I was laid-off, now what? A Survival guide from a Survivor.

“Lay off”, one of those terms that causes fear to whomever hears it, but somehow, you can think you will never face it because the odds of being laid off are too low. Unfortunately, it’s not that unlikely(even more in these days). Have you ever asked yourself if you are prepared to face something like that?

Illustration by The Super Chunky / Instagram

My personal story

I believe it’s fair to provide some personal context here, the reason why I came with this article, my first one in Medium, by the way. So, I am a Software Engineer since 2016, and I was working on a SaaS Startup since August 2022 as Senior Software Engineer, with the regular ups and downs like any work, nothing specially alarming. And then it happened: without prior notice, a message came up in Slack in May 31st, those who have received a meeting invite for the next two hours, would be affected by a 20% lay-off on the company. I had that meeting scheduled.

The expected feelings came rushing all of them in seconds: fear, sadness, anger and denial. That’s OK, we are humans, but then I tried to hold to that idea that my meeting had nothing to do with it. But it had to do with it and there was nothing I could do about it.

Illustration by The Super Chunky / Instagram

The aftermath

The first thing that crosses your mind is “Now what?”. You start thinking about the following weeks applying to online positions in LinkedIn or OCC, sending emails to recruiters, attending interviews, writing Cover Letters and updating your CV/Resume (if you are like me, who doesn’t keep the Resume updated until you are searching for job). And between those thoughts the impostor syndrome appears:

What if I am not a good [insert your role here] and I can’t get another job as good as this one?

Let me answer this question to you, regardless of who you are: YOU ARE GOOD. Believe in yourself, everything will be OK. However, the syndrome can be really hard to beat, so feel free to talk with your friends and ex-peers to hear their opinion about yourself and reinforce your security, take a look back and list all the achievements you had on your previous work.

Image by pikisuperstar on Freepik.

Use this new challenge as a motivation to get out of your comfort zone and get even better on your thing, but don’t forget to take your time to heal if the economic situation allows it. It’s understandable to feel depressed, unmotivated, stuck or even angry during the following weeks, but the show must go on sooner or later.

In my case, I used the music as medicine, playing guitar and composing songs, created a new band and with part of the severance payment, I will be able to fulfill the dream of my fiancée and me: visit Japan and South Korea for the first time on October this year.

Find whatever helps you, we are not the same, maybe we all should get some therapy, even get some motivational speaks or books, everything is valid here to heal yourself.

What should I do before the lay off?

OK, here’s the reason I wrote this article. I would like to help some people out there to prepare if you are going to face it (but I really hope you won’t). These advices are based on mistakes I made.

• Keep your Resume up to date. Take time each month to provide any relevant updates regarding projects or experience acquired during that month in your career. It’s easier to pick up your updated resume instead of catching up with all the updates since you started on the position.
• Keep emergency savings for at least 3 months. According your currently lifestyle expenses, save at least for 3 months, so if your severance is small, you won’t be worried for paying the bills while you find other job.
• Get recommendations and skills endorsements from colleagues and peers in LinkedIn periodically. You can take initiative and go ahead recommending and endorsing them so they can do it for you or you can simply ask them, they will be happy to do it.
• Keep learning and practicing core knowledge. It might sound dumb, but in my personal experience, I left the algorithms and some data structure concepts to get rusty in my head, so I had to refresh this lessons once again preparing for technical interviews. It doesn’t hurt to keep them fresh and also helps to keep your mind in good shape.
• Get involved with people from other teams/areas as much as possible. You can learn A LOT with people from Customer Success, Design, Sales, you name it. You don’t know if that knowledge is gonna be a nice-to-have criteria for your next role.
• Networking, do a lot of Networking. If you ever have the chance to meet people in your industry or in industries where you potentially might get interested in a future, take it. Probably tomorrow you will be able to get the role of your dreams from one of them. Attend conferences, courses, add them in LinkedIn, sign in to contests, the options are limitless.
• Do freelancing, if possible. This depends on how much time do you have available after work and how much time do you want to spend working after your office hours, but it’s always nice to do freelancing to get some extra bucks, get additional experience, get out of your comfort zone and even do some networking that can be useful in a future.

What should I do after the lay off?

If you, like me, are affected by a lay off, then there is nothing we can do to revert it, but here are some things you can do to get back on your feet as soon as possible:

• If you ever wondered how would things go in a different career path, use this opportunity to give it a shot. Learn that new programming language, get into that UX Design course or start writing that article for your colleagues.
• Spend time with family and friends, your loved ones are the best medicine you can find out there.
• Sit down and make a careful plan to manage your expenses according to your savings and/or severance. Nothing is better than the peace of mind of healthy personal finance. Temporary avoid unnecessary small expenses, even if you feel like you can afford them; in my case, I was able to cancel my Dropbox subscription and a few streaming services.
• Get busy ASAP. Learn a new language, start planning a trip, grab your dusty musical instrument, turn your Playstation on and start that long game that you didn’t had the time to finish. Social media can be an obstacle to get over this situation soon, be careful on that (that happened to me for two months).
• Eat healthy and do exercise. It’s amazing how can we underestimate the benefits of keeping our body healthy, but it helps a lot. Avoiding alcohol, drugs and caffeine it really helps too.
• Get some spiritual or philosophic support. Some people can get more relief from their beliefs and some other can get more relief from pragmatic lessons. I am in the middle of it, and took a big dive into Stoicism, which helped me a lot during my process.
• A lay-off may be similar to a relationship break-up; take time to heal and to get rid of the harsh feelings. Like Siddhartha Gautama AKA The Buddha once said:

“Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”

Buddha’s teachings aren’t just religious advice, but philosophy lessons too.

Don’t be angry with the company, probably this decision was so hard to them. And honestly, it doesn’t help at all to hold bad feelings because of this.

If you are currently looking for work after a lay off, I really hope you find anything soon, remember that all these experiences are lessons that helps us to grow up.

Thanks for your time reading this.