Who survives in a down turn?
It's not the folks who are "pragmatic" its not the folks who give up...
You work with two people, Bob who punches the clock and Bill who puts in the time to get the extra work done. You move on to a new job and your boss says "we need someone new on your team, Bob and Bill are here".
You're not picking Bob, Bill gets your vote.
Dont be an asshlole be known as at the hard worker, be helpful (maybe have to do some extra work)... your going to get picked when people are looking. Your old boss is part of your network, and so are your peers (who might end up your boss)...
All those people who are survivors, who put in extra work, have strong networks who know that they are strong hires in a tight market.
In the layoffs I've been through, it's just as often that it is Bob who gets the vote.
Not for any reason, it's just random. Bill rolled a 1 somewhere, in that layoff. Better luck next time … if there is a next time.
Nobody is picking. Nobody is choosing, or making rational decisions. Just one day, hey, this entire subtree of the org is just simply laid off — individual performance had nothing to do with it. Or other versions of this that are just equally as obviously random.
Yes, the survivors might have put in the extra work. But what the person above you is saying is that that wasn't why they survived.
The comment you're replying to isn't talking about the layoff round. It's talking about what happens next, when someone from the team gets hired elsewhere and the boss says "we need more people". Who gets brought in?
This is a very common scenario in our line of work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias#/media/File:...
"It can also lead to the false belief that the successes in a group have some special property, rather than just coincidence"
