Surviving a Layoff, the First 3 Weeks
If you’ve recently been laid off, it’s normal to feel overwhelmed and unsure of what to do next. If you feel unprepared and shocked, you’re not alone. Forty percent of all workers have been laid off before and nearly half said they were unprepared. Since January 2023, there have been over 43,000 WARN notices nationwide and over 4.7 million layoffs. A layoff is a challenging position to be in, but it doesn’t have to be paralyzing. Here is how to survive your first three weeks after a layoff and turn your life from surviving to thriving again.
Week 1 - Clear Your Head and Get What’s Owed to You
Step 1: Breathe
Don’t panic; there are always job openings. You may have to pivot into a new field or industry, but the economy is always fluid. When it feels like your world is crashing around you, remember when one sector goes down, another one usually rises to replace it. When the recession of 2008 hit, construction and manufacturing jobs were lost, but quickly replaced by other sectors such as healthcare and hospitality.
Change is often violent, but many times it is the thing that propels us to discover something better for ourselves. During the Covid recession of 2020, Cole Sperry who ran a recruiting firm was forced into an overnight meltdown with all their openings being paused by clients almost overnight. This was unexpected and unwanted, but it was the impetus that Cole needed to shift from recruiting to resume writing and coaching. Today he says he has more time with his family, less stress, and feels like he’s making a difference beyond lining company pocketbooks with more revenue.
Step 2: Grieve
Admit what happened and that it was not your fault. You are going to go through the normal grieving process that everyone goes through with any kind of loss. You may feel that this was your fault or that you could have prevented it in some way. It’s not and you couldn’t have. Your self-esteem may take a blow. Be prepared to go through this process:
You’re going to feel shocked. Take time to absorb it all.
You will feel angry. Be angry, it’s ok. Tell someone.
Next, you’ll feel resistance.
Then comes sadness. Have a good cry.
And finally, you’ll accept it and you’ll move on to something better.
It’s important to remember that you may not work through these five steps in a linear method but bounce back and forward. Give yourself the time you need to adjust. Don’t be ashamed. And find people to support you. Get the word out about what happened because the sooner you find support from family and friends, the sooner you will get through this and bounce back better.
This isn’t a setback. This could be the thing that launches you into something better and forces you outside your comfort zone to do what you were designed to do. And, this period is temporary.
Step 3: Take Inventory
Take stock of your current position. How much cash do you have? How long can you afford to be unemployed? This is a critical step because it will determine your short-term and long-term plan to get through this. If you have a short runway, you may need to take something outside of your ideal role temporarily to extend that runway. If this is the case, then your plan shouldn’t be to invest all your energy in targeting your “dream job", but rather the next step. It’s ok if there are a couple of steps between you and where you want to go next. Taking smaller steps to get there will feel better in the long run and imagine the story you’ll have to tell others later! Planning is everything and you need to know what you’re working with. Preparedness also will reduce anxiety.
Besides your own personal finances, take inventory of the items owed to you. Check the following items and follow up with human resources or accounting/payroll at your previous employer:
expense reimbursements
severance payments
outplacement services
commissions
sick leave and vacation accrual payouts
a letter from HR that you were laid off and not fired (on company letterhead preferably)
And lastly, don’t forget to file for unemployment and review your health insurance options.
Week 2 - Reflect, Learn, Plan
Step 4: Reflect
Take the opportunity this week to truly reflect on your career and path. Ask yourself:
What do you want to do?
Where do you really want to be in five years?
What lifestyle do you want for yourself and your family?
Once you figure those three questions out, you need the plan to get you there. Keep in mind that what you really want to do may not be the next step. There may be a few steps in between. But take stock of the gift you’ve been given and take this opportunity to start working toward what you want. One recruiter we spoke with was laid off during the Covid recession. It was only because of that layoff that they were able to reflect and make a pivot into marketing. They made a plan and decided to target marketing positions at recruiting companies and at agencies that worked with recruiting firms.
Step 5: Learn
Learn from your experience. One truth we should never lose sight of is all jobs are temporary. Never get comfortable. You can be the top performer making President’s Club today and be laid off tomorrow due to market forces outside your control. Always be open to opportunities and keep your prospects close. A business would never put all its stock in one customer or one account. You shouldn’t either. Go on the occasional interview. Talk to recruiters. Start a side hustle. Diversify your options.
Step 6: Plan
Now the housekeeping activities start. To set yourself up for success, you should research the jobs you are interested in. Are they with industries that are growing or shrinking? How many opportunities exist? How fierce is your competition? If you don’t have much runway and need to land a new job soon, you’ll want to target jobs and industries with growth, lots of opportunity, and minimal competition. Examine sectors within industries too. If big tech is laying off tens of thousands of people, perhaps tech startups are hiring in droves. Planning now will ensure the next few weeks feel good and are successful.
Consider setting up job search accounts. You may want to set up a Gmail account or Google Voice number specifically for your job search to protect your privacy. Remember all this information is going out into the world every time you put your resume on a job board or social media.
Lastly, create a schedule for yourself. In the absence of a job, you will need some form of stability, predictability, and accountability. You’ve just been promoted to manager and CEO of this job search. This schedule may be fluid over the next several weeks as you identify what works and what doesn’t for you, but in general, you’ll most likely want to include the following in your daily schedule:
Time to craft and improve your resume, LinkedIn, cover letters, and messaging
Time to review job board leads and apply to openings
Time to network with your current connections and build new ones
Time to engage with your community on LinkedIn
Time to continue learning and participating in events and projects to keep your skills sharp
Time to reflect weekly on your search and examine what works, what doesn’t, and what you should change
Time to research target companies and conduct outreach activities
Time for you to relax and shut down the computer
Week 3 - Execute
Step 7: Collateral
Now that you have a plan, it’s time to build your tools.
Resume
Most people find a pretty template online and start plugging away their information. Don’t do this. You will want to take your time and get this resume right. If you can afford it, in almost every instance hiring a qualified resume writer will produce the quickest and best results. Resume writing is foreign to many people and learning the skills of copywriting, psychology, and recruiting necessary to pull off a great resume takes time. That is time you could be spending on activities that naturally align with your skills such as researching companies or connecting and building relationships.
If you can’t afford a resume writer, utilizing a course that pulls together all the resources for you is a good second bet. This is also a great option for professionals who want to and have the time to learn resume writing skills. Resumes have changed greatly over the past few years and in a crowded job market, you’ll want your best foot forward.
LinkedIn Profile
If a job search was an airplane, your resume and LinkedIn profile would be the engines that propel it. Ninety-five percent of recruiters use LinkedIn to find candidates. Constantly searching for job leads will get tiring. Having recruiters come to you with the right opportunities will help it feel less tiring. Even if you’re not using LinkedIn to find jobs, the majority of companies will look you up on this platform. The lack of a presence or profile could be damaging to your candidacy. Investing in your profile now will ensure more of the right recruiters find you for the jobs you want, more recruiters view your profile and reach out to you for job opportunities, and provide hiring managers with the information they need to feel safe about offering you that job offer. Check out these 5 free tools that will help you update your LinkedIn profile.
Outreach Messaging
Your outreach messages to recruiters and other professionals for informational interviews will change as you customize it in each situation, but a best practice is to craft an outreach message template now which will save you time later.
Cover Letter
Similar to your outreach message, your cover letter should also be customized each time you use it. However, now is the time to set up an effective cover letter template so you’re not rewriting it from scratch each time you want to use one. And you will want to use one. Seventy-four percent of hiring managers prefer one and over eighty percent read them.
Here are four situations where you may want to use a cover letter.
Career Changes
Tier 1 Job Prospects
Referrals
Tackling Things That Disturb the Hiring Manager
Thank You Email Template
The final piece of job search collateral you’ll want to prepare ahead of time is a thank-you email template. By preparing this ahead of time, you’ll save yourself precious time later when you’re in the weeds of the job search. If you need help writing thank-you notes, this article will walk you through a step-by-step formula to write yours.
Step 8: Rally
Rally your connections. People will be key to your success, not job boards or pieces of paper. Find the people that will support you and ditch the ones who won’t. Get the word out that you are on the job market and let people know specifically what jobs interest you. If you don’t have a large network, start building it. Relationships take time so you want to use a process that helps you weed out relationships that won’t produce reciprocal results. And don’t forget to have a system to stay in touch with your network.
Join a job seekers support group. Many people make the mistake of going it alone, but joining a community of job hunters facing the same challenges as you have been proven to lead to better and faster outcomes. A support group can help you expand your network, improve your confidence, and give you a safe place to vent all that frustration - because we all know job searching is hard. The groups can be online or in-person. Many are also offered by Alumni Centers at universities so be sure to check with the school you graduated from. You can also create your support group. Make a list of who you know that can support you and reach out to them. This doesn’t have to be anything formal. It could simply be a group of people you meet over Zoom once a month or you meet at the coffee shop downtown.
Keep expanding your network. Make lists of who you know, what companies they work at, and who you want to know. If you can find a common connection, it will make expanding your network easier.
Lastly, avoid negative people. Job searching is hard enough without others’ constant negativity. They won’t help you.
Step 9: Find Quality Job Leads
There is a lot of advice about the “right” way to job hunt and what works and what doesn’t. Networking works best. Job boards work best. LinkedIn works best. Ignore all of it. What works for you may not work for someone else. This is because you have a unique set of skills that may make you better at some activities and worse at others. You want to leverage your skills. Focus on what you are good at and what works for you. For everything else, hire professionals to help you or spend time improving the skills involved.
The goal should always be to connect with as many people that have the power to hire you and the desire to hire you. You need to find job leads for jobs you are well qualified for and have a message that will pique a hiring manager’s interest. The best plan involves diversifying your activities and then keeping a score of what is working for you. Some days you may find a dozen quality job leads, other days you may find two. You’re looking for quality. Some ideas that you may want to incorporate into your job lead plan include:
job boards
social networking sites such as LinkedIn
other networking events (both virtual and in-person)
workshops and webinars
trade shows
And don’t forget to stick to your schedule. Create a schedule that has a mix of these activities and prioritize the ones that generate the best quality job leads
Step 10: Upskill
If you have the privilege of upskilling during this time, take it! Use some of your time to fill in skill gaps. Many people take courses online to do this, but courses alone won’t help you make big career moves. Spending money on courses is an excellent choice if you need to learn knowledge. What you do with it afterward will determine your success in this job hunt. Once you obtain new knowledge, you want to find ways to apply it. Most employers don’t value knowledge as much as they do experience. You could gain experience by freelancing, working on sample projects that you can then leverage into a portfolio, offering to do a free project for a friend or business owner, or volunteering with a non-profit organization.
Upskilling is often a luxury for professionals who can afford it. If you can’t afford it right now, make a plan to upskill once you get back on your feet with a steady stream of income.
In Summary:
Take the first week to regain your bearings, process what has happened, and take inventory of what your employer may owe you
Use your second week to get back in touch with yourself, and your goals, and chart a plan to live your #optimlife
Week three should be all about execution. Put together everything you need for this job search and start working hard. It will be hard work.
Keep in mind that this schedule may not work for everyone. You can expedite it or spread out the 10 steps over more than three weeks. Do what works for you.
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