Layoffs Might Be Coming - What Should You Do?
I’m Scott, I’ve spent a career being an early sales hire at companies like Yahoo, WebEx, Dynamic Signal, & ReSci. For the purpose of this post, I’ve also been laid off / fired a few times…
Looking at the various sales channels, Reddit, LinkedIn, Discords, etc, it is apparent that a lot of people have been laid off recently. It sucks, but as someone that has been through it, it isn’t the end of the world.
A follow up post to this will be titled “You’ve been laid off, now what?” But before we get to that, let’s look at what to do if you suspect that this is coming.
The first thing you should do is have enough sense to know if you’re going to be impacted or not. This is a time for self reflection and this is where your self awareness is going to be critical.
As an aside, when I’ve had to lay people off, it is often times the people with the least amount of self awareness.
The second you start hearing about layoffs coming to your company, the first thing you should do is talk to your boss and figure out if you’re going to be impacted. They likely won’t come right out and say yes or no, but this might be a good idea to do a performance review and see where you stand.
BTW - you should be doing this regularly anyway, so there shouldn’t be any surprises.
One note, just because you’re performing better than someone else, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to be safe. If you’re at 80% of your number and you’re annoying and make life hard for your manager (think being toxic, not keeping your CRM up to date, show up late, don’t follow processes, etc.), and your peer is 75% performance, but does all the things to make your managers life a little easier, you’re probably going to be let go. This is a time to do some real self assessment. Get ahead of it.
This also might be a good time to check in with your an HR representative and keep an eye on any company-wide announcements or updates. If you think that a layoff is coming, it most likely is and you should trust your Spidey-sense.
If they are really tingling, update your resume and LinkedIn profile: Having an up-to-date resume and LinkedIn profile is essential in case you need to start looking for a new job.
Begin reaching out to recruiters, peers at other companies & hiring managers at other companies. Be honest about the situation. Everyone is going through it, so it isn’t a black mark, but by being proactive, it shows that you’ve got some self awareness, decent business acumen, and that you’re thinking about your future, not taking a ‘woe is me’ attitude.
If you think that you’re going to be let go, then now is the time to be proactive and start looking for a new gig. Don’t wait. Get out there. Worst case is that you stay in your current job unscathed and you’ve met a few good recruiters or hiring managers.
If you wait too long, the talent pool is going to be a lot larger fighting for a very few number of positions. So go.
Ask for help. The people you’re reaching out to likely don’t have an open slot for you, but they might know of one or refer you to one that comes across their desk. Again, by being proactive, you’re being top of mind.
In the next post, I’ll talk about what to do if a layoff did catch you by surprise and some things that helped me out when it happened to me.
What did I miss? What other tips / tricks do you have for people to prepare for a layoff?