Layoffs & Severance
What to do the first week after a layoff
The first week after a layoff is not a job search week. It is a paperwork week, and almost everything worth doing in it has a deadline already running.
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Full episode transcript
Pip: The call was eleven minutes. Your manager kept his camera off. And somehow, in the silence that follows, the clock that matters most is not the one on your job search.
Mara: That opening is from Angela Malagon, and it sets up everything we are covering today — what the first week after a layoff is actually for, and why the paperwork deadlines matter more than the job boards right now.
Pip: Let’s start with what to do, and what not to do, in those first seven days.
The first week is paperwork, not job searching
Mara: The central claim here is worth sitting with: the first week after a layoff is not a job search week. Two things expire in that window — leverage inside an unsigned agreement, and the ability of the people who watched you work to describe what you actually did in specific terms.
Pip: And here is the line that reframes the whole thing: the first week after a layoff is a paperwork week, and almost everything worth doing in it has a deadline already running.
Mara: What that means in practice is that two clocks are already running before you even open your laptop on Tuesday morning. The first is inside the severance agreement itself — a review period, a signing deadline, and in some cases a revocation window after you sign. Signing on day two buys you nothing. The money does not arrive sooner and the terms do not improve.
Pip: The second clock is the one that surprises people — reference quality has a shelf life, and it is shorter than anyone expects.
Mara: Right. A manager who can name the project, the quarter, and the number is worth an interview. A manager who remembers you were great is worth almost nothing to a hiring committee. That specificity decays fast, and the post is explicit that you should send the recommendation request this week, not when you feel more composed about it.
Pip: There is also a third clock — unemployment — and the post is careful not to overpromise here.
Mara: Deliberately so. The post flags that filing and being paid are two separate things, that severance can affect timing, and that the rules vary by state. The advice is simply: look yours up in week one instead of week four.
Pip: So the whole first week is essentially triage — not because the job search does not matter, but because these windows close whether or not you are paying attention to them.
Mara: The post structures it day by day. Days one and two: do not sign the agreement yet, write down everything you can no longer look up once access is gone, and file for unemployment even if you think severance disqualifies you. Days three and four: send HR one organized email with every question in it, get the real health insurance number, and ask for recommendations while people still remember the details. Days five through seven: decide whether the agreement needs an attorney’s review — especially if there is a non-compete, unvested equity, or anything about how you were selected that sits wrong.
Pip: And then, the post says, stop. The resume rewrite is week two work, and you will do it better having slept.
Mara: The post also includes two ready-to-send email scripts: one to HR covering benefits, PTO payout, severance timing, and the agreement deadline, and one to your manager and close colleagues asking for a LinkedIn recommendation with the specifics already handed to them, so what comes back has a number in it instead of a paragraph about how much you will be missed.
Pip: The detail about offering to draft the recommendation yourself is the kind of thing that sounds presumptuous until you realize it is the reason you get one at all.
Mara: Exactly the point the post makes. People want to help. They do not want to write. And the job postings will still be there on Monday. The review window will not be.
Pip: Eleven minutes to end a job. Apparently it takes about a week to protect what the job was actually worth.
Mara: And knowing which deadlines you did not set is the work.
Angela Malagon — Career Strategist. 15+ years recruiting talent for companies such as Cisco, Google, and Wells Fargo, then job searched against the same systems.
The call was eleven minutes. There was an HR person on it you had never met, your manager kept his camera off, and by the time you closed the laptop your Slack was already dead. Then it is Tuesday morning, and for the first time in years nobody needs anything from you.
Everyone tells you to take a few days. Nobody tells you that several of the things that matter most in that first week have dates attached to them, and that a couple of those clocks started before you were told anything.
What is actually happening on the company side
Your layoff was not decided on Tuesday. I spent 15+ years recruiting talent for companies such as Cisco, Google, and Wells Fargo, and the first sign of a reduction is never the announcement. It is reqs getting pulled, an approved role going quiet, a hiring manager who is suddenly not allowed to backfill. That happens weeks ahead, sometimes a full quarter ahead.
By the time you were on that call, the plan was finished. The severance agreement in your inbox is a template. Legal wrote it, the numbers came out of a formula tied to tenure and level, and other people received the identical document with a different name on page one. The person reading from the script is not making a judgment about you. They are working a list.
That matters for one very practical reason. Nothing on their side is waiting on you this week, which is exactly why everything you do this week feels like it disappears into nothing. It is not you being slow or unfocused. There is genuinely nobody on the other end of that line anymore.
Two clocks are running, and neither one is your job search
The first clock is written into the agreement. There is a period to review it, a date the signed copy is due, and in some cases a window to revoke it after signing. Find those dates before you read anything else. Signing on day two buys you nothing at all. The money does not arrive sooner and the terms do not improve.
The second clock is the one nobody warns you about. Right now your manager, your skip level, and the two cross-functional people who actually watched you work can describe what you did in detail. They remember the number, the project name, the quarter you saved the launch. In two months they will remember that you were good. A reference who says you were great is worth almost nothing. A reference who says specifics is worth an interview. That level of detail has a shelf life, and it is much shorter than people expect.
In most states there is a third clock on the unemployment claim. Filing and being paid are two separate things, severance can affect the timing, and the rules are genuinely different depending on where you live. Look yours up in week one instead of week four.
Your first week after a layoff, in order
Days 1 and 2
- Do not sign the agreement. Read it once, put the due date in a calendar, and set it down. Waiting costs you nothing. You cannot unsign it.
- Write down everything you can no longer look up. Your access is already gone. Open a blank document and get out the project names, the metrics, the dollar figures, the headcount you supported, the systems you ran, and the personal email addresses of everyone who would vouch for you. This gets harder every single day.
- File for unemployment. File even if you assume severance disqualifies you, and let the state tell you what it thinks. Guessing yourself out of a benefit is a common and expensive mistake.
Days 3 and 4
- Send HR one email with every question in it. Script below. One organized email gets a real answer. Six anxious ones get you a form reply and a reputation.
- Get the actual health insurance number. Coverage end date, the real monthly premium to continue your plan at your current tier, and whether losing coverage opens a special enrollment period on the marketplace. This is the biggest financial surprise of the first month, and it is a number, not a feeling.
- Ask for the recommendations now. While people still feel terrible and still remember the details. Script below. Every week you wait, the recommendation gets warmer and vaguer.
Days 5 to 7
- Decide whether this needs an attorney’s eye. If there is a non-compete, a non-solicit, unvested equity, a bonus you already earned, or anything about how you were selected that sits wrong, one hour of an employment attorney’s time is cheap against the number on that page. I am not a lawyer and this is not that kind of advice, but knowing when to buy an hour is strategy.
- Write the two sentences you will say for the next four months. What happened, what you are looking for. No apology, no company gossip. You will say this a hundred times, so write it once now, badly, and improve it later. It is the same sentence everyone in the hiring chain has to repeat about you, so it is worth getting right early.
- Then stop. The resume rewrite is week two work and you will do it better having slept.
When you get to week two, the 90-Day Job Search Checklist and the Job Search Tracker in the free Job Search Library pick up where this list stops.
The two emails to send this week
The first goes to HR. Keep it flat and administrative, because the person receiving it is processing forty of these and the ones that get answered first are the ones that are easy to answer.
Subject: Separation paperwork questions, [your name]
Hi [name], a few questions so I can review the agreement properly.
1. What is my exact last day of benefits coverage, and what is the monthly premium to continue my current plan at my current tier?
2. Will accrued PTO be paid out, and on which check?
3. Is severance paid as a lump sum or on the normal payroll cycle, and what is the first payment date?
4. What is the deadline for returning the signed agreement?
5. Where should employment verification requests go once my access ends?Thanks, [name]
The second goes to your manager, and to two people who worked next to you. Send it this week, not when you feel more composed about it.
Hi [name], my role was eliminated on [date]. I am pulling my materials together this week while everything is still fresh.
Would you be willing to write me a short LinkedIn recommendation? Two or three sentences is plenty. The things I would most want a hiring manager to know are [specific project], [specific number or result], and [specific problem you solved]. Happy to draft something you can edit if that is easier.
Either way, thank you for the last [X] years. My personal email is [address].
Notice what the second email does. It hands them the specifics, so what comes back has a number in it instead of a paragraph about how much you will be missed. Offering to draft it is not presumptuous, it is the reason you get one at all. People want to help and they do not want to write.
What the first week is actually for
The first week after a layoff is not a job search week. It is a week for protecting the two things that expire: the leverage sitting inside an unsigned agreement, and the people who can still describe your work in specifics. The job postings will still be there on Monday. Your review window will not be, and neither will your old skip level’s memory of what you actually pulled off in Q2.
The same mechanic shows up at the other end of a search. A deadline you did not set is the most common way somebody gets talked out of asking for more, and it works on the way out of a company exactly like it works on the way into one. More on that in how to counter a lowball offer without losing it.
If you want the next 30 days mapped instead of guessed
Week one is triage, and you can do all of it yourself with the list above. Week two is usually where it goes wrong, because that is when people start applying to everything in sight with the same resume and burn through the roles they actually wanted before the materials were ready.
The Job Search Strategy Session is a 90-minute audit and a 30-day plan. What you are realistically targeting, what your materials have to say to survive a screen, and the order to do it in. $400. You send the contact form, I reply personally within 48 hours, not a bot and not a template, and you keep every note, script, and plan we build.
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