How to Get Laid Off

There's no wrong way to handle getting fired. Here's one bit of advice on how to take care of yourself.

Photo by Greg Bulla on Unsplash

When we get fired, we briefly lose control of the narrative of our lives.

One common reaction is to post our announcement of the event on social media.

This helps us take back control of the narrative. And it helps us get our job search started.

The announcement helps us process the trauma. And the trauma is a bear. I’ve been there, and I am here to help anyone who needs it.

I’m feeling extra compassion today for people who might prefer to process the trauma privately. It’s so weird that our culture has recently decided that job loss is a social event.

To those people: There is no need to make a job loss announcement.

I support anybody who processes their job loss in any way they find helpful. An “I got fired” announcement may be helpful as a method of social coping. For job search, it’s probably not helpful. It might be counter-productive. We’ll get to that later.

Anyway, you have my permission to skip the announcement if you like. Just quietly switch the “Open to Work” setting.

That’s what I’ve done in the past, and that’s what I’d do in the future. Here’s why.

Now What?

I’m reading a lot of “I got fired” posts. I think they’re great for helping people work through what’s happened to them.

If you feel pressure to process your trauma publicly, or you’re worried that your layoff announcement needs to be comparable to somebody else’s, or that the announcement is necessary to start the job search, I encourage you to just let all of that go.

The last time I got laid off, I think I claimed publicly that I was retiring. Nobody remembers. Nobody cares.

I have been fired a few times but I’ve never publicly announced or admitted it (until now, I guess!)

I say this with great love for all of you, from somebody who existed before social media: Announcing you’ve been fired is not necessarily helpful for your job search.

Let me be clear: There is no stigma associated with being laid off, or to being fired for almost another reason — at least there should not be. From my perspective and experience as a hiring manager and career coach, firings reflect more on the employer than the employee.

Your Story

It’s about your story. The message you want to put out into the world as a job seeker is not supported by the news that you were just laid off. It doesn’t reflect badly on you, but neither does it support your goals.

You control certain aspects of your life and your career, others are beyond your control. One aspect you control is the narrative — the story you tell. It’s your story, not your previous employer’s.

When you talk to prospective employers, you tell your story with whatever is at the top of your social media profile. Why begin this story with your prior management’s poor planning and harm to their goodwill with their workforce. Yuck!

If it’s helpful for you to process the news with a cohort of people who were also let go fired, I think that could be a great reason to do it in the open. For a time. I’ve seen announcements drive heartfelt engagement between colleagues. It’s a chance to feel something good. The outpouring can help you build a network that will be very important when you get to work on your job search.

And when you are ready to do that, my suggestion is that you try to make about a dozen or so new posts on consecutive days. These can be low-stakes updates with news and observations and insights from your field. Re-share job postings or career updates from your friends. Post updates about the kind of role you’re looking for. Post about the kind company you want to work for. Really anything.

Let your layoff announcement move a couple pages down the “Recent” feed on your profile. Again, this is going to be the first thing that a prospective employer sees when they look at your profile.

You control the narrative of your career. Putting some content between you and that announcement is another way of taking control of it, by your previous employer’s bad decision a little bit further behind you.