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Just got laid off. Now what?
This is my first time getting laid off. Still processing it. My job was starting to feel like a slog so it honestly feels like a burden has been lifted. But a different, more unfamiliar (maybe even somewhat interesting) burden has replaced it - financials.
I know I can file for unemployment. I have to handle some other dumb stuff like 401k, HSA, health insurance. it's kinda more annoying than anything else.
I have some severance but not sure how long it'll take to find a job and I've heard it's hard out there.
I would also love to figure out how to be financially dependent while working for myself but don't know where to start for that.
Looking for any advice from the Tilderino fam.
Sorry to hear that. It sucks, especially when it's completely out of your control. The big thing is to not let it effect your self worth.
I was laid off last summer (software). After the initial shock, it was kind of a relief to not have to constantly worry about it anymore.
It was pretty terrible timing for me, as we'd just started building an addition onto our house and had a baby on the way in 3 months.
I have a spouse whom I could get insurance through, and we could still afford everything on her salary without dipping into our savings, which did make my situation much less stressful than it could have been.
I started job hunting aggressively almost immediately, and it was pretty woeful. Probably 100+ applications in the first month, and I only got a handful of screening calls or interviews. When I finally landed a role, it was actually initiated from a direct message from a recruiter of the company I now work for, I never even applied.
Respond to every recruiter, explore every avenue, make sure you're tailoring your resume when applicable. It's tough out there, but not impossible. But don't be afraid to enjoy yourself either.
Basically my experience since working. Getting a job by applying is pretty much a trap. Since getting my degree it’s been 1x job from direct application (back when the SV job market was red hot), and 3x jobs by referrals. I’m not sure I’d even bother trying to send out resumés if I were looking. The time seems better spent networking, and working my network.
...job applications are a waste of time more than ever these days; only proactive networking offers a rational return on the effort involved...
As a general response to all of the above posts in this comment chain: Broadly speaking, job applications are still very effective in the EU. For anyone not from the States, do not read into US labour market woes as if they apply worldwide.
I nearly fell into that trap but when I started applying places I got plenty of responses, had multiple concurrent interviews, and landed a job of my own choosing in a matter of weeks.
OP is speaking about 401k's so I assume their posts applies to the US, so consider my response as an addendum to anyone else not from there reading this thread. I see you, lurkers.
I don't know what the problem is, but on the other side of the fence, trying to hire people via applications is also a complete nightmare.
When I post a position, I get hundreds of resumes that are nowhere near the requirements of the job, like, not even in the same field. Once I filter those out and choose the best looking few dozen or so resumes, pick the ones that seem like the best fit, I call people and probably 90% of them very obviously just bullshitted their entire resume. After I filter those out and bring people in for an in person interview, very often, all of the remaining candidates were just ok at bullshitting on the phone and don't actually have any experience in what we want, or are just... really off-putting, like I'm concerned for my safety, or they have some other weird thing going on. I had a candidate fall asleep in the middle of a conversation during a half hour interview.
It's just so weird, it's never been this difficult to sift through people to hire someone who is a somewhat decent fit.
It's just a lot easier to poach people that I know from other departments, or get referrals from people I trust. I've been burnt by random off the street hires badly in the past year or two, because it's just so much time and effort to effectively screen due to all the noise, and there just isn't enough time in the day to weed through all of it in a satisfactory way.
Probably only a contributing factor but I suspect there could be a match-making problem here. When quite literally every person and every companies attend to the same handful of platforms, there're just too many options to sift through for both sides. So one side has to resort to spray-and-pray, while the other needs to add more convoluted screening processes.
Edit: Possibly there's an over-representation problem too, the bunch of unqualified candidates that you saw were likely the same ones many other companies saw, because they likely also send out their resumes more often.
damn your timing was terrible! glad you made it through thanks to sound financials. which job boards did you look through?
LinkedIn was my primary tool - though if I saw a job that was a good fit I would typically apply through the company's actual website (if they had one). But I used basically every job board I could to try and find jobs I was particularly well qualified for.
The big problem now is there are tons of AI tools that mass apply to everything, so it's very hard for recruiters to filter through them. So my method is definitely not optimal. The best way is definitely knowing the right people or getting referrals, but that's not always possible.
I don't know if it will help you, but a lot of great people with great skills have bad resume writing skills. I mean absolutely terrible resumes. When I was looking for work, someone helped me shape up my resume and I have helped many people with their resumes over the years and I would be happy to help you as well. DM me if you would like help. As others have pointed out, many jobs are found through networking, but still: you shouldn't be sending out a resume that tacitly disqualifies you from the job you want and should have.
My s/o just found a job after being laid off Aug last year, something that helped his mental health was keeping himself busy with projects not related to work.
He basically had 3 projects going the whole time, 1 was job hunting, 2 was a project meant to teach him how to use AI to code, and 3 was he learned to cook.
The cooking was great, we saved a ton of money, it tasted amazing every time, it took his mind off not having a job and it made him feel useful. 100% recommend
This is such solid advice! This will keep you sane (not staring at a monitor all day thinking you need to be constantly searching) and teach you skills that actually make your life better in the long run. That’s inspiring.
I am so sorry to hear that.
Before I get into advice, here's a bit of a laugh. When I woke up and checked my socials as I do, I saw this post and missed the "off" part, and opened this post entirely thinking the title was "Just got laid. Now what?" and was momentarily confused when the top comment was "Sorry to hear that."
But more seriously, it's good that you feel a weight has been lifted, that just shows it was probably for the best.
Take it one day at a time, clean up and update your resume, look into some self hosted job-searching assistance software. There's a couple AI assisted ones out there that will automatically tailor your resume to each job posting using common resume ranking logic. Whatever your stance on AI is, companies are now using it in recruiting.
The two that I'm aware of is Job-Ops and Career-Ops but I'm sure there are more. Both of those help you find, track, and apply to jobs and job listings.
haha thanks for the laugh and the advice!
What skills do you have? People that can start a successful business usually have 2 or more skills that intersect well. But mostly what you'll need is time and effort. If you have a lot of savings and can spend a year or two exploring options then you could make a reasonable attempt at starting a business. As for how, it doesn't need to be super complicated. Get an LLC, a company bank account, and start providing goods and/or services to people. Just keep good financial records. I used Stripe Atlas for my LLC which ended up being free after Mercury gave me a promo for opening an account with them through Atlas. The taxes are actually pretty simple given I have no employees so it's a pass-through entity.
I appreciate the walk through. can you give an example of intersecting skills?
I like to think I can pick up most things. so far as a hobby I've done photography, videography, light editing, 3d modeling (very basic), and my profession is programming.
Consider YouTubers. They are typically professionally skilled in video production (99th percentile) and have more like 95th percentile hobby skill in the topic their channel is about. This is the general formula I see for cooking channels. They’re great home chefs but couldn’t compete in the fine dining industry. But if you can do a basic recipe well enough and present it excellently that’s the sweet spot for YouTube.
I’m trying to get into small-scale manufacturing. I plan to have a ton of nice websites for different product lines I’ll sell. I’m a professional web developer. That means I can have a 99th percentile buying experience - which I think is where leverage is most powerful. I’ve been learning a lot about fabrication recently and have way more access to tools and machines than the average person thanks to where I live and the friends I’ve made. But I’m not a professional machinist, mechanical engineer, electrical engineer, etc. Thanks to modern tooling I don’t really need to be. There are open source platforms for building CNC machines. You can just buy things like pick and place heads. The hard problems have been solved. I’ve been a hobbyist with electronics for nearly my whole life and put together quite a lot of interesting electronics projects of my own design. I also have physical products I’ve been making by hand that are in demand but wouldn’t make sense to produce by hand full time as I’d be making close to minimum wage.
that's awesome. I also considered getting into CAD and manufacturing but the upfront cost/time sink (if you build your own CNC) is huge.
Eh I think it'll be <$5k. But yes it'll be at least a few months full time trying to make it work considering I'm planning to make my own electrostatic work-holding surface with no prior experience. I'm not making a CNC mill to be clear. Just a computer controlled machine.
Talk to people. Network. Reach out to everyone on Linked In. Message everyone on Facebook, on Instagram, whatever socials you use. Let others know. You never know where the next lead may come from.
The other thing I'll tell you, though this is more of a future recommendation, but always be prepared for layoffs. I hope your finances are in order and you've been at least somewhat planning how to handle this. If you didn't, use this as a learning lesson for the future.
I know it's easier said than done, but try not to be too down on yourself for this. Be positive. Find other projects (as someone said learn how to cook, work on your car, start hitting the gym twice a day). While your main job now is to find a job, but don't let it be the only thing you do. And give yourself a break, watch that Netflix show you haven't had time to watch. Read those few books that have been on your list for years. Go on that road trip you've always wanted to go on!
And last, remember other people who've also been laid off. When you hear others have lost their jobs, reach out to them. Talk to them. Get coffee with them. Meet with them over zoom. The last time I was in this situation, guess who helped me find my next job? It was a coworker who was laid off several years before and I reached out to him after he was laid off. We'd just chat here and there, I bought him coffee a few times. And when I was laid off, he remembered I was there for him and he helped me get a job at his company.
I always got work from word of mouth so if you made some friends along the way maybe hit them up for a favour. Granted things are different out here in the country. God bless rural Canada been keepin me employed blue collar or white for years.
...it's always hard financially, but the first time is also pretty hard mentally; by the third time it feels pretty feels routine and easy to shrug off...keep your spirits up and your perspective impersonal, like a routine career adjustment: it makes a big difference...
My advice for anyone is if you don't have a strong LinkedIn community, start building it now. If you do have one already, use it to your advantage for talking to people you actually know to find a new role. I had a 80% conversation to interview rate for direct connections or friends of friends. And a less than 1 percent interview rate with cold applications.
#1 thing I would say to you (based on experience!) is: Do not wait to start searching for work. In my case: I got let go, got some severance, and thought: "Severance should last me S months. I'll take some down time for N months, search for work and land a job in N+M months, for N+M < S." Reality: "N+M > S". I should have set N = ~0.
#2 is get comfortable with using AI (LLMs in particular) if you're not already. I don't see this tech going away, and I think more and more workplaces will be looking for people that are experienced AI users.