How to tell people you lost your job
Episode 184 - The challenging art of networking after a layoff
When you lose your job, it can be so hard to tell people what happened. The same is true when you haven't had a job for a long time - it can be so hard to network and have to answer the question we often get: "What do you do?"
So in this episode, I will talk about how I have told people I lost my job in the past when I was still in the corporate sector. I also provide insight, as a career coach supporting many professionals, how I see other professionals doing it more recently.
This episode will be helpful if you have been laid off or if you have not worked for a while and want to go back into networking as part of your job search strategy.
When you lose your job, do this first
I start by discussing what I believe is an important first step: Telling your inner circle. I suggest confiding in a couple of people you trust who won't judge you and provide immediate emotional support. If you don't have such people, consider reaching out to a helpline. I once received a message from a podcast listener telling me how comforting it was for him to listen to the podcast. He had been getting ready for work and driving around his town listening to this podcast for weeks and had not yet told anybody he had lost his job. It broke my heart.
The trap of being too attached to your job
When it comes to people you've worked with and friends and family, take your time to tell them, and it's okay to not know what to say at first. Networking can also be challenging when you're not working, and people often ask, "What do you do?" But you're more than your job title, and it's essential to introduce yourself by your field and acknowledge that your experience is yours to keep and share.
We can actually become better at helping the corporate world evolve and stop focusing so much on the job we have and instead focus more on getting to know each other as a person. Many of us fall into the trap of asking, "What do you do?" during conversations, so it's crucial to remember that a person's job doesn't define them. Instead, we can ask other questions like, "What fills your time?" or "What are you great at professionally or personally?"
I hope this episode provides you with valuable insights and helps you navigate the challenges of telling people you've lost your job or answering the "What do you do?" question during networking events. Remember, your worth and identity go beyond your job title.
Resources mentioned in this episode
Episode 182. Analyzing Korn Ferry's top 10 actions to take if you're laid off
Episode 122. Overcoming career setbacks: A conversation with Sacha Koffman
Other resources from RenataBernarde.com :
About the Host, Renata Bernarde
Hello, I’m Renata Bernarde, the Host of The Job Hunting Podcast. I’m also an executive coach, job hunting expert, and career strategist. I teach professionals (corporate, non-profit, and public) the steps and frameworks to help them find great jobs, change, and advance their careers with confidence and less stress.
If you are an ambitious professional who is keen to develop a robust career plan, if you are looking to find your next job or promotion, or if you want to keep a finger on the pulse of the job market so that when you are ready, and an opportunity arises, you can hit the ground running, then this podcast is for you.
In addition to The Job Hunting Podcast, on my website, I have developed a range of courses and services for professionals in career or job transition. And, of course, I also coach private clients
Timestamps to guide your listening
04:03 - Telling your inner circle
09:06 - Answering the "What do you do?" question when you're not working.
11:12 - When your job has been the backbone of your identity
14:42 - When you also feel betrayed by your employer
17:37 - How we can make it better for others.
Transcript of this episode
Renata Bernarde: When you lose your job, it can be so hard to tell people what happened to you, or when you don't have a job for a long time, it can also be hard to network and have to answer the question. So what do you do? In this episode, I will chat to you about how I have told people I lost my job and also provide insight as a career coach supporting other professionals and how I see professionals doing it today.
So in this episode, I will chat about how I have told people in the past that I lost my job and insight as a career coach now supporting many professionals how I see them doing it today. This episode will be helpful if you have been laid off or if you have not worked for a while and you want to go back into networking as part of a job search strategy.
So let's get going. This episode is brought to you by Talent Predicts, the strengths assessment test I use with my coaching clients. Knowing your talents, career drivers, and personal values starts by answering a questionnaire. This takes about 20 to 30 minutes. Then you get this fabulous, easy-to-read report that describes in detail your top talents, including how you feel at your best when you use them and how you can further develop them.
To make them into even more amazing strengths. This report is so easy to read and understand, and I truly believe that it can help you develop ideas for networking conversations such as the one you will have when you are letting people know that you lost your job and that you're looking for another one.
The report also provides you with your top career drivers and top personal values. It is so great to read a report and feel confident that you are indeed, as you probably already know, but you don't have the words to say, you know, good at specific talents, specific strengths, and have these paragraphs with sentences and ideas that you can use to build your pitch, your cover letter, and parts of your resume.
So if you want to learn more about Talent Predicts and get your own personal report designed just for you, go to my website, and you can also find the link to it in the episode show notes. All right, let's go back to the episode. So why did I decide to record this episode at the last minute?
The reason why I'm recording this episode and it wasn't part of the plan was because the previous episode was about being laid off, and that one really, really resonated with people. That's episode 1 8 2, and I got a lot of messages. I got a lot of feedback from clients that listened to it and said that it really resonated with them, that they were forwarding it to people that they knew.
I got messages on all my social media channels, on Instagram, on YouTube, on LinkedIn, of course, and these are private messages. People really love to send me private messages because they feel more comfortable sharing it privately rather than adding comments. And I understand that. So I decided to.
Dig deeper into supporting you and letting people know about my own personal experience, sharing that news with my people, with my network, my inner circle, and then learning how to speak confidently about the reasons why I left my job. And see if that can help you. So why don't we start by telling your inner circle?
I think, when I look at my previous experience when I was laid off and even if I have not been laid off, it was something really hard that happened to me at work. There was an inner circle of two to three people that I would tell straight away. I knew that if I told them there will be no judgment, total trust, total confidentiality, and immediate emotional support. I felt really supported by these two to three people, depending on the phase of my career that I was in. And I think if you don't have that if you don't have those two to three people, that will not bombard you with questions that won't say things like, I told you so, or get over that. You don't want to hear that when you just found out. If you don't have that, then reach out to a professional; it could be a counselor, it could be a coach, it could be even many employees have a landline, a number you can call to get that sort of immediate emotional support when going through a big crisis at work and it's kept confidential, and you can find out if, your employer has something like that through accessing your HR. And if you don't, you know, there are other members that you can call. I will add some of those in the episode show notes as well. Because I think that that emotional support, I don't want people to feel like that they need to be super stoic at a time like this.
It's good to give yourself permission to grieve, to feel human, to have a bit of a cry and scream or yell or just feel angry about it. It's important for us to let that emotional rollercoaster ride run its course so that you can get to the other side of it. And for everyone else that you probably feel like you need to tell and you probably do take your time, you don't need to tell people straight away.
You know how people say, like, if you need to write an email and you're angry, just wait 24 hours and then proofread it before you send it? This is kind of what I mean by that. Right? Take your time, it could be 24 hours, it could be a week, it could be two weeks. Take your time. You need to overcome the emotional rollercoaster, the grieving process, and for everyone else, you must be ready for it. So I have clients that have waited a bit over a week to tell their parents or their friends, even close friends. They spoke to me. Thank goodness they had a coach. They spoke to some important people like the inner circle. Like I said before.
But for everyone else, they took their time and they prepared for it. I think sometimes people feel like telling their parents is hard, or telling their children is hard, or telling their coworkers or, you know, former colleagues or professional colleagues is hard. So prepare for it.
Write it down, and think it through. I find writing really important; it helps you really organize your thoughts and ideas. Stick to a brief, stick to a plan when you're briefing people when you're reporting what happened to you. And you might even want to work with a coach. You might want to work with somebody that can help you put those ideas together so that you go forward with the best possible personal understanding of what happened to you and letting people know in a way that suits your career future. I think that that's really important as well. And sometimes, this can take time. I was telling some of my clients I have a group coaching program called Job Hunting Made Simple you may have heard of, and this week is the final week, and we were talking about being resilient.
It's the final module of the job hunting, I made a simple program that I run for my clients. And we were discussing coming back from the ashes. You know, how how do you do that? And we were sharing some resources. I will add some of those resources for you to have a look and educate yourself on how people do come back from career setbacks, and some of those setbacks are really hard.
There's a book I have here in front of me called Firing Back from the Harvard Business Review Press, and you know, it mentions even people like Martha Stewart, who went to jail and came back swinging and was able to revamp her career. So I think it's important for us to put things into context.
Once we go through that grieving process, just give yourself permission to feel all the emotions and then, okay, contextualize it and see the silver linings and the learnings and how to move forward. So take your time before you tell everyone else before you tell people that worked with you, friends, and family, and then you can start networking with more confidence.
The second thing that I think people really feel worried about and are concerned about is answering the question, what do you do? What do you do when you're not working? It's really challenging. That's why I think that people find networking so icky to do, especially if they don't have a job and they feel like they need to network so that they can get another job, but they don't want to answer what will possibly be the first question after some chit chat is, what do you do? And you worry that you are not working at the moment, so what are you gonna say and how are you going to explain it to somebody you hardly know?
So I know that some of my clients, especially during the pandemic, they signed up for jobs that very soon turned out not to be the jobs they wanted, not the jobs that were supposed to last. I think both job candidates and employers were very confused and making decisions on the spot during the pandemic that both of them later regretted either because the job wasn't suitable or the structure didn't work with the new ways of working mostly remotely and hybrid these days. So it's really awkward, you know, during this pandemic. I know people that got jobs announced it on LinkedIn only to having to leave a few weeks or months later.
And maybe this has happened to you. Sometimes people feel very awkward about explaining what they do when they don't have a job after being in the same organization for years and years, and they didn't see it coming, or they haven't really prepared to answer that question once they weren't working.
They don't know how to present themselves in networking environments when not linked to an organization. People know you as the guy who works at x, you know, whatever X is, and you're used to being that person. You are used to being that guy or that woman. So it's an awkward pitch that you need to recreate for yourself once that connection with the employer is gone.
And I think, you know, you feel that your job is the backbone of your identity. So it's how we were educated to understand our careers, especially if you are of a certain age. I'm in my fifties, and I understand that a lot of people listening to this podcast are mature professionals with lots of experience who were raised by parents who also saw the career identity and professional development as being something that you would do as you move upwards within an organization. And things have changed, organizations are rethinking how they engage talent and talent these days, especially in the younger demographic.
We don't want to stay for too long in an organization anyway, so the backbone of our identities, which used to be linked to the organizations we were working at, will be more and more something of the past. But it's not your fault, you know? Because it's okay to love what you work. And we, like I said, we were kind of educated to not be to be aligned with our organizations.
Right. A friend of mine recently introduced me to Mary Oliver. And she has a quote. I simply do not distinguish between work and play. And that's yet another issue, isn't it? It's when you really, truly love your work. And you're so attached to it, you know, that all of a sudden that it sort of disappears the work that you're doing.
And you find it hard to provide the answer to that question. So what do you do? But look, you are more than your job title. You are, in fact, a highly knowledgeable, experienced professional. Even if you are a young career person, if you're listening and you're young, and you've just graduated, you have a lot of knowledge.
You've just left a university, and your brain is filled with ideas and theories, and possibilities, and you can't wait to apply those. And if you're much, much older, you have all these skills and experience and knowledge about different sectors and organizations and products and so on, and that lives inside you.
You know, it's not attached to your job title. I find it easy to develop a transition between the job titles you're probably more used to. Sharing. When people ask you what you do to start introducing yourself by using your field of work, for example, I am in human resources, or I am in finance, and you are still, and you will always be an expert in your field, and your experience is yours to keep and to share.
To share, however you want in the future. So maybe that is a solution for you as you navigate this new way of networking and introducing yourself. I think a lot of professionals also feeled betrayed by organizational cultures that have asked them to bring themselves to work. You know, bring yourself to work.
Are companies like a family, and you may have been. Let's say laid off by an organization like that. Through a generic email or in a very sort of not family-like way, you know, in a way that protects them. That's very legal and very intense and very structured and not the way that you would expect a company that wanted you to treat them as family would act, but sometimes when you're restructuring. It could be something that your immediate boss has no control over things are done in a way that's at scale and not very personal. And it makes you feel really icky about it. Very betrayed.
But you know, at a different point in time, it could have been you making those decisions. Making those difficult, difficult decisions of how you are going to move forward and save an organization or save a deal or make things move forward in a way that requires an organization to make deep changes to its structure. I know that being at that table, making those cuts, is heartbreaking for most professionals doing it. I know this because of my clients lived experience, and making those decisions about who stays and who goes is really, really uncomfortable. And they need to be done.
And people that are doing it don't necessarily have all the tools and the professional development to do it in a way that supports you. And sometimes, that just can't be achieved because of the scale of what's going on in the organization anyway. So once you sort of overcome your own grief and anger, just remember that nothing is perfect, really. And some people, they do the best they can, but they don't do it exactly how it should be done or how you would expect it to be. Maybe it's a lesson learned so that when you are at that situation, maybe in the future, and you have that decision-making power, maybe you can make things different then and pay it forward in a way that Use your lift experience to elevate how this process is done in the future.
I know I had a wonderful client that was involved in restructuring organizations, and I asked her, you know, how do you feel about doing it? And she said, look, at first I used to be very scared, and then I thought, I'm actually good at this. I'd rather. Be me telling this person that they're going, then somebody else who doesn't know how to do it humanely and do it in a way that I think is the best for that person.
So I'd instead do it myself, even though it's tough. So that's something to think about at some point in time. It could be you making a decision or you being let go. We can also fall under this trap of asking what other people do. And I think that if we want the world to change, it can start with us, right?
So we can be upset or unprepared when it happens to us when we are asked what we do. But frankly, I think 80% of the time, when you're out and about going to events or talking to people, you don't actually have to ask them what they do. You don't have to ask them at all. I think that question, what do you do, is a valid question when you are in a professional setting, let's say it's a conference, it's a networking event for your profession, then yeah, asking what you do is probably to be expected. But if you're in a social event, if it's a party or a wedding or a barbecue, or you are in a queue somewhere waiting for the lift or the coffee.
Don't ask that. You know, you can really sort of think about other things to ask. I read in an article that I'm going to list below when I was researching for this episode. One of the good questions you could ask instead is, what fuels your time? So instead of asking, what do you do? Ask, you know, what fills your time?
This is a much nicer way of getting to know somebody. I think because it's more about the professional, more than just the professional time. Isn't it? There are all the things that fill your time. You could be taking care of your children. It could be bike riding, it could be taking care of your garden, or traveling, and what do you do?
Another way of asking what people do, if you really want to include that as part of the conversation, would be to ask it much, much later. Not at the beginning of a conversation when you don't know that person yet, but let's say you really build a connection with somebody, build a great rapport you are enjoying the conversation, then why not ask what they do?
Try getting to know the person first before asking what they do. So this is really sort of thinking about if you don't like to be asked that question, then maybe let's change it up. Let's change the world. Let's think about other ways of discussing things when we meet people and not necessarily asking them what they do.
Look, I hope this episode made you feel better about the whole situation. Again, you have the inner circle conversation that you can have, and you shouldn't have it straight away. And opening up to people that are not going to judge you are going to offer you emotional support. I think it's so important giving yourself time to ruminate what has happened and go through the grieving process before sharing it with other people, people that you feel like you need to be better prepared to answer questions that they may have for you. That would be an important time to take a, and maybe you might need to do some conversations with a mentor or with a coach or with another professional to offer you emotional support if you need to. And then going out and being ready for the, what do you do, question when you're networking in a professional setting, but also remembering that you don't always have to talk about what you do with other people.
And then, you can opt to start a conversation and discuss things that are outside the professional arena with people as you meet them. And you connect with others and maybe delay the, what do you do? Question once you feel more comfortable with them and you feel like you can share what has happened to you in the work setting.
There are other episodes of the Job Hunting podcast that you can listen to if you're interested in this topic. First, of course, is the previous episode 182, analyzing the top 10 actions to take if you're laid off; that episode was really well received. Maybe you have already listened to it, and if that's the case, then please try 1 55, how to Overcome a Career Setback.
That was a great episode with lots of interesting tips as well. And if you enjoy a interview, I have a guest conversation with Sasha Kaufman on overcoming Career Setbacks. That is a very good conversation, and I would recommend that you listen to it. That's episode 122
don't forget to go to the episode show notes to find out the link to my website and the link to sign up to my newsletter if you want to receive my newsletter with the latest episodes and some extra bonus information for job hunters and career enthusiasts.
There's a link to it in the episode show notes, the Talent Predicts report, which maybe is a great investment for you at this point in time. And all of the articles and books and stuff that I talk about in the episode are also in the episode show notes. I hope to see you next week with another episode.
Go look at the archives and see if there's anything else there that you might want to listen to until we meet again. Bye for now.