Transcript
Speaker: Hello, welcome everybody. My name's Jackie and i found my job.
Speaker: Oh my goodness, y'all. It sure is something. As you can probably tell from the intro, I have had a big life change recently.
Speaker: And honestly, this happened a hell of a lot sooner than I expected it to, which I am very grateful for. But I just got the news that I was successful in one of my interviews and I was offered a job.
Speaker: Spoiler alert. Yes, I have taken it. I am an employed human being once more.
Speaker: When I started this podcast, I knew that I didn't want to make it about me. There are so many more important stories to tell than mine.
Speaker: And I really wanted to highlight that. That has always been my goal.
Speaker: I do want to share a little bit about my story today and talk about the future of the podcast and kind of where this all goes. So back in early June was when I found out I was being let go from a company I was with for about four years.
Speaker: It was really hard because this was a company that i truly loved working for. i loved the people that I worked with and it's kind of like a very bad breakup that where the person says, it's not you, it's me.
Speaker: See you later. And naturally, with almost any layoff, that stings. It stings a whole, whole lot. And it was really unfortunate.
Speaker: And like many people that I've talked to I went into that panic spiral of, oh my God, I need a job. Oh my God, how am I going to afford to keep my family eating and afford a mortgage and all of those things that you panic about to the point where I was ready to work at the nearest coffee shop if the opportunity came up.
Speaker: Thankfully, I had a former boss of mine who has always been great at talking me off the ledge. And once again, she came right in and helped keep me from completely spiraling. And I also had a great former coworker who found themselves in the same situation as me.
Speaker: And they also provided a lot of support. And really leaning into all of that all of those connections was so helpful.
Speaker: It was so needed because I firmly believe that when you have a big life event happening, whether it's a layoff or, you know, what have you, community is really what keeps you sane.
Speaker: And that is absolutely what I found in this case. So again, like most people, I spent the past couple of months mass applying to jobs, getting, i think my total interview count was three.
Speaker: I got three interviews in total. One of those interviews I was rejected after the third round by a very succinct email.
Speaker: One of those three positions was canceled in the middle of my interviews. And the third interview is the one that I have now accepted the position with.
Speaker: And here's what I will say.
Speaker: Sometime I may go into a deeper dive of my job application data and what that all looked like because at heart I am a big data enthusiast and I love going through and looking through all the things of like, was I more likely to get a response on a Monday than a Friday? Or how often you know did somebody respond within 48 hours of me applying? Spoiler alert, very rarely.
Speaker: um But what I will say is that of the over 200 jobs at this point that I applied to,
Speaker: two of the interviews I got were from just cold applications. And that was very early on in my job search. The position I'm accepting I did not get through an application. i did actually get this one through an introduction from my network.
Speaker: And I can't say enough for how important networking really is in this job market. There are companies that are so inundated with referrals for positions that they may not even be publicly posting their jobs or they may post it for an hour or two and take it down.
Speaker: So I really wish that I had some sort of solid, actionable advice to say, once I did x Y, and z that's what got me the job.
Speaker: Truly, it was my network. Without my network, I don't know where I would be today. ah Probably not at the spot that I'm in. So what I do want to stress is that Lean into all of your connections as much as you can.
Speaker: It is not a surefire way to get yourself a job, but it is a really strong resource that you just can't overlook at this point.
Speaker: You never know when somebody's company is going to be hiring or somebody's boss is going to say, hey do you know somebody who does this?
Speaker: It is really helpful to have people on the inside of a company looking out for you and being willing to put your name forward before a job even goes live.
Speaker: So that is what I can say as far as my experience goes, because still. I have received so many blanket rejections and even more no responses from my cold applications.
Speaker: If I ah had to go through and you know, pull out all the data, um It would truly be amazing how not helpful cold applying seems to be these days. It's such a crapshoot.
Speaker: And that's not to say don't go cold applying. Absolutely. like
Speaker: It's much harder to get a job if you stop applying to jobs. So don't let this be a deterrent for cold applications because they do work for plenty of people.
Speaker: Also, don't underestimate the power of your network.
Speaker: Now onto where this podcast goes from here. The answer truly is I don't know. I want to continue this podcast because there are so many untold stories that still need to be heard.
Speaker: There is still so much noise on LinkedIn that is so unhelpful and there's still not a lot of good places for the people in the laid off community to go.
Speaker: I don't want to take away one of those places that I've been trying to create. I do need to focus on my employment and making sure that I can feed my family.
Speaker: My hope is that I can balance both. That likely means that I will not be able to release weekly episodes anymore. They will probably be a little more infrequent.
Speaker: Or somebody else shows interest in taking over this podcast and keeping this going. I am very open to either.
Speaker: But what I know is There will still be more layoffs. There are more people who are going to be on this journey that will need support and will always deserve support.
Speaker: There are people who will find their job and then lose their job again.
Speaker: I sincerely hope that I can continue building this community.
Speaker: i just don't know.
Speaker: So we will have to take things one day at a time, see how this all unfolds and figure out how to keep driving this in a way that is effective and takes care of people who've been laid off.
Speaker: So it is really wild to know that my layoff story ends here, at least for now, because looking through LinkedIn, like like one should never do, at least not that frequently, I fully anticipated to not find work likely for the remainder of this year, maybe even into next year.
Speaker: And I do feel really extremely grateful that my turnaround was as quick as it has been.
Speaker: I feel like it, it's hard to, because what I am learning is that
Speaker: layoffs aren't like
Speaker: How do I want to describe this?
Speaker: Maybe it's not like a puzzle where somebody takes away a puzzle piece and then you find another puzzle piece to put back in and everything's better and the puzzle's all together.
Speaker: ah It's not like that.
Speaker: Being offered a new job has provided such a sense of relief to me
Speaker: And at the same time, it does not feel like it completely heals everything that's happened over the last few months.
Speaker: Honestly, I kind of hoped it would. I kind of hoped that, you know, when when an offer came in everything would just magically be back to normal.
Speaker: And i I think I will get to that new normal. I feel very good about everything now, but there is a part of me that still feels really sad.
Speaker: And I don't know that that part ever truly goes away.
Speaker: Like I was hoping it would. And that's okay.
Speaker: That's okay.
Speaker: It's one of those things that becomes a new normal.
Speaker: And I am very, truly, I am excited for my new normal. I continue to grieve the loss of my old normal. I think because it just, everything just felt so, like it was so in place.
Speaker: And when you take that away, obviously it kind of rattles you a bit. So,
Speaker: ugh.
Speaker: Either way, I can't stress enough how grateful I am that that this is kind of the end of my layoff journey, at least for now.
Speaker: I am so looking forward to this new journey that I'm going on and I will continue to
Speaker: grieve what I had that I don't have any anymore. and manage all of those complex emotions in a very new light now.
Speaker: And I hope to continue telling the stories of other people, or rather, having a space for other people to tell their stories. Because if there is one thing I've learned in the short time that I have been doing this podcast, it's that this whole process is is so the roller coaster of emotions, the complexity of emotions, the feeling happy and sad at the same time, feeling guilty and not guilty at the same time, wanting something and then wanting something else and throwing yourself into something you never thought you would do.
Speaker: It's all very wild.
Speaker: I don't know that in my life I've ever had to deal with this much complexity of emotions, and I truly think I will be a better person for it.
Speaker: I've just learned so much from doing this and talking to other people, and I'm also grateful for that, for having learned a lot for having some commonality and knowing that the feelings that I was feeling are things that other people felt too.
Speaker: And that certainly brought me a sense of calm that I wasn't just going off the rails. I wasn't just, ah you know, being crazy for lack of a better term, but knowing that this is something that happens.
Speaker: This is something that is common with people who've been laid off. And I never wanted to call it normal because being laid off should not be a normal situation.
Speaker: And I never want to make it feel normal because for me, that would make it feel, that would make the emotions feel less than, right? Like there's an expectation that you shouldn't feel this way. This is normal.
Speaker: And instead, I always wanted to emphasize that you should feel this way. This is common.
Speaker: I feel like I have been rambling at this point. Um, what I want to say is thank you for everybody who has listened and followed me on this journey to date. I truly hope to continue this journey.
Speaker: I will do what I can to continue this journey. It may look different. It may look less frequent, but it is still something that is important to me. I appreciate everybody.
Speaker: Every single one of my guests has been truly amazing for being willing to put their story out there. So I want to thank all of my guests again for helping me kick this thing off, this tiny little podcast that, you know, who knew how many people were going to listen to it.
Speaker: I want to thank each of you for helping me start this. And again, anybody who has listened, I appreciate you to no end.
Speaker: I really don't know what else to say at this point. I think someday I will have a lot more to say. For now, I'm going to leave it there. Thank you all again for everything with this podcast.
Speaker: My little tiny baby idea that turned into something tangible. It's been really cool so far. And hopefully you will see another episode again soon.
Speaker: Take care, y'all.
