👋 Welcome, Jobseekers

"Success has a way of attracting people who disappear in storms."

Meta just waved $300 million carrots to swipe OpenAI’s elite, Microsoft is showing 9,000 folks the door, and fresh data says job openings are finally crawling back. Today’s issue breaks down how to spin a talent war, a layoff wave, and a sneaky spring thaw into the biggest offer of your career, with a little help from HubSpot and three killer AI tools.

• 🤝 Sponsor: Hubspot

• 📉 Layoff Report: Microsoft laying off ~9,000 employees in latest round of cuts 

• 🧑‍✈️ Career CoPilot: Meta’s Mega Money Move: Why OpenAI’s Brain Drain Matters for You

• 📈 Trends & Data: Job Openings Edge Up—Is the Freeze Finally Thawing?

• 🔧 Jobseeker Tools: BeFreed, Jobseeker, Jobscan

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📉 Microsoft laying off ~9,000 employees in latest round of cuts 

Microsoft is laying off approximately 9,000 employees—about 4% of its global workforce—as part of a cost-cutting and restructuring effort that primarily impacts management layers and underperforming divisions like Xbox gaming and sales, while the company continues to shift resources toward AI and cloud investments.

• Microsoft laying off about 9,000 employees in latest round of cuts 

• Myst developer Cyan Worlds is making more layoffs 

• Klue lays off 40 percent of staff as startup faces internal and external AI pressure  

• Rivian cuts dozens on manufacturing team ahead of R2 launch 

Meta’s Mega Money Move: Why OpenAI’s Brain Drain Matters for You

When Mark Zuckerberg wants your talent, he brings a checkbook big enough to get Twitter buzzing. Over the past week Meta quietly signed at least seven senior OpenAI researchers, including vision gurus Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov, and Xiaohua Zhai, to power its brand-new Superintelligence Labs. Reported offers? Up to $300 million over four years, with more than $100 million vesting in year one.

OpenAI isn’t taking it lying down: Sam Altman told staff Meta tried dangling nine-figure “bonuses,” while CTO Andrew Bosworth insists only a handful of leadership roles see sums that high – and they’re mostly stock, not suitcases of cash. Either way, the message is clear: the war for AI talent just went thermonuclear.

What this means for you

• Total comp is a four-year game – Don’t get dazzled by headline numbers; model vesting schedules, refresh grants, and dilution before you celebrate.

• Mid-market AI hiring just got permission to splurge – When giants raise the ceiling, startups follow. Stack your portfolio with tangible ML wins now.

• Negotiate for resources, not just cash – GPU quotas, research publishing freedom, and team autonomy can out-value a bigger base.

Bottom line: Super-size paychecks aren’t reserved for Silicon Valley demigods. The skills behind them – shipping real AI products and scaling infra – are learnable, marketable, and negotiable. Arm yourself, and you might not snag $100M, but you’ll grab the biggest offer of your career.

Job Openings Edge Up—Is the Freeze Finally Thawing?

Overview

Employers posted 7.8 million openings in May — the second straight monthly uptick and the first back-to-back gain since 2022.

The Details

• Mini-streak: Job openings have risen for two consecutive months, bucking a two-year slide.

• Quits crawl up: The quits rate nudged to 2.1%, hinting that a few more workers feel bold enough to jump ship.

• Pink-slip drought: Layoffs held at 1%, a level that still screams “job security.”

• Sector standouts: Transportation/warehousing & utilities, plus finance & insurance, logged the biggest opening gains — likely fueled by pre-tariff inventory builds and talk of lighter regs.

Why It Matters

After months of “hurry up and wait,” hiring managers seem tired of indecision. They’re green-lighting roles now and trusting themselves to pivot later if tariffs, geopolitics, or policy twists demand it. For tech jobseekers, that means:

1. Momentum beats perfection. Recruiters are under pressure to fill seats quickly; be the candidate who can start (or interview) next week.

2. Look beyond classic tech hubs. Logistics, utilities, and finance are quietly loading up on tech talent to modernize ops before July’s tariff changes bite.

3. Stay résumé-ready. A low layoff rate means less churn-to-hire competition — strike while the market’s still skinny on active seekers.

Bottom line: Employers are choosing action over analysis paralysis. If you’ve been waiting for “the right moment” to re-enter the job race, this surprise spring thaw might be it.

BeFreed

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Jobseeker

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Jobscan

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