I was laid off from Spotify in the middle of my maternity leave back in January. I’ve shared a lot about my feelings back then (as many do). I’ve seen fewer reports from people a while afterbeing laid off.

So this is where I’m at almost exactly a year after being unexpectedly laid off.

And that’s my first point.

Left: One of my grandma’s recipes I made after being laid off; Right: Taking the baby to a baby rave!

It wasn’t THAT unexpected.

Not really. While I counted on not being impacted because maternity leave is (technically) a protected class, the waves of layoffs have shown that no one is safe. I should have known better. My team was a classic cost center, not actively contributing to revenue. The first red flag when layoffs happen.

My role had also been switched between teams 3 times in under a year, another thing companies tend to look at when deciding who to let go. Plus, I had already been out for half a year on mat leave. So clearly my role wasn’t needed (a contractor had taken on my tasks while I was out).

Looking back, I shouldn’t have been so shocked. And I think there’s some good advice here: as most layoffs aren’t performance-based, companies go by other factors. Be honest with yourself about those. I was at risk from the day I joined my most recent team.

Understanding who’s most at risk — and finding your next role

I used this gained knowledge to skim the market for new roles. When interviewing, I asked questions to help me figure out how business-crucial the role was. I declined roles at companies where I thought they might have overhired in the past (a quick Google search usually reveals that kind of information). Plus, I had good success point-blank asking hiring managers about how crucial they thought the role was. Most were understanding, given my layoff history, that I was concerned about this.

**Of course, this is still no guarantee you won’t get laid off again, it might decrease the risk. Layoffs aren’t predictable. Plus, lower-risk roles come with other drawbacks. For example, you may simply have to work harder, have a smaller team or the company may be less mature.

Activate your true fans

Everyone keeps screaming to activate your network. And while it can surely not hurt to post on Linkedin that you have been laid off and are open to work, this is unlikely to get you your next role due to the sheer amount of great people currently on the market and posting.

What can get you your next role though is, connecting with people you already have a relationship with. Former colleagues, friends from Uni, people you’ve met at a conference, or who’ve engaged with your content previously. My personal favorite is people who’ve hired you before.

With these people, you already have a foot in the door. I almost always refer folks I know personally for roles. I only very rarely do this for internet strangers. It worked for me when I was looking for a job:

• people who knew me connected me with hiring managers and got me interviews
• myself, I reached out to Design Directors I already knew to check for roles (and upcoming ones)

These two things are what yielded me offers.

You can still be a little picky

Losing a job takes a toll on your mental health. I was reeling with rejection anxiety for several months this year. This didn’t change when interview processes went well and I received offers. Everything inside my being screamed “not good enough” and I had a difficult time negotiating compensation with the confidence I used to.

Plus, I had the urge to take the first-best offer, even though it was a major lowball and probably not the right place for me to work. Luckily, my husband talked some sense into me and I ended up choosing a much better role and negotiating better compensation. But you might not have my husband. So repeat after me:

• I deserve this offer.
• I deserve to be compensated properly for this job.
• Being laid off doesn’t make me less attractive.
• Being laid off doesn’t mean I need to take whatever job comes my way (yet).
• I am enough.
• Being laid off doesn’t mean I am not good at what I do.
• Om hare om (throw one in there, it helps).

It will hit you hard. Then it will keep hitting you.

This was true for me and is true for most people I know who were affected by layoffs. It’s a bit of a grieving process. First, you’ll likely experience shock. Then you’ll feel numb. Then you’ll get angry (my favorite!), and then you’ll slowly start accepting your new reality and feel a bit better every day.

But the bad feelings will keep hitting.

Every time you get a job rejection email. Every time you get ghosted by someone you’ve reached out to. Every time you need to pay bills. Every time you see a promotion update from colleagues who weren’t laid off. You’ll ask yourself “Why me?”. You’ll wonder. You’ll feel all kinds of unfriendly feelings.

Here’s what helped me:

• Delete Linkedin for a bit. You can use it to job hunt but don’t doom-scroll the app. Definitely get off of platforms like Blind and Glassdoor.
• Look inward. You are more than your work. What other things make you, you? Do more of those. I got back into reading, cooking, I switched my exercise routine.
• Educate yourself. Honestly, I felt much better once I read up on economies, capitalism, and history. Not that I had never done that before, but it helped to remind myself we actually do live in a macroeconomy and how that works. P.S.: Eat the rich, always.
• Consider freelancing. I wasn’t ready to trust a company right away and put all my eggs in one employer’s basket again. So I picked up some contract work to remind myself what I liked and that I was GREAT at my job.
• Once you land a new job, stay cool. I tend to give my all to a company and it’s one of the things I like the least about myself. I get excited about opportunities, my colleagues, and what the role could be shaped into. This was the most gutting part for me when I got laid off. Losing all of that opportunity. With my next role, I played it a little cooler emotionally. This helped me ease into it more and honestly, probably made me all the more successful in it.

So where am I now, a year after being laid off?

I’m pretty OK, actually.

I chose the offer that was exactly right for me. I have a team that I care about and colleagues who are epic at their jobs. I have a great boss, who feels like a human being and who has been honest with me. I have achieved more in the last 9 months than I ever did at my previous job. I have developed a chunk of new skills, especially as a leader.

For me, being laid off was a good thing in terms of career acceleration. I still would have liked to avoid it. Why? Because even if my career got a boost, Nicole, I, the human being, took some major damage that I might not recover from for years. I have to spend much more time building my confidence, disconnecting from work, and fighting my personal battle with late-stage capitalism than I ever did before. And I’m still exhausted.

This is what I want you to take away from this post. No matter how well you do after a layoff, you will need a long time to recover. As a person, not as a worker.

Take care of yourself, above all.