Advance Notice of a Layoff

When you find out early that your job is going to be eliminated, it will still be difficult news, but knowing ahead of time can actually help you by giving you more time to prepare for the transition.

Some employers and some managers are allowed and comfortable with this type of notification and are not concerned that you will pose any type of risk to them, so they will often go out of their way to give the news as soon as they possibly can. The manager and the HR person will bring you into a room and tell you the news.

"Because of business conditions, your job is will be eliminated at some point in the future..."

They may give you a specific date or they may not. I will talk about how to handle receiving the news in another post, but I can tell you when it happens, you will probably be somewhat in shock. Everyone reacts differently, but don't count on remembering much of what you do or say right afterwards. You will, on the other hand, remember vividly everything the manager and the HR person says.

Most managers will recognize that you may need to take the rest of the day off to collect your thoughts and will be okay with you coming back tomorrow (or at least I hope they are). In either case, don't count on getting a whole lot more done for that day.

There is an upside to knowing ahead of time. You can not only look for a job within the company (usually with full endorsement from your manager), but also look outside without worrying about repercussions -- your manager will want you to land on your feet, especially if they are going to tell you early. Take full advantage of this.

How to handle your last day...

Well folks, today was my last day in the office at my current employer. I've been offered a severance package that started 2 days ago and would last 6 months.

In the meantime I have 6 serious job opportunities I'm looking at. 2 are at my current employer, 2 are with another employer (and I'm interviewing for both of those roles on the same day), and 2 more are each separate companies. It does make me wonder, if the job market stinks right now, what does smokin-hot look like.

So here's how I handled the last day. I had everything packed up the day before and taken home, so nothing else to clean out, although I obsessively checked my empty drawers over and over again today. So the only thing left to worry about was saying goodbyes, either in person or by email, or by phone. I ended up doing all three.