The Cruel Irony of Getting Laid Off as a Recruiter

This post is part of a three-part series on my experience getting laid off as a recruiter. You can find part two here and part three here.

It happened on a Tuesday.

I remember the day so well. I could tell as soon as I got to work that something was up. By chance, I arrived early that day and saw the leadership team and a few key HR folks sitting in the boardroom, looking concerned.

Then it started. My immediate manager avoided me all morning — he couldn’t look me in the eyes. One by one, I watched people go in and out of the room like a conveyor belt. Fourteen people in all before it was my turn.

When my manager and our head of people called me in, I knew exactly what was going to happen. The conversation didn’t last longer than a few minutes. I was handed some paperwork and told me what would happen next. We exchanged some pleasantries, we hugged, and then it was over.

Well, not quite.

Before it happened to me, my view of layoffs was quite linear. I used to think people were let go when they’re underperforming or not meeting their goals. Those employees would have a couple of one-to-ones with their manager and be put on a performance plan and when that dreaded day comes, they would see it coming. Right?

But mass layoffs… that was a gap in my understanding. The idea that a cohort of people can be exited out of a company all at once at no fault of their own. It seems so unacceptable as a practice, but now it’s normal. Almost mundane.

For me, one of the hardest parts of getting laid off wasn’t even the pain and disappointment that came from losing my own job. It was the fact that this was also happening to people I recruited.

People I convinced to leave or reject other opportunities to join the company I was working for. People I called personally, brimming with excitement, as I told them that they got the job. People I now watched get forced out of a company, even though they did nothing wrong.

It broke my heart. It also made me question so many things about myself and my employer. Was I blind? Was I a fool? Did I lie to them? Should I have seen this coming?

The worst part came months later. This time, it was 40 people.

I read about the layoffs while I was at my desk at my new and current job. As soon as I read the headline, I started to cry. It was uncontrollable. I went to go hide in the stairwell of the office and just cried, and cried, and cried.

The list of folks who had been laid off — so many of them were people I hired. It was one of the worst days of my career. I wanted to reach out to all of them and tell them how sorry I was but I figured that the last thing they wanted to see was my name in their inbox.

I didn’t know what to do at the time and I still don’t have all the answers today. But as I look back on this experience years later and observe how companies are handling similar situations currently, I see an opportunity to change this narrative.

If I could go back in time, here’s what I wish I could change about my layoff experience.

I wish the process wasn’t so clinical

As I settled into work that day, I watched my higher-ups and HR colleagues set up ‘the room.’ They picked one without windows so nobody could peer into it and added a couple of chairs to make it seem a little more comfortable.

But once the process began, everything felt robotic. I was the last person laid off that day, so the script was memorized to perfection. These people who I’d spent so much time working with were now talking to me like I was a stranger. In some ways, I felt bad that they had to deliver this message, but I was also embarrassed by the phoniness of it all.

While I understand the importance of protecting the company by sticking to a clear and concise message, the coldness of the process made it even more stressful. If I could have a do-over, I wish they could have found a way to engage with their emotions and be a little more human during our conversation.

I wish my company were more considerate of their post-layoff messaging

After I was laid off, along with 14 other employees, my former employer held a company-wide stand-up meeting where the general message was that those who were laid off “didn’t have as much heart” as those who remained.

Not only was this offensive to those of us who were exited out of a company we worked so hard for, but it was also insulting to the survivors who knew immediately that this message wasn’t true.

What companies say to their remaining team members matters — a lot. Layoffs can lead the surviving employees to feel like they’ve lost control. If they’re former colleagues can be dismissed, despite their hard work and good performance, then how can they know for sure that their roles are safe?

Today, I would tell those company leaders to take a page out of Airbnb Co-founder and CEO, Brian Chesky’s book. Instead of trying to paint the false picture of what’s going on, I would ask that they be as transparent as possible and honour their laid-off staff members by letting their remaining team know that their contributions mattered and their work, and the company’s mission, will live on.

I wish I gave myself more time to mourn

During one of my post-layoff interviews, the hiring manager asked me how I was doing and I told her how shocked and hurt I was by the experience.

“This was the best work of my career but I guess that didn’t matter,” I told her, and I started to cry.

And in a weird way, I’m happy that I cried. I’m happy that I acknowledged how I felt, even with a stranger, and I’m grateful that she was so empathetic and held space for me at that moment. But I also wish I let myself feel these feelings a little bit earlier. It hurt to be laid off and I needed to mourn, but I didn’t allow myself that grace and time to process my emotions.

Layoffs will always be painful. Nobody wants to deliver the fateful message and nobody wants to hear it. And during difficult times, many of us have a tendency to go numb in an attempt to shield ourselves from the inevitable hurt — myself included. But as I reflect on some of the darkest days of my career, I can now see how empowering it can be to be present in those moments and sit with those hard feelings.

It makes me think that if we all had a little more compassion for ourselves and others, we could make this agonizing process a little more humane.