Episode 527: I lost my job after 10 years and am I too old to switch to a security career?

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p>

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<p>Hello Dave and Jamison!</p>

<p>I’m a longtime listener going back to the early days of the podcast, and I’ve listened to every episode since. When I started listening, I was beginning my career as a software engineer. Your advice has truly helped shape how I think about work, engineering, leadership, and all the weird human stuff that comes with building software.</p>

<p>Now I’m more than 10 years into my career, and I’ve run into a problem that I suspect many experienced engineers are dealing with right now.</p>

<p>In episode 521, you talked about how brutal the current job market is, and the question asker from that episode had been unemployed for a year. I’m thankfully not there yet, but I recently lost my job in a large layoff, and the first couple of months of searching have been pretty discouraging.</p>

<p>I’m applying to roughly 10–20 jobs a day. I tailor my resume to each role, ensuring it accurately reflects the skills and terminology in the job description. I usually include a cover letter too; AI gets the privilege of writing the mediocre first draft, and then I rewrite it into something I would actually say.</p>

<p>Despite all of that, I’ve only made it past the resume screen three times so far, one of those was through a referral, and several other referral applications have gone nowhere.</p>

<p>The strange part is that I’ve tried applying across the whole spectrum:</p>

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<li>Roles that would be a step up, where I think I could do the job but haven’t held that exact title before</li>