All of us sometimes fall into a funk and create impediments to our own progress. I often hear a job searcher say, "That company's not hiring. They are laying off people!"
This sentiment is founded on a view that "the company" is one monolithic entity. The truth is that a company may be laying off people in one area, and as a result find they need people in a different area of the company.
One of my consulting clients was a major international tire manufacturer. They made a decision to send most of their software development to offshore teams in India and Europe. One can immediately conclude the obvious: this would mean that this company starting giving termination notices to the U.S. software developers.
But that was not the end of the story. Now, with the development teams now 10 time zones away, a new need arose. The company had to build up its skills and staffing in the areas of project management, business analysis and software design to feed those teams. These product activities had to be done in the U.S. so the proper directives and specifications could be sent to the offshore groups writing the software so the project requirements would be met.
The software development positions did emigrate overseas, but the company more than doubled its staff of project managers, business analysts and designers so the proper information was generated to guide the product development of the offshore teams.
When you hear a company is laying off workers or moving work overseas, ask yourself if that could mean the company will have new, or increased, needs in other areas. Visit the Careers page on the company's website and get a sense for a common thread or business area for the job postings. If your skills match those new needs, make initial contact and let the company know that you are a solution for the new challenges they face.
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