Layoffs & Severance

Why was I laid off? The darker side of the list

Most layoff lists are built from cost, role codes, and org charts, not from anyone reading your reviews, which is how people on leave and people who were just promoted end up on them. If you’re asking why you were laid off, the honest answer is usually that your role was a line in a budget, and that changes what you should do next.

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Full episode transcript

It’s ten fifteen on a Tuesday. Your badge stopped working at nine, and you’re sitting in the car reading your last performance review for the third time, looking for the sentence that explains why you were laid off. I’m going to save you the fourth read. It isn’t in there.

I’m Angela Malagon, and today I want to talk about the darker side of layoffs. Why people on parental leave and people who were just promoted end up on the list, what that actually means, and what you can do about it today.

This week I saw a LinkedIn post from someone whose first four notifications of the morning were people he knew, all laid off from the same company. One was on paternity leave. Another had been promoted a few days before the cut. He also said survivor guilt is real, and he’s right.

Those details feel like cruelty. I get it. But from the hiring side, they usually mean something duller. Nobody compared notes. The people deciding which roles go are working from cost centers and org charts. The people processing promotions and leave are working from a different spreadsheet. Those two spreadsheets rarely meet.

I spent more than fifteen years recruiting talent for companies such as Cisco, Google, and Wells Fargo, and recruiting is usually the first desk to feel a reduction coming. Requisitions freeze. Offers get paused. Hiring managers start saying they’re reprioritizing headcount, which is a polite way of saying finance is asking how many people the plan can afford.

Here’s the part that stings. A promotion can make you more visible on a cost list, not less, because it raises the number next to your name. A layoff list is a budget with names on it. It was never a verdict on you.

So why does the why me question matter so much? Because the cheap answer is that something was wrong with you, and your brain grabs it, since it’s the only explanation you can act on. Picture two people cut in the same reduction. One says her role was eliminated in a company wide reduction and she’s looking for her next platform role. The other spends ninety seconds on how unfair it was. Both are telling the truth. Only one sounds like someone I can put in front of a hiring manager.

And yes, it is unfair. Someone on leave did nothing to earn a spot on that list. But fairness gets settled by HR and, when it matters, by lawyers, not by you in a screening call. If you were on protected leave when you were cut, write down your timeline tonight, dates and who told you what, and take it to an employment lawyer. I’m not one, and I won’t pretend to be.

Here’s what I’d have you do today. Stop auditing your reviews for the reason, but keep them, because the praise in them is resume material. Get your final pay, benefits, equity, and severance terms in writing. Don’t sign severance the same day. If you were promoted before the cut, keep the new title on your resume with its own date, even if you held it for a week.

Then ask your manager for a reference and a LinkedIn recommendation this week. That sounds cold. It’s practical. They probably feel terrible right now, and that feeling fades fast.

Write your one sentence explanation. Role eliminated, when, and what you want next. No adjectives, no villains. Tell your network something specific instead of open to opportunities. And fix your LinkedIn headline before your layoff post starts traveling.

If you’re the one who stayed, you have something the people who left don’t, which is access. Skip let me know if you need anything. Make one specific offer. Write the recommendation before you’re asked. Reshare their post with a sentence about what they were great at. Pass along roles you hear about.

None of this involves pretending the layoff didn’t happen. It’s telling the truth in one clean sentence, then moving to what you control.

So here’s the line I’d want you to screenshot. A layoff list is a budget with names on it. Stop reading it like a performance review, because it never was one. Next time, I’ll get into why month six of a job search breaks people, and what to do before you get there.

Angela Malagon — Career Strategist. 15+ years recruiting talent for companies such as Cisco, Google, and Wells Fargo, then job searched against the same systems.

It’s 10:15 on a Tuesday, your badge stopped working at 9, and you’re sitting in the car reading your last performance review for the third time. It says strong. It says promotion track. You’re looking for the sentence that explains this, and you can’t find it, because it isn’t in there.

Here is the short answer on why you were laid off: in most reductions, the list is built from cost centers, role codes, and org charts, usually weeks before the announcement, by people who never read your reviews. That’s how someone on parental leave, or someone promoted the week before, ends up on it. The email calls it a strategic realignment. In practice it’s a budget with names attached.

You can’t argue your way off a list that has already been executed, and rereading your reviews won’t produce a reason that doesn’t exist. What you can control is the story you tell next and how fast you tell it. By the end of this post you’ll have a one-sentence layoff explanation and a short list of things to do today, none of which cost anything.

What a layoff list looks like from the inside

This week I saw a LinkedIn post from someone whose first four notifications of the morning were friends and friends of friends announcing they’d been laid off from the same company. One was on paternity leave. Another had been promoted and cut within the same few days. He added that survivor guilt is real, and he’s right about that too.

Those two details feel like cruelty, and I understand why. From the hiring side they usually mean something duller: nobody compared notes. The people deciding which roles go are working from spreadsheets. The people processing promotions and leave are working from different spreadsheets. If you need the practical steps for the days right after, start with what to do the first week after a layoff.

I spent 15+ years recruiting talent for companies such as Cisco, Google, and Wells Fargo, and recruiting is usually the first desk to feel a reduction coming. Requisitions freeze. Offers get paused. Hiring managers start saying we are reprioritizing headcount, which translates to a finance team asking how many people the plan can afford.

A promotion can make you more visible on a cost list, not less, because it raises the number next to your name. That’s also why your severance agreement deserves a hard read before you sign it. Here’s what severance actually covers, and what it doesn’t.

Why the why me question costs you

The cheap answer to why me is that something was wrong with you. It’s cheap because it’s the only explanation you can act on, so your brain grabs it. And it crowds out the conversation you actually need to have, which is about what’s next.

Here’s how it shows up in interviews. Two people were cut in the same reduction. One says her role was eliminated in a company-wide reduction in September and she’s looking for her next platform role. The other spends ninety seconds on how unfair it was and how good his reviews were. Both are telling the truth. The first one sounds like someone I can present to a hiring manager. The second sounds like someone still sitting in the parking lot.

It is unfair. A person on leave did nothing to earn a spot on that list. But fairness gets settled by HR and, when it matters, by lawyers, not by you in a screening call. Every hour spent rereading old reviews is an hour not spent on the part you control.

What to do today if you’re asking why you were laid off

None of this needs a session or a subscription. Most of it you can do tonight from your kitchen table.

Stop auditing your reviews for the reason. The reason is in a spreadsheet you will never see. Keep the reviews, though, because the praise in them is resume material.
Get everything in writing. Final pay date, benefits end date, bonus or equity status, and the severance terms. If someone told you something on the call, email them to confirm it.
Don’t sign severance the same day. Ask what the review window is, in writing, and use it. Having an employment lawyer read the agreement isn’t overreacting. It’s what the window is for.
If you were on leave, write down the timeline tonight. Dates, who told you what, and when. Then take it to an employment lawyer. I can’t tell you whether you have a claim, and neither can anyone who isn’t one.
Keep the promotion. If you were promoted before the cut, the new title is yours. Put it on your resume and LinkedIn with its own date, even if you held it for a week.
Ask for the reference now. Your manager probably feels terrible. That feeling fades fast, so ask for a reference and a LinkedIn recommendation this week, while it’s fresh.
Write your one-sentence explanation. Role eliminated, when, and what you want next. No adjectives, no villains. The before and after below shows the difference.
Tell people something specific. Open to opportunities gives your network nothing to do. A target role and three companies you’d love an intro to gives them a job.
Fix your headline before you post. It’s the first thing people see when your layoff post starts traveling, so rewrite your LinkedIn headline after a layoff first.

Before and after: the layoff explanation

This candidate is made up. The pattern is not.

Before

Honestly, it came out of nowhere. I’d just been promoted, my reviews were all strong, and then they cut my whole team with no warning. I still don’t know why it was me. It was probably a cost thing, but nobody would really say.

Anyway, I’m open to a lot of different things right now.

After

My role was eliminated in a company-wide reduction in September, about a week after I was promoted to senior manager.

I’m looking for my next senior product marketing role in B2B software, and the work I’m proudest of from the last two years is the launch I led in the spring.

Same person, same facts. The first answer asks the interviewer to solve the layoff. The second hands them a candidate.

If you survived the layoff

Survivor guilt is real, and it usually travels with a quieter fear that you’re next. You also have something the people who left don’t have anymore, which is access. Use it.

Make one specific offer. Skip let me know if you need anything. Offer a reference, an intro, or thirty minutes with their resume.
Write the recommendation before they ask. A LinkedIn recommendation from someone still inside the company carries weight, and it takes ten minutes.
Reshare with a sentence of your own. Say what they were great at. A silent reshare does very little.
Pass along roles you hear about. You’ll often hear about openings at other companies before they’re posted. Send them.
Update your own resume quietly. Not because you’re panicking. Because the best time to do it is when you don’t need it.

The part I’d want you to screenshot

You can’t control who built the list, when, or what they were looking at. You can control how you explain it and who hears from you first. The people who stayed are the fastest way back in, which is the whole point of the hidden job market is just your old coworkers.

The list was a budget document. Your explanation is a career document. Today, write the one sentence and send three specific asks.

A layoff list is a budget with names on it. Stop reading it like a performance review. The review was about you. The list never was.

If you want a plan for what comes next

You don’t need a pep talk right now. You need a plan, and someone honest about how hiring actually works.

That’s the Job Search Strategy Session, $400. We work through where you’re aiming, how you explain the layoff, and what to do first, and you leave with a plan, not a motivational speech.

Send the contact form and you’ll get a personal reply from me within 48 hours. Not a bot, not a template. If you’re not ready for that, the Job Search Library is free, [LIBRARY-ASSET].

Book the strategy session — $400 Get the free Job Search Library

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