Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep165: What to do if you're laid off from your job.

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Corporate Survivor Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your career confidence, build your skills and value, increase your salary, and the many lessons we learn in the corporate world. For more career support, click on over to www.mayping.com. This is Mayping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. Welcome back to the Corporate Survivor Podcast. In today's episode, I want to talk about what you need to do right now if you have been laid off from your job and some tips on what you can do to secure your career during these very challenging times.

Starting point is 00:00:42 So let's dive in. Now, if you have been following the news or just spending time on social media, I'm sure that you have seen a lot of news on people getting laid off, even from some of the top and biggest brands that you know in the world. For example, Twitter, Meta, Amazon, and most recently, Microsoft has also laid off thousands and thousands of their staff. Now, before I get into some of the tips on what you can do right now to tackle and deal with the layoff situation, I just want to add a very quick insight. Now, in the past few years, we have seen a really crazy amount of hiring in these

Starting point is 00:01:16 tech companies all over the world. And when I say crazy hirings, it means that companies went on a massive hiring spree, giving 50-60% salary increments, even for people with very limited work experiences. So this is quite common during the time of a boom, where huge companies can pretty much just put up their hand to their venture capitals and their shareholders and the stock market and just say, hey, we need money and just give us money. And then they go out there just spending their money on hiring different people and right now during the economic recession what's happening is that like all these companies are like bloated in terms of like their operational costs and so forth. Now with that in

Starting point is 00:01:55 mind let's dive into some of the tips that I have for you if you have been unfortunately laid off or you're very worried that your position might be affected in the next couple of months or throughout this year. So the first tip I have for you is really a mindset shift. And it's really about remembering that layoffs are never personal and there is nothing wrong with you. Now, I talk to a lot of corporate professionals who are afraid that they're going to lose their jobs or have been unfortunately laid off. And what I find is that a lot of times that they tend to blame themselves for not seeing this coming or not, you know, doing a much better job. Now, as someone who has actually been in management before and have been in, you know, strategic confidential meetings on reorganizations, restructuring and so forth, I can tell you that a lot of times the decision is made on a strategic basis based on the departments that would add value to the company moving forward.

Starting point is 00:02:50 So what that means is that it's never personal against you, but unfortunately, it's the role that you are currently in may not be aligned with the company's future strategic direction. Now, I'm not discounting the fact that getting laid off, it is emotionally very frustrating. You feel a certain way about it and you should and you absolutely should. But what I'm trying to say here is that just remember that it's really not your fault and, you know, take some time for yourself, but also remember to bounce back because there's another company out there that really values your skills, experiences and background and cannot wait to hire you.

Starting point is 00:03:27 So that's really the mindset transition that I want you to have because, you know, this company is like not forever, right? So you can always move on to the next company who actually wants to grow during this challenging time and is looking for that exact experience that you have to offer. So make that next move by first shifting your mindset, then really going all out for the next phase of your career. And now that you've worked on your mindset, we can move on to step two.

Starting point is 00:03:54 And that's all about rewriting your career story. Specifically, it's time to draft a new version of your resume. Now, this is an advice that I'm going to give it to you, whether you are an active job seeker right now because you have been laid off or you're just someone who is pretty happy at your job, but, you know, maybe thinking about new opportunities. So rewriting your resume and drafting your career story and listing down your achievements is something that I tell all my clients and students in my program to do at least once a year. Now, the reason why this is so important is because if you spend a

Starting point is 00:04:25 lot of time just working in the job, maybe for a few years, you tend to forget the good contributions that you have contributed to the company. And after some time, you think that you're only doing the day-to-day tasks and you really don't think about the value that you bring. So make this a once-a-year exercise. And if you're listening or watching to this episode right now, then I want you to set us up some time after this and really write down your career summary. So what have you done throughout your career journey, specifically what are some of the achievements and make sure that you write it down in your resume so that you remember that you have a lot of value to bring and therefore it's not something that one company can take away from you, but looking at your career as an overall marathon and not a sprint. So that's something that I want you to do right now.

Starting point is 00:05:10 And once you have drafted a good version of your resume that positions your value, skills and experiences and have really been reviewed by a former hiring manager, and that's something I also do for a lot of my clients. So once you have done all that and you know that your resume is a very good one, we can now move on to step three. So step three is I want you to revive your LinkedIn account. So specifically, I need you to have a very strong LinkedIn profile. Now, a lot of corporate professionals who come to me complaining that they are afraid that they're going to lose their

Starting point is 00:05:39 job or they're afraid that they're not getting new opportunities. Many, many, many of them are not even on LinkedIn. Now, if you're a nine to five working professional, you need to be on LinkedIn. That is the platform where corporate professionals hang out. Now, if you are not there to hang out where HR, talent acquisition, recruiters, hiring managers are also hanging out, then how can you actually be found regardless of how good you are? So the third step I want you to do is to make sure, if you don't have a LinkedIn account, make sure that you set up an account right now. If you have it, you have not been using it, make sure that you revive it, look through your LinkedIn profile and make sure that you update it as complete as possible. Now, this is something that I teach

Starting point is 00:06:18 more in module six of the Corporate Survivor's Three-Step Framework. So this is a career course for 95 professionals to get new career opportunities and grow their careers. So that's step three. And that's something that you really need to focus on because online networking is like the new black. You know, resumes are great, but if you lack an online presence, you lack an online brand specifically on LinkedIn,

Starting point is 00:06:40 you are definitely going to miss out a lot. So make it a point, make sure that you either create an account or revive your LinkedIn account right after listening to this episode. And you're ready to move on to the next step. And the next step is about being consistent in pursuing as many opportunities as possible. And this is the advice that I'm going to give you if you're an active job seeker right now, you're somebody who has been laid off. I don't want you to spend too much time wallowing and going into a black hole because that's not going to be helpful. But what I want

Starting point is 00:07:07 you to do is to start applying for opportunities, start applying for anything that's related to your career interests, career options and direction, anything that's related to that, you want to really maximize the applications. Now, a lot of people also come and tell me after applying for only one or two jobs and say, hey, Mipin, how come, you know, I don't think, you know, my job strategy is working. And when I ask them, okay, so how many jobs have you applied? And they tell me that I applied for two jobs. Now, it's good that you're actually making the applications, but if you're only applying for two jobs versus someone else who's applying for 20 jobs for a suitable role in the right industry, who do

Starting point is 00:07:45 you think has a much higher chance of success and getting interviews and getting the job offers? So I think you may agree with me that the person who applied like the 20 jobs probably has a higher chance of success, right? So you also want to make sure that yes, you know, a quality resume, quality LinkedIn profile is important, but if you can match quality together with the quantity of relevant applications that you're making, you can probably significantly increase your chances of success. So this was something that I also talked about in one of my recent group mentoring sessions as part of the Corporate Survivor Program, and one of my students also asked me this very similar question in which, hey, you know, how many applications do I need to make

Starting point is 00:08:22 every week, and like how often do you have a super helpful career job search strategy that, you know, how many applications do I need to make every week? And like, how often do you have a super helpful career job search strategy that, you know, doesn't make me feel burnt out as an introvert? So these questions are actually quite normal. And when you're in the job searching phase, it can feel a little bit frustrating. So if you're an active job seeker, I highly recommend that you get started with those steps right now. Now, moving on to the fifth point, and this is a very specific tip that I'm going to give to whether you're an active job seeker or you're somebody who is in a 9-5 job, you know, feeling pretty good at your job right now, this tip actually applies to both. And that is all about

Starting point is 00:08:55 making sure that you do not put all your eggs in one basket and continuously improve your career knowledge, mindset, and skill set. Now, during this timing of, you know, economic recession and uncertain times, a lot of people have the misunderstanding that, oh, you know, maybe this is the time, you know, maybe I can't get a salary increment, maybe I can't get a promotion, maybe I can't improve myself. I'm going to tell you that this is not true. In fact, during last week's group mentoring call as part of the Corporate Survivor, I actually shared with my students in the program some student successes. And I can tell you that I have students who managed to get 25% in new job,

Starting point is 00:09:32 5% annual increments. They are also able to get job promotions with 10% to 20% salary increments. So what I'm trying to say here is that companies are still looking for good talent. And there are also companies out there that are actually growing. It may not be those companies that actually fire people. But what I'm saying is that there are small businesses, there are regional businesses, there are also global multinational companies who really want to grow during these uncertain times.

Starting point is 00:09:58 So your job is to make sure that you continue to improve your skills, continue to improve your value so that these companies actually want to hire you and make sure that you continue to improve your skills, continue to improve your values, so that these companies actually want to hire you and make sure that you appear online, especially on LinkedIn, so that you can actually be discovered. So career learning is something that I don't want you to, you know, ignore just because, you know, you feel that, oh, maybe it's the economic recession, nothing's going to happen, blah, blah, blah, that that's the wrong thinking. Career learning is something that's ongoing and in fact something that i tell a lot of my clients and students that this is probably the best time for you to improve your career skills improve your corporate skills because when the time that things actually boom

Starting point is 00:10:39 you are going to be a lot more ahead than a lot of other people out there who are still complaining that there are no opportunities because you have learned how to not put all your eggs in one basket and to really make sure that you learn the three-step framework that I teach, which is get clear, get confident, get visible, and making sure that you continue to increase your value so that people actually want to pay you that will help you climb the career ladder and also earn more and more and more and therefore increasing your overall income as well. So I hope these steps are something that you will take in mind and really consider what I'm telling you here because this is really advice from a former corporate leader, hiring manager, someone who has actually been in leadership and management

Starting point is 00:11:22 positions before and I can tell that these are the actual discussions that we have at the management level. We're really thinking about organization restructure, company restructure, and staff allocation. So take it from me, and if you really want to get more personalized advice, this is something that I cover in the Corporate Survivors group mentoring sessions, as well as in a bonus one-on-one career strategy call with me. So if that's something that you want to do to plan out your career in the next 11 to 12 months, then check out the link in description below or drop me a DM on LinkedIn and Instagram and let me know what are some of your biggest takeaways from today's episode. I look forward to hear from you. And in the meantime, you can check out all the other episodes in the Corporate Survivor

Starting point is 00:12:02 podcast. And if you're interested to join the Corporate Survivor program, you can check out all the other episodes in the Corporate Survivor podcast and if you're interested to join the Corporate Survivor program you can definitely find more information at www.mayping.com or in the description below till then good luck all the best

Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep165: What to do if you're laid off from your job.

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