Laid Off: After 26 Years with the Company
"The last time I applied for a job, I was in person with a printout of my resume on fake parchment."
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In today’s issue, I talk to Rho, a 56-year-old former director about what it’s like searching for a job when you haven’t updated your resume in nearly three decades.
Rho worked at the same place for 26 years before a round of layoffs impacted around 240 workers at the company, or around 4% globally. She was a director and performed product marketing/customer advocacy roles in the SaaS/B2b space.
“Being laid off after 26 years of positive performance reviews really stung,” she said. “I knew I was just a number on a spreadsheet.”
Rho asked to anonymize her name and company to shift focus away from any potential negativity toward the company.
“It was a great company for me for almost three decades, so sharing this experience is not about the company, it's about healing, and helping anyone else in a similar situation with a sense of community and support,” she said. “It's also about awareness — reading about others' laid off experiences has been eye-opening and, in a strange way, comforting to me to know that I'm not alone.”
Rho’s advice for others impacted by layoffs is to accept that it’s a life event that requires time to cope and recover. “It feels like a death in the family.”
How did they handle layoffs?
A few weeks before the reduction in force, I got an automated email from our HR software (Ultipro) that said my personal email wasn’t in the system and that I needed to add it. That’s when I first became suspicious. Our company held many layoffs over my 26 year tenure, but this was the first one coordinated with an announcement in town hall, then scheduled meetings.
Who was the first person you told after getting laid off?
My spouse who works from home also. I ran in there to tell him about the town hall announcement, I had a gut feeling. When the CEO said that those impacted would receive a meeting request immediately after the town hall, I knew I was getting one.
You worked there for 26 years. That commitment to a company is increasingly rare. Were you shocked to be impacted by layoffs given how much time you've been there?
Not just shocked, it was a big mix of every reaction possible. That company performed annual right-sizing, so the possibility was always in the back of my mind after that many years. Plus, we had been purchased by a private equity in 2020 so the potential for layoffs was always there. When it happened, I was strangely relieved, fearful, and excited all at the same time. At the time, I had a newer boss that didn’t have decades knowing my value like his predecessors so I wasn’t as shocked as one would think.
Do you wish they handled layoffs differently?
After all the right-sizing over the years, this was the first time our CEO announced it in our regular town hall to the entire global attendance. I knew something was amuck when the town hall kicked off drastically different (usually aired live from our auditorium, this one was our CEO in the media studio) with a somber demeanor and announcement that 4% of the global workforce would be laid off, and those impacted would receive a meeting request immediately after the town hall. Very short and to the point. Our team chat went hot with many folks asking how immediate was “immediate.” I posted, “It was immediate.” These are people many of whom I’ve worked with over 20 years.
I’m not sure how they could have handled it differently, but I feel ok about how it was handled. The HR business partner and my boss were both very kind and seemingly empathetic and talked me through everything. I was worried that I would cry but I didn’t, the adrenaline was too high. I’ve seen layoffs in movies and heard about them in social media, but this was the first time it was happening to me.
How do you think it might feel different for someone to be laid off who has been there for decades vs. someone there for just a few years?
After 26 years with positive performance reviews, you do get a comfort level that is probably unrealistic. With this tenure, I felt like few could do what I do, few had my quick sense of instinct to address various situations because of my decades of experience with the products and customers. I would hazard to guess that short-timers wouldn’t have that same depressing feeling of being dumped or broken up with as long-timers would. The feeling of loss is very different for a long-timer who has gotten married, had children, and started planning for retirement all while at the same company. We were termed “lifers” for this reason.
Were you satisfied with the severance and health insurance package, given how much time you'd been with the company?
I was glad to know we were getting a severance, but was disappointed that it was half what I thought it should be. I thought a common standard severance was a week per year, and I was too chicken to ask for a reconsideration in fear I’d lose it all. I’m still kicking myself for that.
As for medical, it wasn’t enough. The company paid for three months of Cobra (medical) and I paid to continue vision and dental coverage for three months out of pocket. Three months is not enough time to get your resume and Linkedin updated and secure another job in 2024. Six months to a year seems to be the average. There must be a lot of Americans out there without coverage, which is so scary. I’m now looking at independent coverage so I no longer have to be dependent upon an employer for coverage.
After 26 years, I didn’t have a resume that fit today’s requirements nor an updated Linkedin. They were so helpful with all of that as well as interview coaching and many helpful webinars. I am grateful that we received re-employment assistance as part of our separation package. This included resume and Linkedin profile updates, interview coaching, and tons of templates and webinars to help us obtain new jobs. I would never have known the extent of strategies needed with the current job search environment after all this time. The last time I applied for a job, I was in person with a printout of my resume on fake parchment so this service was incredibly helpful.
You mentioned that you're still searching for a job post-layoff. How is it different for someone over 50 vs. someone in their 20s and 30s?
Being older means I’ve had time to pay off my big assets. Therefore, I’m fortunate to not be in a financial panic to pay next month’s rent or car payment like a younger person may be. However, being an older layoffee means this could really jack up my retirement plan. I still have 10 years before I can retire which is not a lot of time to course correct.
On a positive note, and maybe it is because I’m older, but it occurred to me that I have the opportunity to dig deep and decide what I really want to do next. I don’t have to look for jobs that are bullet-for-bullet what I did before, nor do I want to. I have a lot of skills under my belt now that should be able to transfer to many other careers.
While older job seekers do have a wealth of experience and knowledge that can be highly valuable to employers, we also may have higher salary expectations, which can limit the number of suitable job matches. This means I’m getting auto-rejected from the “fun” rebound jobs to which I’ve applied just to help me transition while I decide what I really want to do. I found that we also have to rebrand ourselves to highlight transferable skills and experience in a way that appeals to hiring companies.
What resources or guidance around updating your resume and LinkedIn have been the most helpful?
The re-employment service was helpful and efficient in extracting the information from you which built the framework for an up-to-date resume. They also plopped the information into a new super boring template format that was standardized to get past applicant tracking systems, including modern rules such as no picture, no address, avoid dates that might give away your age, no fancy fonts, etc. They sent a fully updated LinkedIn profile that you could just review, edit, and copy/paste into your profile. This service was the most helpful in getting your job search toolbox updated and ready.
I also watched a lot of the webinars offered by the company-provided and local state-provided re-employment services and the most helpful tips were around crafting your resume and LinkedIn profile to better match the roles to which you were applying. Seems like gamification, but this is the world now. They also provided interview coaching webinars, I rewatch these regularly. I highly recommend any webinars around interviewing and building your brand, because now that you’re up against a global candidate pool and not just a local pool for jobs in many areas of expertise, getting up-to-date in these particular job search skills is crucial.
What's something helpful with the re-employment service? What could be better?
I found the re-employment service extremely helpful and would be quite lost without it. As stated prior, the guidance updating my resume and LinkedIn profile and interview coaching was what I found most useful.
An improvement would involve the re-employment service integrating with recruiters to make matches and get balls rolling. That would be the ultimate re-employment strategy!
More from the Laid Off universe…
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The second issue of the Trend Report dropped last month. People reported being laid off while dropping their husband off at their vasectomy, at Disneyland, while meeting their team for the first time in San Francisco, on their first day back from maternity leave, at their grandmother’s house during a funeral, and in the bathroom finishing a pregnancy test.
The third issue of the Trend Report is dropping soon. It’s on the group chats formed in the aftermath of a layoff and it’s good. If you have a juicy or fun anecdote you want to share, hit reply.
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Thank you for your courage and story 'Rho'. Your next employer will be very lucky to have you!
Hope you're somewhere that appreciates you more now.