I wanted a quick way to see a risk score for any given company regarding layoffs. This is the tool I wish I had when I was looking for jobs! I spent too long comparing options regarding job security / layoff risk with other tools and this makes that process easier.
Hi Spencer, fellow U of U alumni here. I have some thoughts about the site.
I love what your product is offering: searchable lists of layoffs by company with credible news sources linked. There is so much potential to keep adding more useful data here too (for example: severance packages, roles affected, locations, etc). The score concept of the app doesn’t immediately resonate with me since I don’t naturally assume that previous layoffs are indicative of future layoffs, but this is not a dealbreaker in my perception of the app. Some small suggestions:
- At the top of your site you could have a short description of what the site is/does, or a prompt telling me to search by company.
- When number of employees cannot be parsed from the data, replace the ‘?’ With empty space or something more understandable
Good luck!
@joshs_projects Thanks for the feedback! I just added a few of the UI tweaks you recommended :)
As far as previous layoffs indicating future layoffs... We don't have a ton of signals from companies that can tell us if working there will be higher or lesser risk. There's so many factors and most of which are kept hidden from the public. Even when companies are "doing well" financially, they can have surprise layoffs.
But yeah from my own experience, one of the most telling signals is if if they've had recent layoffs. Typically when you have one round of layoffs, future rounds are much more likely - especially in the short term. I tried to reflect that in the app with more weight in the negative given to layoffs within the past year. It's additionally checking the total number of layoffs and the percentage of total employees they let go in determining the risk score.
Not a perfect scoring system, I definitely agree, but I think it does give some insight that could be useful for people on the job market.
If you have any other feedback or ideas on what could make it better or more useful, let me know! Thanks again!
@dotspencer "Typically when you have one round of layoffs, future rounds are much more likely - especially in the short term."
It would be interesting if you could prove this insight with your own data. Then you could turn your analysis process into a prediction model or display your results as a hook to convince skeptics of the app's usefulness. But it's only an idea. I know that sort of number crunching is a complex problem and might not be your next priority.
Awesome! How are you measuring this tho? Isn't the market the biggest factor in this. Like interest rates go up, startups lose funding because VCs can get better return else where etc. Isn't this too complex to predict or how do you do it? Im really curious!
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