Okay, that isn’t exactly what they said, but it may as well have been. On Nov 21st, 2024, I got the dreaded meeting request with our VP of Demand Gen. Just me, none of my other teammates. So, obviously, I knew something was up. I had a really bad feeling about it and half jokingly half panicky said something about it to my direct manager, but at the time she didn’t seem to know anything about it.
The meeting was set for later in the afternoon around 4 pm and of course, the thing that I dreaded the most happened, someone from HR jumped on the call with us and I heard the words that due to a reorganization in our marketing department, your position has been eliminated. Basically, it had nothing to do with my performance or quality of work, they just didn’t need me anymore or they were looking for ways to cut costs. If I were to guess, it is probably the latter.
Of course, I sat there in shock, I was the person who did all the graphics for our marketing emails, and the majority of our social media posts, and was our only social media manager. Tears welled up in my eyes because I really liked working for that company and loved all of my co-workers, especially my direct teammates. I was immediately shut out of everything and couldn’t pass off any of the work I was currently tasked with doing. Including the tasks I was just given that same day.
Any way you look at it, it was a sucky day and a sucky situation. My coworkers I worked with directly reached out to me and of course offered their support in any way that they could. Which I was very grateful for. You see, I worked with some really amazing people at this job and honestly, it felt like we all just gelled together since day one and had been a team for years.
I decided to take some time to just take a break before starting to look for a new job. I did not realize how burned out I was until I had the chance to not really do anything. During that time, I did make a game plan on what I was going to do once I was done taking a break from working.
Three Smart Things to Do While You’re Not Working
- Evaluate if you are in the career field you want to pursue long-term.
Take a minute (really longer than an actual minute) and think about if the career field you are in is what you want to be doing for work. Or the subset of that field. For example, I have been working in marketing. I needed to decide if I wanted to pursue more of the graphic design, content management, or social media management aspects of marketing.
How do you do this?
– Read some books related to your current career path and/or any career paths you might be interested in.
– Listen to podcasts and interviews from people in the field.
– Look at job descriptions on LinkedIn or any other job posting platforms.
– Talk to your friends and family and see if they see what career potential they see in you that you may not see yourself. - Take some courses to further your education or get certified in areas that will make you a more attractive job candidate.
I don’t know about you, but after a few days of doing nothing, I started to get bored and wanted to do something other than read and watch T.V. So, I looked into taking some courses to work on furthering my education in graphic design. I also decided to work on getting Meta Social Media Marketing Professional Certificate. Check out Udemy and Coursera for some great options to learn something new or to work on your certifications. I am not affiliated with either of them, but I have taken courses through both platforms and have found them beneficial for my career. - Update your LinkedIn and resume.
Honestly, this is probably the most important of the three and the one I put off doing the longest. Like most people, I hate having to update both of these. I feel like I never know what to write or how to word it. Which is really weird given the fact that I work in marketing. So, here are my tips for updating both LinkedIn and your resume:
– Set a specific time and place that you are going to work on updating your LinkedIn and resume. Make sure it is a good working environment for you, you are wearing some comfy clothes, and have a cup of coffee (or really any beverage of your choice, though I would recommend staying away from alcohol while working in this).
– Write down everything you did at your previous job. Don’t worry about making it sound pretty, just write it down. I would recommend on a piece of paper, but if digitally works better for you, go for it.
– Select a resume format you want to use. Personally, I searched for ATS Friendly Resumes on Creative Market and purchased the ATS Resume Template – Candice. This particular template is compatible with Microsoft Word, MAC Pages, or Google Docs. Pro Tip: Always read the description to make sure that the template is compatible with your software of choice.
Again, I am not affiliated with Creative Market or the designer in any say, this just happens to be where I purchase a lot of items and templates for my design work.
– Once you have your resume template purchased or created, start plugging in your info. This is where you can start to make the wording of your work history start to sound pretty. You can start to see where you might be able to combine things or maybe just cut some things altogether. Pro Tip: Once you have everything in and are happy with it, run that bad boy through ChatGPT or your AI of choice and have it work its magic to refine and condense your resume. I have found this to be a great tool. Make sure to read over it before finalizing your info because it isn’t perfect and might make a mistake. ALWAYS PROOFREAD! I feel like a broken record saying this, but I am in no way affiliated with ChatGPT or any other AI. It is just a nice tool to be able to use in this process.
– Now go ahead and update all of that info on LinkedIn. I even ran my Title and About Me sections through ChatGPT to help me refine them.
I know losing a job can seem like a lot, and let’s be honest, it is. There are a lot of moving pieces in our day-to-day lives and when one piece gets snatched away or moved unexpectedly, it can really throw you off course. Hopefully, these tips will help to get you back on track and also remind you that you are not alone when these things happen.
Great tips! Thanks for your insight 🙂
Thanks, Erin!