the
result of haphazard layoffs. If a company fires too many people too
fast - or with no regard to the strategic value of their talent - they
will find themselves "scrambling around to hire people to plug in the
holes that they've created," Adler says.

What does all this mean for job seekers? To start with the obvious,
if you're unemployed you shouldn't automatically write off
opportunities at companies that are in the news for letting people go.
Chances are, there will be job opportunities elsewhere within the
company. But that doesn't mean you should let your guard down
completely: If given the opportunity, use a job interview to ask about
the reason behind the recent layoffs and how they would affect the
position you're pursuing.

The company could be eliminating outdated positions and looking to
expand in areas more suited for today's business environment. A
publisher may be cutting editorial positions, for example, while adding
video- and web-production ones, Challenger says. Financial institutions
may still be trimming investment-banking positions, but seeking out
risk managers. And law firms may be getting rid of lawyers specializing
in corporate mergers while adding ones with bankruptcy expertise. These
days, knowing which areas in your field are growing - and, if possible,
acquiring the skills and training that's required - may improve your
chances of finding work more quickly.