What to do when you are laid off
Don't Panic
The 2023 market is brutal and some industries are getting hit harder than others. I was just laid off 2 days ago and figure this is the perfect opportunity to document my plan to get back into the job market. Hopefully this can aid those of you going through something similar.
The lay-off survival plan in 5 steps:
Here's the simple no bullshit plan.
- Figure out your runway timeline
- Create a fallback plan
- Prep your resume
- Reach out to your network
- Send out applications
Let's look at each of these with a little bit more detail.
1. Figure out your runway
We need to do some quick calculations.
Outgoing expenditures
First things first... you need to figure out how long you and your family can survive without any drastic lifestyle changes. I'd imagine this is pretty obvious, but ideally you don't want to put yourself in a situation where you can't pay the bills.
I would recommend taking a look at your credit card or bank statements for the past few months to see what your average monthly expenditure has been. If there are any obvious outliers (e.g. new furniture, concert tickets, a random watch ) that can be ignored from this calculation go for it.
Income
Now we need to figure out what your income is going to be.
Income?? Wtf do you mean income? I just got laid off?
Go Apply for unemployment
I don't know how much you'll get as it varies by state and salary.
For example, in Texas you can get between $72 and $563 depending on salary at the time of lay off.
Maybe you have other sources of income:
- Do you have a spouse that works?
- Do you have a multi-generational house where adult children can pitch in?
- Do you have rental income?
- Do you have investment income?
You know the drill. I'd assume if you're reading this you probably aren't blessed in assets and your income for this period will probably be significantly lower than where it needs to be.
How long until you hit 0?
Do some quick math. How many months do you have?
Tips for stretching out this number
Lets take a look at what some of your biggest expenses most likely are.
- Rent/Mortgage
- Food
- Daycare (if you have kids)
- Gas/Travel
I'm not going to really touch any of these since there most likely isn't much that can be done to improve these numbers. But hey, if you're laid off you can probably cancel daycare for the time being. Hopefully your gas bill also drops as the need to drive into work (if you weren't remote) is not longer valid.
The real things we want to take a look at here is extra expenditures like:
- purchasing things you don't need
- going out to eat
- shopping at overpriced grocery stores (I'm looking at you WholeFoods)
Take a look at your expenditures from above and figure out what these categories are for you. Challenge yourself to reduce a few of these areas.
2. Create a fallback plan
At some point you are going to need to identify the worst case scenario. Hopefully it's not that bad. If you're a young adult like myself, maybe that plan is moving back in with your parents. If you don't have that option, maybe its finding roommates and taking on a less than desirable low paying job for the time being.
I can't tell you what your fallback plan is but... sit down with your family and discuss your options. You need to figure out what to do if you hit 0 in your bank account.
3. Prep your Resume
Now lets start taking a look at our actionable steps to get us into our next role. Prepping the resume (something I've always found extremely boring) is probably the most important thing you can do.
Do you have a brag doc from your most recent company?
What's a brag doc?
Whenever I do something I am proud of, I simply add it to a word document. I always try to have a few things I'm proud of in there by the end of each week. This is an awesome source of inspiration when updating my resume!
If you don't have a brag doc its no big deal. Make sure you add your recent bout of employment.
Follow the resume formula
It's probably not relevant for every industry, but I've always found that providing detailed impact metrics when describing my jobs as useful.
I always use the formula: "What I did, (optional) how I did it, and its measurable impact"
For example: Launched a rule service to evaluate risk for new customers, allowing for dynamic rule additions for hold calculations to prevent hundreds of thousands in fraud losses.
Resume Review
I'd recommend getting a friend or family member to take a look at your resume. Optionally you can reach out to 3rd party resume services but these will probably cost some cash.
4. Reach out to your network
If you know someone at a company that is hiring and can provide a reference, your ability to get the job is significantly increased. Cold outreach is of course possible but if you have a network, leverage it.
What If I don't have a network?
No problem. Start building it now. Go get yourself a LinkedIn and fully fill out your profile. A half-assed profile will bring you half assed results. Now start talking with people online. This is almost a marketting game at this point but you need to get out there and talk to people.
5. Send out applications
It's finally time for execution. As it stands the title is fairly obvious but I'll add in some additional details.
For the most success you should be tailoring each resume to the specific application.
Yeah its a pain in the ass and a lot of work but the shotgun approach of mass sending out a generic resume is probbably not ideal. Each job is unique and looking for a specific skill set. Make sure your resume is tailored to and highlights what those jobs are looking for.
Quality beats quantity.
I'd rather submit 2 high quality applications than 10 rushed applications in any given day. I don't have numbers for this but it seems to have been true for me in the past.
And that's that
I understand that this stuff is fairly obvious but I do think it provides value in having this written down somewhere. Maybe this can be one of the maybe hundreds of things that you no longer have to worry about, and hopefully this will help you land back on your feet.
Don't burn yourself out. Spend some time on your mental/physical health every day. Good luck, and make sure to put in the work.
It may be fucked, but maybe it's not that bad!
You got this!