Note: I started this post a while ago. Little did I know that I’d soon be following my own advice! Following the acquisition of my former company, I found myself in the job market at the beginning of the summer. I can tell you firsthand that having this checklist was a great help to me. I was even able to test and refine my own advice as I went through the process. Enjoy!
the Context
Unfortunately, a big part of the HR gig is “forced transitioning” of people out of the company, whether for performance, restructuring, fit, or cause. I’ve had to terminate people with whom I’ve pulled all-nighters at work, people who were poached s, and people who I game with on the weekends. It’s a nasty business, but you learn to compartmentalize and see things in the best light.
However, I’m always looking for ways that I can make the transition easier for my people (without exploding our budget with career coaches and outplacement programs). And sometimes the best thing you can do is help settle their racing thoughts and give them something tangible to grasp.
If you mine the web, you’ll see lots of general advice about how to handle being terminated: mourn, deal with feelings of inadequacy, don’t burn your bridges, update your resume, etc. There’s plenty of good, high-level advice out there, though it’s scattered among dozens of posts. However, I find that I work well with concrete information – I like checklists and project timelines.
While there are plenty of checklists to help us HR professional there, for the life of me I couldn’t find any comprehensive ‘recently-released employee checklists’ that I could hand someone and say “Here. I know it’s not much, but it’ll give you some direction so you don’t drive yourself crazy over the next few weeks.”
So I made one. Feel free to pirate, pilfer, cannibalize, and plagiarize.
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the Checklist
First Things
□ Get your deadlines straight. You’re entering a phase where few specific tasks are time-sensitive, so make sure you don’t drop the ball on those that are.
□ Wait before calling in the cavalry. Take a few days to clear your head before making calls, setting up meetings, or (even worse) posting on social media. Wait until you’ve addressed your Finances, Health, and Strategy before diving into the fray.
□ Do nothing. I know that this is the last thing you want read, but hear me out. You have a windfall of what you didn’t have before (and what most people still don’t have): time. Take advantage of it.
Finances
□ Sign your severance agreement. After reviewing it with your legal counsel, of course. Be sure to make copies of anything that you sign and return.
□ Submit any outstanding expense reimbursements. Now you finally have time to go through that stack of receipts and submit them to Accounting. Send these in with your severance agreement for that good ole “two birds” feeling.
□ Double-check your final pay. Sometimes things get missed: benefit deductions get double-charged, that outstanding expense reimbursement gets lost in the shuffle, etc.
□ Apply for unemployment. You might have to wait to apply until after your vacation and severance pay equivalents run out, depending on your state. It’s best not to put this off, as your state’s process might be, let’s say… inefficient.
Feel guilty about being on unemployment? Don’t! Like home, car, and auto insurance, you paid for those benefits every month. So make sure you get what you paid for.
□ Reduce expenses. Now it’s time to look at your bills. Do any have forbearance? Are you repaying any loans at an accelerated rate that can be scaled back? Review your credit card statements for any recurring subscriptions that you can temporarily do without. Can some services be shut off for a few months? Reach out to your vendors and find out. It may take a full day to run through everything and make the necessary changes, but it will be worth it.
□ De-automate. Disable your automatic bill pay, automatic savings plans, etc. Normally I am a huge proponent of automating your finances. But, for now, it’s best for you to consciously know where all of your funds are going.
□ Know the flow. With everything above accomplished, you should have a good idea of your temporary cash flow. Having an accurate picture of your financial status will give you some time guidelines around your search, allow you to consider your options, and hopefully reduce some of that anxiety. I use something like this as a cash flow workbook, but go with whatever works for you.
□ Bring the egg home to roost. Didn’t love your old 401(k) plan? Prefer the freedom of an IRA? Or just don’t want to be associated with your old company because those quarterly statements would be like lemon juice on a paper cut? Roll the plan from your previous employer over into your personal IRA. If you didn’t receive a rollover form in your severance packet, reach out to your former HR representative to get one.
□ Ever thought about freelancing? Not only will this add experience to your resume (and fill in that unseemly gap), it will provide a bit of timely income.
Don’t be intimidated. People build up freelancing in their minds to be some kind of huge lifestyle shift or that freelancing activities would interfere with getting a full-time gig. In reality, you can make money on the side with 5-10 hours a week. (An aside: this also is true when you’re fully-employed.)
Health
□ Be 100% certain of when your benefits expire. Some companies continue your subsidized coverage for one month, some for three, some not at all. Verify with your former HR representative that you understand your situation.
□ Get your meds. Nearly all insurance plans have a mail-order option which allows you to order three months’ worth of prescriptions. If your insurance is expiring at the end of the month, put those orders in now! If not, put a reminder in your calendar to place an order just before it does expire.
□ Schedule appointments. Decide which upcoming appointments can and cannot be put off. As with your prescriptions, bump up any medical/dental/psychiatric/etc. appointments that would occur after your benefits will expire.
□ Put your COBRA aside for safekeeping. The great thing about COBRA is that you don’t need to sign up for it until you need to use it. So make sure you have everything that you need to continue your coverage on COBRA, and file it away somewhere safe. Hopefully you won’t need it, but that’s the thing about safety nets…
Strategy
It’s vital to be well-prepared before you launch your job search. Go through this checklist before moving on to the more Tactical stuff.
□ Evaluate the past. People are often let go for reasons out of their control. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t lessons to be learned. After you’ve had time to decompress, think about what you could have done better, and what you will do differently in your next position.
□ Envision the future. Take stock of what you liked about your previous role and what kind of challenges you’d like most in your next role. This is an opportune time to make some personal choices and maybe even a shift in career direction. What about the type of company (size, industry, culture) that you’d like to see yourself in?
□ Establish job search goals. What measurable goals can you use in your upcoming job search? Do you want to list out all of this week’s prospects on Mondays, and have them all submitted by Fridays? Or do you want to submit one well-researched, elaborate application a day? How about taking a key person out o lunch once a week?
Goals like these will not only keep you focused when ennui kicks in, but will also provide useful feedback to where your job search system can be improved.
□ Identify your campaign strategy. What tools will you be leveraging (e.g. – networking events, recruiting agencies, direct mail, phone calls, drop bys, social media, job boards, etc.) in your search? Try to narrow it down to just a few at first. This focus will inform your tactical decisions, and allow you to make real progress in a few areas (as opposed to minor progress in many areas).
Tactics
□ Bragging brainstorm. If you don’t already have one, make a list of your greatest accomplishments from your previous role. Think numbers, percentages, dollars saved, etc. Not only will this help you optimize your resume, it will boost your confidence when you see bullet after bullet of just how good you look.
□ Oh, the Resume. As an HR professional who has done his fair share of recruiting, I could go on and on about resumes. But I’ll try not to right now – Google has a surplus of advice on resume writing. Just remember these concepts:
- A resume is a marketing brochure with one objective: get a human being to speak with you. All you need in a resume is the information required to attain that goal, and no more.
- A resume needs to tell a story. If a hiring manager can’t see a common theme, career arc, or mental picture of you within 30 seconds of picking up your resume, you need to re-think your approach.
□ Editing. Have other people review your resume, and leverage their feedback accordingly. You only need a few sets of eyes. Stick with people you trust, colleagues in your profession, and previous HR reps. (Believe it or not, we often want to help in any way we can. And this is something we can actually do!)
□ Diversify your format. This is the last note on resumes, I promise! If you’re going to be applying for positions online, be prepared to encounter some technical issues. Some websites allow you to upload a Word doc, PDF, or connect to your LinkedIn profile directly to an application– easy peasy! Others will convert your documents into plain text, which is seizure-inducing. Do yourself a favor: once you’ve finalized your resume, create two other versions: one that is purely plain text and another that formats well in the body of an email.
□ Summarize. Develop a 30-60 second description of who you are, what your best skills and achievements are, where you’ve worked, and what you intend to do next. It’s called an elevator pitch. Perfect it.
□ Refine marketing materials. Ensure that your market branding (e.g. – LinkedIn profile, Facebook page, Twitter feed, blog contributions, etc.) is consistent with your job hunt strategy and tactics. Google your name to see what your virtual footprint looks like.
□ Think about your network. Make a list of people you want to contact for advice or job opportunities, and reach out to them.
□ Manage your references. When you feel comfortable, reach out to previous coworkers for a reference letter or LinkedIn recommendation. Offer them the same courtesy in return. Make sure this is a targeted activity – you’re not ready for your public debut quite yet.
□ Gather samples of your work. Everyone can have a portfolio, not just artists and programmers. As a rule of thumb, you should be taking screenshots and such while you’re employed to grow your portfolio. However, if you haven’t been, don’t worry – you can create serviceable mock-ups of some of your work. However you generate your portfolio, make sure it is refined to match your Strategy and Tactics. Create a PDF that you can submit with your resume, if applicable, create a dedicated portfolio page on your personal website.
□ Create templates for your cover letter. (Or, if you prefer, your Pain Letter.) Obviously, you will need to customize your cover letter for every position. However, it doesn’t hurt to have 2-4 templates that can be used as templates. Use different templates for varying role types, company sizes/industries, and tone.
Execution
After all of your prep work, the execution is actually relatively straightforward! Since you’ve gotten all of the administrative nuts-and-bolts out of the way, your mental energy can be spent on high-value tasks. This phase is all about observation, analysis, and small tweaks.
□ Diversify. You want to be getting opportunities from as many sources as possible. Now is the time to reach out to your social networks and crowdsource your job search. Put your resume in the hands of at least three recruiting agencies – ideally ones that specialize in your field. In short, have as many people as possible bringing opportunities to you.
□ Automate. There are plenty of job board aggregators (often industry-specialized) that can save you time by emailing you daily or weekly rundowns of positions that fit your specifications. This way, instead of spending your time sifting through job boards, you can review a handful of filtered positions and spend your energy on thoughtful and creative ways to apply.
I leave you here, at the interview stage. Google has plenty of advice at this phase, and checklists can only get you so far.
Good luck!