Sharing a story here because one, I posted about (my now former) employer once before on this forum and everyone said to keep an eye out for another job. The general consensus was this was not a good company to work for.
Anonymous
Sharing a story here because one, I posted about (my now former) employer once before on this forum and everyone said to keep an eye out for another job. The general consensus was this was not a good company to work for.
I started working for them on a hybrid basis in March. In April it was fully remote and I immediately felt like I was cut off from the team. In June they flew a bunch of new employees to their headquarters in TX for a baseball game. That didn’t help my sense of FOMO as well, including wondering if they were just holding onto me in case business picked up and they needed my help.
The two other processors (my role) were really doing all of the work. I had several deals in the pipeline but those girls were not sharing. It was a base plus benefits and small bonuses role. They figured out they could handle all the work.
Come last Wednesday I was told I had a zoom meeting with my manager. It was one on one and I knew something was wrong.
The next morning I started my day, did some work and clocked in for my morning zoom meeting. They couldn’t even show their faces and HR was in the meeting. I knew then and there it was over. I was told I was being terminated. They did offer me severance. I believe they knew they were in the wrong because they couldn’t even face me.
Well, the major silver lining in all of this is I have a strong LinkedIn profile and presence. During this whole time I had a few other companies in my industry try to recruit me and I always politely kept them at bay. Now I am interviewing with two of them. One is lined up for tomorrow and I’ll hear back today from the recruiter for a different position to have an on site this week.
I am very fortunate to have this kind of interest in me. My industry is very niche and word of mouth. We all know each other via six degrees of separation or directly. I’d rather not get into too much but it’s about investing in physical precious metals.
We’ll see what lands, but thankfully I have interest in me and the company I worked for was definitely fair about severance given I only worked there about 6 months. But oof…that was low - no warnings, nothing, just were going to show you this is an at will state (CA) and I was “laid off”. At least they did that much as well.
Linkedin is a wonderful tool. I’ve been through the mill before and am well aware of what this job market is like, so I can’t express enough how grateful I am that I’m lining up interviews already, as well as moving forward with the knowledge I learned from them.
If you are not on LI, I suggest you find a way to get on there. At one point, several years ago, I created a strong LI profile. It hasn’t always landed me a job, but it’s kept me in the loop with my network, as well as opening it up. I went through my own sheer hell before landing this job, but it seems it’s real purpose was to give me more knowledge and experience, as well as open up other doors.
I only posted about this job once and everyone gave the same feedback - keep looking. I didn’t want to hear that but I did keep lines of communication open.
Networking is the best way to help during this crazy job market and LinkedIn, as I said, is a wonderful source.
I don’t have offers on the table yet, so I won’t get ahead of myself, but in sum I appreciate this community giving me some insight and advice when I needed it. I’m also only using one story, but I have found this forum to be very useful and supportive.
Also, always trust your gut. My intuition told me something was off and I was correct.
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