‘It was a complete surprise’: former Hootsuite manager following layoffs

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — Disappointed, but not bitter. That’s how one of more than 100 people laid off by Vancouver-based Hootsuite describes losing the job she’s had nearly three years.

The former employee  — who asked to remain anonymous — says she’s leaving on ‘positive’ terms, but she had no idea these cuts were coming.

“It was a complete surprise,” she says. “I was actually in the process of hiring and I was kind of hitting some roadblocks and I thought that was kind of weird and that was about a week before ’cause usually the recruitment process works quite quickly? I felt something was up when that was being put on hold.”

The former customer marketing manager says Hootsuite’s Singapore office is now closed, but it’s still not clear how many co-workers in Vancouver lost their jobs.

“I was completely caught off guard. You know, a big focus for them this year has been the product and on customer retention and because I sat under the customer team, I definitely didn’t see my job being at risk, but apparently not. There was me and another manager on the customer team who were let go.”

RELATED: Hootsuite lays off dozens of workers: report

She tells NEWS 1130 she’s confident she’ll have no trouble finding work.

“I’m going to enjoy ‘funemployment’ for a little bit, sort of think about my next move. I know there’s been a lot of awesome outreach on, like, LinkedIn and from the tech community, both in Vancouver and elsewhere,” she adds. “It’s good to know that there’s a lot of people that see value in a Hootsuite employee.”

The former employee adds she has a lot of respect for CEO Ryan Holmes because he’s always been really transparent about the company’s future and as far as she knows, the company is not currently up for sale.