9 actionable steps to take after being laid off

Sarah Doody [00:00:00]: Hey there. I’m Sarah Doody, host of the Career Strategy Podcast. Many professionals are seeking more impact, flexibility, growth, and let’s face it, getting paid what they’re worth. But how do you unlock this in your career? It starts with strategy. I’m taking you behind the scenes of what’s working for my career coaching clients. You’ll hear strategies and actionable, yet sometimes against the grain, advice for how you can be the CEO of your career and stop dreading Mondays. Ready to level up your career? Let’s get after it. Welcome back to another episode of the Career Strategy Podcast.

Sarah Doody [00:00:42]: Cast. Today’s episode is really inspired from a lot of questions that I’ve been receiving lately mainly around what are the things I should do if I was laid off. So I thought about this and I put together a list of 9 things that I personally would do if I was laid off from a job today. So we have a lot to cover. I wanna dive right in. Make sure you save this episode to be able to come back to it later. And if you have a friend who was recently laid off, this would be a great episode to send their way. Alright.

Sarah Doody [00:01:20]: Number 1, I would get mad and I would give myself time to process my feelings, my thoughts, my frustrations, etcetera, so that I get it out of my system, out of my head, and I can go into the remaining steps with a little bit more clarity and calm instead of being in a chaotic and kind of uncertain, mindset. So for me, what does this look like? When things happen that make me mad, I often give myself a certain amount of time to be upset, whether that’s 1 hour, one day, one week, whatever it is, You decide for you. And during this time, I would also encourage you to talk to trusted people in your inner circle, whether that’s friends, family members, current or former colleagues, whatever it is, just to process this because this is a big life event, and you don’t want to let all those feelings and thoughts really fester inside of you. So number 1, get mad. Number 2 would be to evaluate my finances. If you’re laid off, finances start to run through your head. Right? And it can be easy to be a little bit not a little bit, a lot stressed out about the financial future. So instead of approaching this kind of blindly, what I would encourage you to do is set aside some time to review your budget or make one if you don’t have one and think about what are expenses that I could cut right now, put on pause, reduce, and I would look at any savings I have or emergency funds.

Sarah Doody [00:03:15]: So I could really look at how long of a time do I have until I truly need to be concerned. Because it’s very easy to start panicking if you are laid off, but if you take some time to evaluate your finances, you may realize you have more time than you thought you did. Or on the flip side, you don’t have as much time as you thought you did. And reviewing your budget and auditing expenses are both great things to do in the moment when you are laid off, so you can be operating from facts of the reality of your situation versus worrying when maybe you don’t need to be as worried as you initially were about your finances. And this will help you avoid getting sucked into panicking, which often happens when we don’t operate from facts. Alright. The third thing I would do is I would update my resume and my LinkedIn. And, specifically, these two things because they are the most likely first touch points that people will have with you once you start putting the word out that you are looking for a job.

Sarah Doody [00:04:31]: Right? Eventually, you’re gonna start telling people. You might be more active on LinkedIn or in communities. And one of the first things people are gonna do is visit your LinkedIn and or look at your resume if you’re applying to roles. Right? Your LinkedIn and your resume are really where the first impression is formed about you. So you wanna make sure that first impression is strong, that it is consistent between your resume and your LinkedIn, and that it is up to date. It’s possible you haven’t updated your LinkedIn or resume in some months or maybe even years. Now is the time to do it. And in doing so, you’re starting to get your mind thinking about the things you’ve been doing in the past, And the mental work to update your resume and your LinkedIn will also serve you once you start getting interviews because you will have thought a little bit more deeply about what you’ve done in previous roles.

Sarah Doody [00:05:37]: Of course, then after you update your resume and LinkedIn, if you have other career materials or sometimes I call them career marketing materials, such as a work portfolio or presentation, that would be a great thing to update too. Now chances are you may not show anyone that work presentation or portfolio until you get to an interview or start applying to jobs. So I would prioritize my resume and my LinkedIn first and then start working on that portfolio or work presentation if you have one. Alright. So number 4, I would write a vision statement or what I often refer to as a compass statement for my career and my next role. Now you can think of this as an about me statement or some little way that you would describe who you are and what you do. And the benefit to having this vision statement written down is that the very act of writing it is forcing you to get specific about what you do and what you want to do in the future, especially in terms of any deal breakers such as type of company, size of company, specific industries, etcetera. Because let’s say you work in tech and you work as a UX or user experience researcher.

Sarah Doody [00:07:07]: Your vision statement should not just say I’m a UX researcher because though that does have your job title, it’s not quite specific. Some researchers focus more on quantitative or qualitative or some researchers are more focused on enterprise versus Sarah products or b2b versus b2c products, different industries even. So this vision statement should not just be your job title. It should be describing the specific things you do and have experience doing within that umbrella kind of of your job title. And the reason that it’s really important to write this vision statement is because the more specific you can be at identifying and communicating what you do and what you want to do in the User, that is going to help other people help you, which is what we’re gonna get to next. So number 5 is you wanna make an open to work post on LinkedIn. So LinkedIn has this feature where you can toggle on open to work to let people know you’re open to work. Now here is the thing.

Sarah Doody [00:08:23]: If you are worried that your boss or colleague might see this, if you still currently have a job, There is a setting in there that says only make my open to work status visible to recruiters and hiring managers. That’s how you can get around the chance that your current employer might see that. So turn on the open to work, and the reason is that sends a signal to not only people in your network, but people who are using LinkedIn Recruiter, which is the paid tool within LinkedIn that recruiters and hiring managers use to organize and find candidates. And one of the filters in there is whether or not people have the open to work banner on or off. Because if you have the banner on, then chances are you might be more likely to reply if that recruiter reaches out. Right? In the same way that you’re trying to not waste time in your job search, they are trying to not waste time finding candidates. And so LinkedIn makes it possible for them to prioritize people who have that banner on with the intent that those people are more likely to reply because they’ve raised their hand and Sarah, I’m looking for a job. Okay.

Sarah Doody [00:09:52]: So you wanna turn on the open to work toggle on your LinkedIn profile. But here is the thing, and this is really, really important. You don’t just want to post the default open to work post that LinkedIn will allow you to post when you turn open to work on, and here’s why. Because how many times have you gone to LinkedIn and scrolled through your feed and seen the same open to work post every single couple of posts. Right? You know what I’m talking about. It’s there in your feed all the time. You aren’t really gonna stand out if your post is kinda the same of everyone else’s. If you take the time to add a couple of sentences to that post, you have higher chances of standing out because your post won’t look like everyone else’s.

Sarah Doody [00:10:46]: This is why in our last step where you wrote that vision statement or compass statement you can now use some of that vision or compass statement in your open to work post. So you might need to tweak it a little, but you can let people know what you are looking for. Because if you just turn on, the open to work and make the post, all it’s gonna say on LinkedIn is essentially, I’m open to work. Right? Whereas if you say, hey. I’m a UX researcher. I specialize in qualitative and quantitative research for SaaS products in the financial industries, that’s very specific. And that is going to help other people help you because that gives them more of a focus for what you are looking for and it allows them to really be your eyes and ears and bring you opportunities that might be more aligned with those exact criteria and avoid a situation where they’re bringing you, you know, a bunch of academic research roles or research roles that are not b to b, business to business. They’re more for business to consumer companies, and maybe you don’t wanna do that.

Sarah Doody [00:12:03]: Alright. So you’re gonna make that open to work toggle on and do an open to work post that you customize. Alright. Number 6 is to send personalized emails to friends or former colleagues or people in your professional network and potentially personal network too that might be able to help you now. Here is the thing. You don’t just wanna email people and say, hey. I was recently laid off. Let me know if you see any jobs.

Sarah Doody [00:12:34]: Because the problem with that is that if you haven’t talked to these people in a while or if they’re not really clear on what you do, they won’t really be able to help you. Right? They don’t have anything to go off of in terms of what you’re looking for. And let’s be honest, they might know that you work in research but they might not know the nuance of, oh, you work more on qualitative research for Sarah products in finance. Right? They won’t know that unless you tell them. So you want this email that you send to friends, former colleagues, etcetera to go something like this. Let them know that you were recently laid off. As a reminder, here’s what I do and I’m looking for and then tell them what you’re looking for. Right? That’s going to help them help you and spot opportunities that align with what you’re looking for and hopefully avoid scenarios where they’re sending you a bunch of opportunities that really are not a match.

Sarah Doody [00:13:42]: So you wanna personalize those and send those out to people individually. Bonus points, if you add something at the beginning of the message that is personal such as, hey, I saw that article you wrote, or, oh, it’s great to see you at that conference we were at 6 months ago, or some type of I call it an anchor, you would call it an iceberg, but something to make a connection and show them that you didn’t just cut and paste the same message to 20 people. Alright, Number 7 is to be active in communities, most likely online, but potentially offline as well. And the reason that I love leveraging communities is that when you make one post in a community, a lot of people have the potential to see it. So it’s really a leverage game here. Right? Leveraging the reach of posting in a community and having that be seen by multiple people versus in the previous step when you send 1 on 1 emails to people, that’s important, but it’s a little bit more time consuming. So being active in communities, what you can do in these communities depending on the rules and make sure you read the rules so you don’t get kicked out, But many communities have channels or spaces for helping people get hired and swapping job opportunities and things like that. So if you have an idea of companies you wanna work at, you could post in those communities, finding out if anyone works at those communities.

Sarah Doody [00:15:26]: You could be posting all or part of your vision or UX compass statement, again, to let people know who you are, what you do, and what you’re looking for. But the real benefit here is that with one post you’re able to reach a lot of people and it’s a great leverage of your time now. Here is the other thing, communities have a bit of a give and take aspect. Right? If you are not contributing to the community, number 1, people aren’t going to know you’re existing, right, because you’re never going to show up in the feed. Whereas, if you’re contributing to a community even once a week, that is gonna help you build credibility, trust, and visibility with people in that community so that if you do ask for a referral because you know people in that community work at JPMorgan Chase and you want to apply to a job there, they might be more likely to reply because you’re a familiar face in that community and not just someone that swooped in and is now begging for referrals. Right? So you have to remember to give and take in communities. Alright. Number 8 is bit of a productivity hack here.

Sarah Doody [00:16:44]: It’s to time block your activities. So if you’ve been laid off, you know, there’s a lot of tasks on your to do list. You can quickly be overwhelmed, which leads you oftentimes to procrastination or let’s face it, inaction. So here’s what you could do. I love time blocking and batching my tasks. One way you could do this is to have a certain day of the week before certain activities in your job search. So I just made a list. Maybe on Mondays, it’s all about connecting.

Sarah Doody [00:17:19]: Right? You’re sending those emails. You’re being active in communities. You’re maybe doing online or in person coffee chats and things like that. Maybe on Tuesdays, you are iterating your resume and LinkedIn and presentation or portfolio if you have one. You’re, like, tweaking those career materials. Maybe on Wednesdays, it’s all about finding jobs to apply to and researching companies. Right? And gathering information about them to help you decide, okay. Even though there’s a job here, do I really want to apply to it if I’m honest with myself? Then maybe Thursday is the day you’re applying to jobs.

Sarah Doody [00:17:57]: So you’re batching all those applications. And once you kinda get into the applying groove, it helps you do one after another after another. And then maybe Fridays are for follow ups. Follow ups are so important in your job search. It could be follow ups from jobs you applied to, interviews you had, connections you made on Doody, who knows? This is just one way that you could time block your activities in your job search. You could also do it on a daily basis, and in the morning, you do these types of tasks. In the afternoon, you do these other types of tasks. You have to do what works for you.

Sarah Doody [00:18:34]: But this concept of time blocking your activities can help you stay focused and avoid procrastination, overwhelm, focus issues, etcetera. And then our last one, number 9, is make time for life. And I know this might seem counterintuitive because you’re probably thinking, well, if I need a job, don’t I just need to keep applying to jobs, etcetera. But we all know that burnout and overwhelm in your job search is real. And in order to keep going, you have to sometimes take a step back and allow yourself to recharge. Consider this an opportunity to maybe do things you couldn’t do when you were employed. Right? Maybe you could never drop your kids off at school or pick them up in the afternoon or whatever it is. Maybe you have a hobby that you’ve been neglecting or maybe you don’t get to work out as often as you wish you did when you had your job.

Sarah Doody [00:19:35]: Use this as an opportunity to do a couple of those things to a) help recharge you from all of this labor of applying to jobs and figuring out your job Sarah, and also just these moments that are gonna bring you joy in your day and help you not be all consumed with this career situation you’re facing of trying to find your next opportunity. I promise if you do this, if you make time for life, even if it’s just one afternoon a week or 1 hour a week or something like that, you’re probably gonna wanna make more time to do it in the future because you’re gonna realize how much you needed that, how much it fills you up and brings you joy and recharges you and helps eliminate or at least relieve some of the stress and overwhelm. So those are the 9 things that I would do if I was laid off today. Maybe hit pause or rewind, go through these again so you can see which ones maybe you’re already doing or that you need to go back and do. And like I said, if you have a friend or family member or colleague that was recently laid off, this would be a great episode to send to them. You know, oftentimes when people lose their jobs, it’s hard to know what to say or how to help them. This is a really practical thing you could do to give them some actionable things that will hopefully make their job search a little easier, and you’ll have this episode to refer back to if you’re ever in this situation. Alright.

Sarah Doody [00:21:18]: That is all for today. I will see you in another episode. Talk to you later. Thanks for listening to the Career Strategy Podcast. Make sure to follow me, Sarah Doody, on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn. If anything in today’s episode resonated with you, I’d love to hear about it. Tag me on social media or send me a DM. And lastly, if you found this episode helpful, I’d really appreciate it if you could share it with a friend or give us a quick rating on Spotify or review on Apple Podcasts.

Sarah Doody [00:21:52]: Catch you later.