Life After Layoff- A Millennial Mom's Story

I went from having a job that I love in the tech industry to now being a full-time stay-at-home mom trying to not only figure out distance learning but also trying to cope with my layoff and the emotions that came along with it: worthlessness and losing a part of my identity. But, thankfully, my children are keeping me busy, because on top of being a Wife, Mother, Unemployed Techie, I am now adding Home School Teacher to my resume.

And after 30 days of homeschooling my kindergartner and preschooler, I have a newfound appreciation for teachers. It crushes my ego when my six-year-old son tells me, “No, Mommy that’s not how you teach! Ms. Son does it better and does it this way.” instead of dwelling on the fact I may not teach up to the standards of his teachers, I feel comfort in knowing that this is an experience I can cherish. One of my dream jobs growing up was to be a teacher, and now I can live this dream by helping my children learn from home. 

But, of course, this shift in home and work life was not without major growing pains. Everyone has different coping methods to deal with anxiety, stress, and depression. And when I was laid off, I was surprised by how much of my identity was tied to my job and lost with it. I can remember the day when I received the news, I ran into the kitchen and started bawling in front of my children.

 My son ran into the kitchen to see what was wrong and asked, “Mom what’s wrong? What happened?”  I looked at him and said, “I just lost my job, they let me go because of COVID.”

My son who had just recently celebrated his sixth birthday ran into his bedroom and grabbed his wallet and told me: “Mom everything is going to be OK, I have $20 I can help you and dad pay the bills. (I actually share a video discussing this experience last month that can be seen here.)

The moment he told me this, I realized everything was going to be OK. I have my family, kids, hubby, a roof over my head, and I have my health. I was not going to let this layoff take over me. The moment my son told me this, I wanted to show my children that despite losing my job, your career does not define you as a person! My job was what I had to do to make a living, but it was not my complete identity. I wanted to take this opportunity to show my children, how to handle rejection, and how to plan your comeback.

After a week of moping around and feeling sorry for myself, I started doing what I do best: I started interviewing people within my network to understand how this pandemic has impacted them. I taught myself how to edit videos and I started sharing their experience through video storytelling and asked them questions like:

“How has this experience been for you with social distancing?”

“Do you have a newfound appreciation for things? And if so, what are they?” 

“What have you been doing with this extra time? Have you picked up any new hobbies?

“How are you pivoting your business during this pandemic?

For some reason conducting these interviews gave me a sense of purpose and my overall mission was to build community and share stories of inspiration and hope. This also helped me set a routine for myself; I would conduct one or two interviews each week and post a video once a week on my social media channels. The feedback I received was so positive that I decided to keep creating more content for my network to look forward to.

In addition to picking up new skills such as video editing and learning about social media strategies, I started rediscovering myself by reconnecting with old passions and hobbies like dancing and acting. Once I discovered TikTok, I couldn’t stop creating fun videos for my friends and family to enjoy! I found it was not only a great creative outlet for me, but I also found it therapeutic and gratifying to know that my videos brought a smile to peoples’ days. I would receive so many messages on a daily basis from my friends saying that my videos and TikToks helped bring some light to their day and helped distract them from the chaos and craziness of COVID.

I’ve always been creative and creating content was a great way for me to experiment and had the added bonus of helping me overcome some of my anxiety and grief from my layoff. But once I was staying up until 2 am creating TikToks once the kids were in bed, I realized I needed to be more productive with my time. Yes, it’s great making videos for my network to enjoy, but after a month of trying to be a TikTok influencer and failing, I started to think about what was next for me. With the uncertainty of what school would look like in the fall, I also started thinking: What if I am not able to go back to work full-time?

After reviewing our finances and calling our bank to see what programs they offered for mortgage assistance, I realized that thankfully our family would be OK with my husband’s income. Things will be pretty tight--we wouldn’t be able to go on fancy vacations, but it’s not like we could travel anyway since COVID had disrupted all of our vacation plans.

My husband and I talked about the possibility of me looking for work, but after realizing that distance learning may be our new normal for some time, we both thought it would be best that I stay home, for now, to help support my children transition into distance learning. I also thought this would be a good time to invest in myself and launch a business-- I just didn’t have a clue what my business would be. Little did I know, it was staring right in front of me all this time.

 About a month or two after my layoff I started receiving calls and texts from my friends and family asking me for help on their resume and prep them for interviews. Even though I lost my job, it didn’t mean I lost my career. Although I wasn’t part of a team or receiving a steady paycheck, and didn’t have employee benefits, I still continued to work and continued to help people.

Everyone within my network knows me as the go-to person for anything related to job search, career advice, and networking. I continued to offer help to friends and family with their job search and then suddenly after having a discovery call with a Business Coach (highly recommended if you feel lost in your career/business), I had my “Aha” moment. 

I was going to start my business as a Career Strategist! Was I crazy to start a new business during a pandemic? No! Just passionate and driven and maybe partially crazy (just kidding!). I knew with my years of experience in recruiting, I could apply what I have learned from being in the industry to so many job seekers out there.

If you are a job seeker that need's help with their job search, let's hop on a call so I can learn about your goal and see how I can make an impact! book your strategy call here.

I never had a plan to start a business after my layoff, but all of the actions I was taking to help cope with the emotions of my layoff would lead me to finally launch a business I have always dreamed of. Build With June was born and I am so excited to share this journey with you! Stay tuned for what’s to come, this is only the beginning. Sometimes the best things are right in front of you; it just takes some time to see them.