SINGAPORE – Online community Xoogler.co, which was set up in 2015 to help Google alumni and current staff navigate the start-up ecosystem, but has since expanded to help those laid off in a recent wave of retrenchments, has seen a surge in its membership.

Founder and Google alumnus Christopher Fong said there are currently more than 27,500 members, nearly double the 14,800 who were part of the group just before the tech giant announced layoffs worldwide on Jan 20.

Mr Fong told The Straits Times that around 12 per cent of the new members were laid off from Google.

The support provided by Xoogler includes one-to-one and group peer support, as well as networking events and a job board where interested companies can hire former Google staff.

Mr Fong said he plans to extend support to those laid off by other companies, by providing them with the platform Xoogler uses. This is a community membership app where people can sign up for events and communicate in chat groups.

“Once we finish testing, we will open it up to other tech communities and eventually other communities,” he said.

“It shouldn’t only be Google alumni that get to benefit... Other communities can also help their own during this time of need, once they get the blueprint from Xoogler.”

Google laid off about 190 employees in Singapore in February, accounting for about 6 per cent of its workforce of around 3,000 here, according to former employees.

The retrenchments affected those working on several tech products, including Google Pay, Google Cloud and Google Analytics, as well as several corporate divisions, including finance, legal, and trust and safety, they had said.

According to Google, the Singapore cuts were part of a wider exercise of 12,000 retrenchments worldwide, announced by chief executive Sundar Pichai in January, but the company had not shared the number affected in Singapore.

Xoogler members said they found it useful connecting with recruiters and fellow Xooglers. The members wished to remain anonymous.

A retrenched staff member, who worked in sales and business development roles at Google for 10 years, said: “The network created a sense of belonging without the fear of being judged.

“Hearing stories of how others have bounced back from similar situations gave me hope and a sense of purpose.

“The jobs-related networking events and job postings in the community pages give me hope that companies are still hiring.”

He added that Xoogler brought in recruiters who helped refine resumes, update LinkedIn profiles and run mock interviews.

Another retrenched Google worker, who attended job networking events, said: “Meeting recruiters from so many top and desirable employers within just two weeks (of joining) was incredibly helpful for hope and morale.

“These events provided me assurance that there is a community available to (give) support during this transition and is very reassuring.”

Said another: “The resume workshop and doing our resumes together were really helpful for someone who didn’t actually need to create one in the past 15 years.”

Another said that talking to recruiters in person was helpful. “It helped me get a sense of the hiring climate and the culture of their companies.”

Mr Fong said that since 2015, the network has helped hundreds of Xoogler founders get funding and get connected with investors.

The community kept evolving. “It started with start-ups and investors, then others wanted content and community around being a solopreneur, marketing and other programming,” he said.

“Expanding to help those areas and now serving those that need a job was fairly routine since we had the experience in helping other sub-communities. We’re continuing to refine our offerings to ensure we can assist with our community’s needs as much as possible.”

Mr Fong said that a day after the layoffs were announced in Singapore in February, Xoogler held walks in the park, interview preparation sessions and group coffee sessions, which have continued on a regular basis.

It also launched a job website shortly after the layoffs were announced in the United States.

More than 200 volunteers help run the global Xoogler community, including 90 peer support volunteers trained by a former director of mental health at Google. Five volunteers manage the community in Singapore.

Mr Fong said he hopes to support more start-up founders and find a permanent space for regular events at Xoogler, such as a cafe or co-working space.

Some have tapped Xoogler Slack channels for opportunities. A former Google senior software engineer, who left the company in 2021, said he joined a health tech start-up as its co-founder after he saw the opportunity on the channel “#founder-dating”.

“The network across the entire Xoogler Slack is enormous and extremely valuable. I had thought about going to business school to find co-founders, but was glad I had the Xoogler ecosystem to lean on,” he said.

“More recently, I used the “#jobs-hiring-misc” channel to hire a founding engineer. There are a lot of talented ex-FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google) folks looking for jobs right now.”