Layoff and Job Change Resilience: Good Endings, Strong Beginnings

Think for a moment how you’d react if your boss called you in, asked you to close the door, and told you that tomorrow would be your last day with this company. What do you experience? What do you do?

Handling the next hour, day, week, month well can help you better meet the next stage of career and life. 

Before I start suggesting things that you might try, let me acknowledge that this may be a big challenge because sudden job loss, even if you’ve been dreaming of doing something else, can bring powerful grief and anger. In layoffs, you did not get to choose the time and conditions of your leaving, and you may feel outrage that they don’t appear to value your contributions. Whether you chose to leave or not, you may miss the people that you’ve gotten used to working with. 

Look at yourself with compassion, do what you can, and forgive yourself the rest.

It’s a Small World

As you prepare to leave, remember that the high-tech world is not that big. The colleagues that you are leaving behind today may be your colleagues or even bosses in another company in the future. So, it is practical to think about leaving a good taste in their mouths when they think about you. You may have impulses to sabotage things on your way out, particularly if you feel unjustly treated. But consider the potential cost to you in the future if you express your anger in ways that leave the word “destructive” in people’s minds when they hear your name.

Saying Thank You on the Way Out

One friend was laid off from a long-term executive position. He wrote gratitude notes to each person with whom he had worked closely:  his boss, his boss's boss, peers, direct reports. He wrote about what he was taking away, how they helped him, what he learned from them.  He reflected afterwards that this helped his ongoing career because he maintained relationships. 

Your boss may feel embarrassed about laying you off and therefore not want to think about you. My friend replaced that discomfort with appreciation, making it easier for them to stay in touch without embarrassment. He also found that it helped him feel less like a victim to focus on the benefits he was taking away from the company.

Endings color the memory of the experience for you and for others. If you run into these people in your next job, what do you want them to remember about you?

Demonstrate a Professional Attitude

An executive commented that it was always very tough to lay people off. Whenever someone showed an understanding of the business reasons for the layoff and did not take it personally, she would think, “If a person can have a professional attitude about something like this, then how wonderful a person is that to have on a team!” Her ability to write strong recommendations was enhanced by the feeling that this person knew how to put the needs of the team first.

Think about Your Direct Reports

Many people wish they got more recognition from their supervisors. If you have been managing people, think about any recognition that you’ve been too busy to express. Perhaps you might consider writing them LinkedIn recommendations either before you go or soon after. Who knows when you will see them again?

Nurture Your Network

If you have the opportunity before you leave, take time to get LinkedIn connections with people you’d like to stay in touch with. LinkedIn is like an online roll-o-dex where the other person maintains his or her contact information. You can stay in touch even if they leave the company and get new email addresses. It’s harder to look up organization charts and email addresses once you're out of the company. 

What’s Next?

An end is also a beginning. It’s a good time to think about questions such as, “How do I really want to show up in my next role?”  Use your imagination to get excited about possibilities and what's next. When you think back about your old job, when were you most excited and engaged with the work you were doing? What were you doing? Who were you working with? What would you like more of? Less of?  Perhaps, this is an opportunity to find a job that has more opportunities to use your unique skills and abilities.

Job Crafting

Whether you are leaving by choice or by layoff, a job switch can be a time for a fresh start. When I went off to college, I told everybody to call me Kathryn, leaving the name Kathy behind (except for my mother). In more serious terms, how might you have become typecast in your previous job? Are there things that everybody expects you to do because you’ve always done them, but now you’re tired of them? Just because you’re good at them doesn’t mean you want to do them forever. Think about how you were seen and how much of that you want to retain, how much you’d like to leave behind. Now is a chance, for example, to rewrite your resume to describe old accomplishments in new ways, highlighting the aspects of the work that you most want in your next role.

Put It in Perspective

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that this is not all about you. In a layoff, there is a business reason dictating your separation. Hiring supply and demand fluctuate. I remember in the late 1990s that my company was hemorrhaging people. We had headcount that we couldn’t fill, talented people were leaving, and everybody left behind was struggling to keep up with the unchanged demand for work. After the tech bust in the early 2000’s, many of the people who’d left for startups came back. Then just a few years later, waves of layoffs started. Whole departments were eliminated, functions were consolidated, and many people found themselves in a place affected by cuts.

Putting it in perspective can help you avoid having your confidence undermined and feeling that you are being personally rejected. If you look around you nowadays, it is not uncommon for topnotch people to have experienced one or more layoffs. You are not alone. 

Take a Deep Breath and Move On

I am well aware that this easier said than done, but if you can shift your attention away from what you’ve lost towards what you may potentially gain, you are more likely to have the energy to make it happen. 

To summarize briefly, here are steps you can take to move forward well:

• Leave the people well. Behave professionally, express gratitude, write recommendations, and build your network.
• Envision the job you most want to perform next. Reflect on what you want to do more of and what you want to do less of.
• Put the whole experience in a perspective that maintains your confidence.

There is no shame in being laid off. It has happened to highly competent people who have moved on to jobs that were even better fits for them. May that happen to you.

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Acknowledgments: Any wisdom in this piece emerged in a discussion among Silicon Valley Change coaches about helping clients face job changes, voluntary or not. My thanks to Shannon Polly, Lisa Zigarmi, Senia Maymin, Doug Turner, Julie King, and David Pollay for the stimulating discussion. Among us, we have experience both of being laid off and of being the manager that does the lay off.

Image credit: Photo by Jeremy Goldberg on Unsplash