Just got laid off the other day - definitely came as a shock but I suppose it was only a matter of time. Other than the obvious, was curious how people dealt with this. What are some good strategies to get back on your feet quickly? How did other people overcome their layoffs and end up succeeding. Would love to hear some success stories as an extra boost of motivation.
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why are you hijacking this dude's thread with a completely irrelevant question...
Sorry my brother, you’re gonna be okay and I’m praying you land something great soon. I haven’t gotten laid off but have hit rock bottom a few times in the past. Not exactly the same I know but maybe similar enough that I can offer a couple pieces of advice.
1) Pick up a physical activity and start getting better at it daily. Build yourself up physically. I remember being completely dead inside, hopeless, defeated, yet still dragging myself to the basketball court or the gym. 6-7 days a week. Seeing myself get stronger and stronger over the days weeks and months instilled so much momentum and helped rebuild my confidence because I was literally rebuilding myself brick by brick. That confidence spills over into every aspect of your life and you get that feeling of progress and forward energy. Which helps…
2) Move forward. Focus on the future. Think about where you’re going, not where you been or where you are now. Don’t think, just act. Set up a schedule for yourself, plan what you’re gonna do every day to get yourself where you wanna go, then do those things every day. As long as you make the most of every day, turn your brain off and allow yourself to consider the day a success. A well spent life is just a series of well spent days my man. You got this.
Been laid off before. My advise and 2 cents. If you ever get a random meeting with a director and no context (and the director won’t give any prior to meeting and his assistant either doesn’t know or won’t say), 9/10 it’s a meeting with HR and likely this. If you ever do get it, this is what I recommend. Print out anything important that you would need. Save anything that you might need to request access to (performance reviews, HR files, etc…).
Also, and this is to all employees hired within a year, check your company’s policy regarding vacation days carrying over. Most banks give 8-10 weeks of severance for analysts/associates. You can sometimes extend that by 2-3 weeks depending on your company’s vacation policy (if they let you carry over 15 days from previous year like my bank, that equates to 3 more weeks of pay). When you’re out a job, you want to conserve as much cash as possible, so this simple idea works out well (if you get laid off the year after doing this, you’ll end up getting paid the 15 days plus a pro rated amount of the vacation days acrued this year as well!).
Regarding getting back in the grind, you’re going to want to take 1-2 days just to relax and clear your head. Despite what useless HR will tell you, a layoff/firing is 100% personal to an employee. You will want to calm yourself and react appropriately. After that, update your resume if not already updated, and start applying. Give yourself a goal. Apply to XX amount of jobs per day. Schedule a solid 2 hours to just applying, 1-2 hours of emailing and LinkedIn searching, and then The rest of the day to relax. Job searching is now your new temporary job. Take it seriously and you will be on your feet before you know it.
Great advice, this worked for me. Good luck man, you’ll be good. Be super aggressive in applying networking outreach all that. You have great experience to use and were doing well before to get the job initially
Also, make a spreadsheet with all the jobs you applied to. Note the company, job role, application date, and status. That way you can track if you are still waiting to hear from them, rejected, first round, second round, etc….
I am not kidding when I say I have gotten 3 first rounds solely because I reached out to HR and said I applied a month ago and they got back thanking me for reaching out and getting back to them