So You Lost Your Job, Now What?

Maybe you’ve never been unemployed, or you’re now looking for a job for the second time in two years, or your dream job fell apart because of cutbacks. Whatever your situation, everyone ends up in the same place.

You’re not alone. I’ve spoken to SO many people that have been going through it in the last few years. It’s been an incredibly tough market. There was a run where it was an employee market, and finding a job wasn’t too difficult, but things have shifted. What started with big tech has filtered down, and companies have cut back in many places, leading to a larger group looking than it feels like it has in recent memory.

But guess what? People find jobs, life goes on, and this is a just a temporary setback in what will be your long career. Think about it this way. You might end up working for 35 years of your life (ok just typing that was a little scary). When you zoom way out, lets say 1 year of that doesn’t seem like much. That’s 2.9%. 6 Month’s is 1.45%. This will end up being a small bump in the road of what I am sure will be an incredible career.

It’s Time To Move Forward

People can react to this jarring of a life change in different ways. Anger for what happened to you, resentment, sadness, depression. Let it out. Give yourself some time to process what happened, as it isn’t something easy to deal with immediately. Take a weekend. Hell take a week if you need it. You just went through a break up. But once you’re done. You need to put it in the past as much as you can. It’s going to be time to move on, refocus, and think about what you have ahead of you.

If you can, find someone to talk to about it. Let it out. I know sometimes just talking out loud helps. I’m no therapist but I totally believe processing what happened is healthy.

Also use this time to really think about what’s important to you. What do you want out of your next role? What did you love about your last role that will continue to be important to you, but what have you been missing that you’re really looking for? Maybe there’s an industry you want to get into, or a new city you want to live in. Try and see this as your opportunity to reset and really focus on what you would love to be doing next.

Your New Job

No, this isn’t about the job you will land, this is about your new job of looking for a job. Might sound a little weird, but that’s how you should consider attacking this. Giving yourself some structure, weekly goals, and a process will help keep your motivation up, and give you things to do when you wake up each day.

Don’t let yourself fall into the hole of just checking Linkedin for jobs, and then giving up if nothing fits. I think so many of us started there. So let me give you some ideas on what you should do.