Transcript
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In today's episode I discuss that I was laid off last September from a Fortune 100 tech company and I detail exactly what I did to land my next job, which I'm happily starting in 2025.
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So if you are facing a layoff or know somebody who has stay tuned, this episode is for you.
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Hey babe, what are we talking about today?
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Today we are talking about how I was laid off from my corporate nine to five in September of 2024.
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Yeah, fun times back then.
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Fun times.
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We're gonna get real raw and honest here.
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I mean, there's definitely people, obviously, who know and I've shared it with and it was wasn't something that I shied away from and we've done an episode like this before in the past.
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It was actually episode 38.
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Feels like a lifetime ago, february 2024.
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We are now in 2025.
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But now I'm speaking from firsthand experience and full transparency.
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I've never been laid off before.
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This was also not something that I saw coming.
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It was something that was not performance-based Like I wasn't on a pip.
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This was literally one of those.
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You know another massive layoff we hear about them all the time.
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We typically this company does, you know, two a year.
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They're very big impact.
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This last one impacted almost 7,000 people, and so at some point, you just get to a point where you know you're just not safe.
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I have a you know a client that was at the same company as Jess, in a different role, A completely different you know part of the company, but she was affected by the layoff as well.
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Yeah, so it's.
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You know it's certainly something that we needed to navigate.
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So today's episode is going to be all about what we did.
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As many of you know, I am the breadwinner in the family, I'm also the one who holds the insurance for the family, and so you know it is a big deal.
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Thankfully, we were given a really nice severance, which certainly helped ease the blow, gave me time to reflect and do the things that I recommend people in a similar situation do.
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But I understand that getting a six month severance is coming from a place of privilege.
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So that is what this episode is going to be about.
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Long intro there, let's get into it.
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So a little background, because I feel like what happened was a little.
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It just got crazy.
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It was a little unique.
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So I had shoulder surgery in early August and my idea was I was going to take two weeks.
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Everybody was like, yeah, you should.
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I mean you work from home, you're not gonna have to drive.
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You know, as long as you can reach your keyboard comfortably, you know I have a standing desk, it'll be fine.
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I was not so fine, but it was actually a really good time because this company, q1, actually starts in August.
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So it was like a part of the year where that's when people take vacations, that's when sales kickoff is our entire sales team, you know, goes to Vegas take vacations.
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That's when sales kickoff is our entire sales team, you know, goes to Vegas.
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And so it was actually a really good time for me to take another week and I was like nobody's gonna miss me.
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Nothing really is happening that I need to be a part of.
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So I ended up taking another week.
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So I took three weeks and I think maybe two days of of leave for my shoulder surgery, of leave for my shoulder surgery.
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Now the technology that I was brought in to help manage I could start.
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I was seeing the writing on the wall Like I knew that this technology was not going to like stand the test of time, and so my role actually started pivoting into rolling out an AI pilot for the sales team.
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It was a really exciting project, lots of great potential.
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I was happy to make the pivot.
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I went into more of a project management type role and from there I started realizing that I felt like I was a floater.
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I felt like, oh, we need this project done, let's tap Jessica to do it.
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Oh, we need to roll out this.
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Let's get Jessica to do it.
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Oh, we need a new deck for this.
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Let's get Jessica to do it, and so.
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I just want to pause there for a second because it's very interesting, because the way that I viewed it was like you're kind of like a Swiss Army knife, which means that you can do a lot of things, however, which you would think normally is a good thing, but maybe sometimes in corporate America, being the Swiss Army knife is not necessarily a good thing.
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Yeah, and I do think it's good to bring a variety of talents and flexibility to your roles, right, because I mean, who knows, this could have afforded me maybe an extra year, right, like I had to let my actual project manager go in another mass layoff a year ago, right?
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So, yes and no, I think it depends on you know what kind of role you're in and the ability to Swiss army knife but not actually be the Swiss army knife.
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Right.
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I think that, being the Swiss army knife, where it's like, well, what is she actually doing?
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What is she spending her time doing?
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And then it's these random like well, she helped do this and she helped do that and she led this and she rolled out that, and I don't know.
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I mean, maybe you know, maybe it's in my head, but the point is I kind of started seeing the writing on the wall.
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So I was ready for a pivot and so before I went out for medical leave, I actually was interviewing For medical leave.
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I actually was interviewing internally for a different role ended up getting.
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That role was on a completely different team, was in a completely different sector of the business.
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I was really excited about it.
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The director for that unit that would have been who I would have been reporting into had spent 10 years at Google.
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Who I would have been reporting into had spent 10 years at Google.
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Like she was sharp and I was really excited to learn from her was able to negotiate a 10% raise, which internally, you know, is a large amount of money, and that was a whole thing in itself and so I was really excited.
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I was getting ready to tell my manager that I was accepting this new role and then the recruiter called and said, hey, they are going to wait to like have you sign anything until after the earnings call.
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And if you work for a public company, you know that that is not a good sign, like if you're putting anything on pause because of the earnings call, it's already dead in the water.
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And so I looked at Brandon and I was like they're going to wait until after earnings.
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This is not good.
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I ended up going out on med leave.
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You know this new team already knew about all of that.
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And, of course, you know, a few weeks later, after the earnings call and the dust had settled, you know they ended up saying, hey, we are closing this requisition.
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So I went from I'm really excited about this new role, this pay bump, you know, learning something new, not being the quote unquote Swiss army knife of my team to you know, the disappointment of, okay, now this role no longer exists Fast forward.
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So this is all kind of in the month of August, fast forward to September 16.
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My manager put a Monday morning meeting on my calendar, which is not uncommon.
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Monday was was always our day for our one on ones, but she moved it up in the day again, didn't think of it.
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We always keep a very flexible schedule didn't think anything of it.
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By 915 mean I was telling brandon like hey, I was just impacted, I, I was let go yeah, because I remember, because I was at the gym and she texted me hey, this is what happened, finish your workout, you don't need to come home.
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But of course I wasn't going to stay there and finish my workout because I wasn't even right headspace then, so I obviously had to come home.
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Well, and I was like what are we going to talk about?
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Like there's so much that I still need to wait on Right.
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It was more from a support standpoint also.
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Well, of course, and I appreciated that, but for me it was I had given that speech, right, hey, how was your weekend?
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You know, I was going into things, business as usual, and my manager went straight into the HR speech and I was like, oh, this is what we're doing.
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And you know, this is a manager that I've worked with at a past company, that I've learned a ton from that I really respect as a leader, and especially as a leader for women.
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Like she is the person who goes to bat for women, you know, helps you negotiate, wants you to get everything that you can, you know, when you're negotiating.
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So this was nothing.
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I never felt like this was a personal attack on me.
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I could see that she was uncomfortable delivering this HR speech and I just remember, because there's nothing you can do at that point.
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Technically, you can, I guess, contest it or put in for like a what is it called?
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I have no idea.
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Where you dispute their decision.
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But it's just not going to go in your favor, like the, to spend the time and energy and effort to do that with a fortune 100 company, like, if you've if you've ever done that and it was successful, let me know, we'd love to have you on the pod For me.
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And where my headspace was, I was like, nah, we're not going down the route.
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So I let her do her speech, she let me, you know, know what I was, what I was going to be expecting as far as paperwork and you know when.
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I would hear more about my severance and things like that.
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But what's really nice, and which again is a privilege, is that they essentially put you on garden leave, and I didn't realize that garden leave is a term, but it's when a company lets you go but you still have X amount of time to receive your pay, your benefits, et cetera, but you're not expected to work.
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So from September 16th until November 15th, I was technically employed, I was receiving my paycheck, I was receiving healthcare benefits, all of that, but I was not expected to do anything right Like.
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I cleared my calendar, declined every meeting invite and my job was either to look for a job internally or to look for one externally.
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And so Brandon and I, you know, of course, we kind of sat with the information but we basically decided, like, do I look for things internal or do I look for things external?
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And because I had already gotten that new role and then it was kind of taken away and I didn't really see anything internal that it was like really sparking my interest, I said, you know what, let's take this severance, put it into our high yield savings, you know, keep it as a cushion for later and move forward with external roles.
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So have you been listening to our podcast and wondering how am I really doing with my money?
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Am I doing the right things with my investments?
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Am I on track to reach my financial goals?
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What could I be doing better?
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If you answered yes to any of these questions, then it's time for you to reach out to Brandon to schedule your free yes, I said free 30-minute introduction conversation to see how his services could help make you the more confident moneymaker we know you could be.
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What are you waiting for?
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It's literally free and at the very least, you'll walk away feeling more empowered and confident about your financial future.
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Link is in our show notes Go schedule your call today.
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That's the backstory.
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I wanted to make sure that everybody understood, like, how this happened, so I never took it personal.
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You know, I never even cried about it and like yeah, I was actually very surprised, I think you were waiting for me.
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I was very surprised when I got home how calm you were and it wasn't like I was freaking out in the sense of oh no, what are we going to do, you know?
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From that standpoint it was more or less like I felt bad for you because I knew how hard you work and so.
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But you took it I mean a lot better than I thought you would have.
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Well, and I was.
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You know, if I needed to cry or if I needed to have that moment of, like, rage or disappointment, or just, you know, let my feelings feel, I would have done that.
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This was not me holding back or limiting myself in my having feelings, I just was so disconnected from like 6000 plus other people were laid off right, like this wasn't one of those scenarios where I was picked and picked on or I was in this bad situation, or like it literally was a business decision and you know, they de-invest to reinvest, and like I had been there for three years and it happened twice a year.
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Every year, I mean they were still doing layoffs in Europe because of legalities, from the spring going into the second layoff, you know, in September, and so I just didn't take it personal.
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I also knew that kind of wallowing.
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You know, if you're going to wallow, wallow for X amount of time, give yourself a weekend, give yourself three days, give yourself a week.
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Do not let yourself go past a certain date because you're not going to be productive.
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So I never had that moment, but I will say I just kind of sat with the information for about two weeks and again I had a six month severance coming my way right.
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So I had time and I really do, especially now, understand you were still healing from shoulder surgery as well.
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I was healing.
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I was doing PT PT twice a week, like there was a lot going on, and so I just I took two weeks to just kind of be.
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You know, I like I was like man, okay, like I don't normally watch TV, I guess I can watch some Netflix during the day, like that's kind of cool.
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And you know, I did my PT and like I met up with friends for lunch and I really did.
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I really did just take two weeks to just kind of exist and it was nice.
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So I would suggest, you know, sit with your feelings and again, we've done this episode before, but now I'm really speaking from a place of experience Just sit with your feelings, let them process, let them simmer.
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You might not feel anything the first day, you might feel everything on the fifth day.
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I don't know.
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That's going to be up to you and your body.
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But just be, don't jump into like all right, let me do my resume, let me do my linkedin, let me like just be yeah, whatever feelings you have, don't suppress them and push them down like right feel the feelings feel the feel but then get past it.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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Once I was ready to like talk about it, what I realized is I needed to help people.
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Actually, I'm going to take a step back.
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What we did after I got all of my paperwork is we sat down and we looked through it.
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I was about to say that.
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Sorry, that is actually more important, especially if you're getting a severance.
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I was like what are the details?
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Yeah, what are the details?
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You need to understand that package inside and out.
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You need to be marking your calendar for dates.
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You need to be setting your alerts.
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I mean, there was specific dates that certain things had to be done.
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Right, I had to sign my separation agreement at a certain date and time.
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I had to, you know, move some of my stocks that they allowed us to vest early, you know, by a certain date.
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I needed to understand our health insurance.
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I needed to understand which parts of my policies are portable and do I maybe want to port them.
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Yes for some of our employee benefits that she had.
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So that's something that Brandon and I talked about Like oh, I have this life insurance, I have this disability policy, I have X, y, z.
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Are these things that we should at least look into porting over to see what is it going to cost?
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Do we still have to do the health assessment, et cetera, et cetera.
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So I mean it was, you know, 50, 60 pages of paperwork.
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I printed it out, I had it saved, I marked key dates.
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Brandon and I had a shared note on our phones with key dates.
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Questions that kind of started popping up as I started sitting with the information.
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And so get organized, really understand especially again if you have a severance really understand what is that package and then utilize the resources that are available to you.
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So for all of the people impacted at my company, there was sessions that I could attend and a whole bank of videos to watch and again, more supplemental material and q&a's and faqs and all the things, and I, you know, I started slowly going through those to make sure that I had all of the answers that I needed and had answers to all of the questions that I had.
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So some of the key things that I would point out that once I heard that she was laid off, that I was very interested in finding information and once she got it, we went through it in great detail was one how long is she getting paid for?
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You know so luckily, in this scenario she was still technically employed.
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You know for two more months, and then you know a four month severance from that.
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Also, when it comes to a severance package, you also got to find out how is that money going to be given to you?
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The reason I say that is because so, for example, in our scenario, just a severance package technically from a timeframe would have went into from 2024 into 2025.
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And she got the four months as a lump sum.
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So you're getting more money.
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Technically, we got more money paid for her in 2024 than she normally would have made by work, by working there, if she had still stayed employed.
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So, to think about it from a tax standpoint, if there's going to be any issues with that now also, the biggest thing is health care.
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How is that being taken care of?
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So, luckily, you know as her being employed, for the two months that she was there had a regular health care still, but once she was through the end of november, even though my last day was november 15th yeah, so, technically, when you know, her severance date happened and we no longer had insurance through there, what was going to be available to us?
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so, luckily, in this scenario, we had access to cobra and they gave her an additional lump sum of money to pay for the cobra right because normally in that scenario you have to think, hey, am I going to take cobra?
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and I can tell you right now that most people.
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It's extremely expensive because your company is no longer subsidizing the health care they're providing you, so you're paying the entire amount yourself.
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So normally all their only other alternative is looking to the healthcare market to see if you can get a plan there.
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Or maybe if you have you know, luckily two spouses that have access to healthcare through their employer, you might have to actually put everyone on the other person's healthcare plan, because at that time you would be able to do that, even though it's not annual enrollment, because you've had one of the qualifying scenarios happen where you can make changes to your health care, your health insurance and just for transparency, as a family of four to continue our health care benefits we are paying almost $2,700 a month.
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So we had to pay that for December.
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My new employer is going to pick up my insurance starting in February, so for the month of January we had to do COBRA as well.
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So I mean you know you're looking at over $5,000 for two months of insurance.
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That's not a little bit of money.
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And again, thankfully that was part of my severance package to pay for that.
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So especially, you know we went to Panama for Christmas in 2024.
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Not that we would ever be uninsured, but we were looking at can we get some sort of a plan that just kind of keeps us afloat, you know, in case of emergencies?
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But I was still going to PT and you know, as soon as you make a change to your insurance, something happens with the kids and so we said let's just keep our continuation of our benefits and let's do COBRA.
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And because it was essentially paid for but one other thing, too, that you know, especially if you're working in the tech space that you want to be aware of, is how are any RSUs that you may have been given?
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Restricted stock units.
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Yes, restricted stock units, yes, restricted stock units for those individuals who didn't know what that means.
00:20:16.017 --> 00:20:21.281
But how are those gonna be distributed to you?
00:20:21.281 --> 00:20:28.000
So, for example, often you are basically given a certain amount at a given time but they have to vest.
00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:31.038
So you have them but you don't have them.
00:20:31.038 --> 00:20:42.780
And luckily, in just a scenario, they expedited some of the ones that normally would not have vested in time for her to have them when she was separated, but that was part of her severance package for them to up the date on some of those.
00:20:42.780 --> 00:20:47.342
So that helped, you know, provide a little bit of additional money that she received from those RSUs.
00:20:47.869 --> 00:20:48.954
Yeah, which was really nice.
00:20:48.954 --> 00:20:50.452
I mean I left a ton on the table.
00:20:50.452 --> 00:21:10.084
They call them golden handcuffs for a reason, but you know we started cashing them out for various things in the past once they vested, and so you know, if you have access to RSUs or you can negotiate them upon entry to a new company, absolutely do that, because you know it's nice to have them.
00:21:10.084 --> 00:21:17.361
So it's pretty standard in the tech space, once you get to a certain level in your career, to be able to access those.
00:21:17.820 --> 00:21:34.159
Yeah, the big thing that we want to focus on here is that once you know that you've been laid off and you understand your severance package, you want to also adjust your budget accordingly to make sure that one all your expenses that are necessities are covered and that you don't obviously run out of money prior to getting a new job.
00:21:34.579 --> 00:21:44.820
Yeah, and our goal really was to not use as much of the severance as possible, because we really just did want to put it back into savings and kind of pad that back up.
00:21:44.820 --> 00:22:03.313
I don't plan on leaving tech anytime soon, and tech is a volatile space and so having a strong emergency fund is always a top priority for us, and so we didn't want to, you know, get this large check and be like woo, we're ready to party Like no that was not the case.
00:22:03.373 --> 00:22:17.259
Yeah, cause like the idea is that technically she has um, still money from her severance for the month of January and February, but she started a new job and so hopefully the idea with that was it's it was two months worth of income that we don't need to use.
00:22:17.440 --> 00:22:27.714
Yeah, but going into, you know, analyzing the budget, of course we looked at our numbers, we looked at subscriptions what can we cut just to give us a little bit more of a buffer?
00:22:27.714 --> 00:22:42.986
And we ended up really only cutting one thing, which is my subscription, or, I guess, membership to like a massage, like a monthly massage or facial, that I pay a membership for.
00:22:42.986 --> 00:22:45.031
I actually ended up putting it on hold.
00:22:45.031 --> 00:22:49.321
I called them and I was transparent and I said, hey, I've been let go.
00:22:49.321 --> 00:22:51.433
Is there anything that you can do for my membership?
00:22:51.433 --> 00:23:13.278
Typically they will do a one month hold and since I just came off of surgery and I wasn't really getting massages because I couldn't lay in a certain way, they actually were able to do two months and then they delayed charging my card once it re-upped, and so that really got me back into January again, which is really nice.
00:23:13.338 --> 00:23:22.755
So as far as like TV subscriptions and things, we either get them, you know, free through our credit cards or through the phone plan, etc.
00:23:22.755 --> 00:23:23.236
Etc.
00:23:23.236 --> 00:23:51.298
The other thing that I was considering is should we cut our housekeeper, who comes every other week and I just know myself, and if the house is not clean I'm not going to be productive, and so having her and her team come every other week to just keep things kind of in order and keep things going on the cleanliness side, I think was really important, and so we did not cut that expense.
00:23:51.298 --> 00:23:53.942
Am I missing anything?
00:23:54.984 --> 00:23:59.141
No, I mean, the key point that we want to put here is that we got the information.
00:23:59.141 --> 00:24:07.709
We sat down together and went through a plan of action of how to get through this time frame until she found employment again.
00:24:07.709 --> 00:24:10.377
Right, and that's the big thing is that we talk through everything.
00:24:10.377 --> 00:24:12.616
Once again, it's scheduling the time.
00:24:12.616 --> 00:24:19.119
Obviously, we have the time and making a plan and sticking to that plan.
00:24:19.421 --> 00:24:20.122
Yeah, yeah.
00:24:20.122 --> 00:24:27.443
We just needed to have open communication, and I'm pretty sure I even said in that meeting like, hey, do we get rid of housekeeping?
00:24:27.443 --> 00:24:32.619
I know that if the house is not clean, that's not going to help me find a job, you know.
00:24:32.740 --> 00:24:35.968
So and the thing is, too, is's not going to help me find a job.
00:24:35.968 --> 00:24:36.327
You know so.
00:24:36.327 --> 00:24:40.847
And the thing is, too, is that, even though you make a plan in place, you know as like, let's say hypothetically, we were getting to middle of January and she still hadn't found employment.
00:24:40.847 --> 00:24:47.432
So we have a month and a half left or you know, we get to the beginning of February and nothing has happened, then obviously we would make more drastic cuts.
00:24:47.613 --> 00:24:48.634
Yeah, absolutely.
00:24:48.634 --> 00:24:51.557
Let's get into some of the more tactical things.
00:24:51.557 --> 00:24:57.766
So if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you know your resume should be updated.
00:24:57.766 --> 00:25:02.695
Like I don't care if you are the CEO of the company, you need to update your resume.
00:25:02.695 --> 00:25:04.733
So my resume, of course.
00:25:04.733 --> 00:25:09.979
Again, I had just gotten that internal job, so my resume was up to date, ready to go.
00:25:09.979 --> 00:25:24.041
But if you have been laid off, I mean, one of the first things you should be doing is updating your resume, making sure that all of your latest achievements, accomplishments, contributions are there and clearly spelled out.
00:25:24.450 --> 00:25:36.277
And also you should probably, throughout the course of the year, set calendar reminders just to update your resume, because there might be big projects that you've worked on and completed and those should be things that you highlight in your resume.
00:25:36.277 --> 00:25:37.180
You don't want to forget about it.
00:25:37.650 --> 00:25:46.626
At the end of every quarter, do a little sweep of your resume and think about the projects that you've completed, the contributions that you've made, the successes that you've seen.
00:25:46.626 --> 00:25:52.599
If you're not going to do it, you know, once a quarter, I would say first half, second half, I mean bare minimum.
00:25:52.599 --> 00:25:54.544
You should be looking at that twice a year.
00:25:54.544 --> 00:26:02.903
There's just no reason not to and you forget what you're doing and what results you're seeing if you're not keeping track.
