Being laid off is disorienting, and the disorientation is worst in the first few days when several time-sensitive things need doing at once. The useful response is sequence: do the things that expire first, then the things that compound, then settle into a rhythm you can sustain for months.
Entitlements, notice and state support differ enormously by country and by contract, so treat every mention of money and rights here as a prompt to check, not an answer.
Days one to three: the things that expire
Company systems get switched off fast, sometimes the same afternoon. Everything below is easier before that happens and awkward after.
- Get the terms in writing. Ask for a written statement of your last working day, your notice arrangement, how severance and final pay are calculated, and what happens to accrued holiday and anything unvested. A verbal summary in a distressing meeting is not something you will remember accurately in a fortnight.
- Ask what the company will say. Confirm what an HR reference will contain, and whether the departure is described as redundancy, restructuring or role elimination. That phrasing follows you through background checks.
- Export what is legitimately yours. Your own contact list, your payslips and contracts, your performance reviews, your training certificates. Take contacts as names and personal emails you will re-establish yourself — not a customer database, not internal documents, not code, not pricing. The line is whether the information belongs to the company. If in doubt, it does.
- Write down your own numbers. Before you lose access to dashboards, note the figures you will need in interviews: revenue you influenced, headcount you managed, the size of systems and budgets, the before-and-after on projects you led.
Days two to five: references, while people still remember you
References decay. Colleagues who can speak precisely about your work scatter within months, and their recollection blurs faster still.
Ask three or four people directly, while there is goodwill in the room: a line manager, a peer from another function, someone you managed, a client or supplier. Get personal email addresses and mobile numbers, not just work ones.
Make it easy for them. Send each a short note with two or three specifics you would like them to be able to confirm — a project, a number, a behaviour under pressure. That is not scripting them; it is reminding them. Ask for a short public recommendation while you are there: people who agree readily in week one go quiet by month three, not from unwillingness but from distance.
Days three to seven: understand what you were offered
Read the offer document twice, with a notepad, and note what you do not understand rather than deciding what it means.
Pay attention to anything that asks you to sign away future claims, any restriction on where you can work next, any acceptance deadline, and anything that changes if you find work quickly. Deadlines here are the reason not to leave this until week three.
Entitlements to notice, severance, redundancy pay, continued insurance and pension treatment vary by country, sector and contract. Have the document looked at by a qualified employment adviser, a union representative if you have one, or your national employment body before you sign anything that closes off options. This is worth paying for once.
The severance document is the only part of a layoff with a deadline attached. Everything else in the first fortnight can slip by a few days; that cannot.
Week one: register for whatever support exists
Most countries have some combination of unemployment insurance, jobseeker registration, retraining funding and health cover continuation. Several have claim windows counting from your last working day, and some pay from the date you register rather than the date you became eligible.
Register with your national employment service in the first week, even if you expect to find work quickly or are unsure you qualify. Registration is usually free and reversible; a missed window often is not.
The fourteen-day checklist
- Terms in writing, before system access ends.
- Your own contacts, records and performance numbers exported — nothing that belongs to the company.
- Three or four referees asked directly, with personal contact details.
- Severance document read and checked by someone qualified before signing.
- Registered with your national employment service inside week one.
- A weekly search rhythm started by day ten, not day thirty.
Week two: start the rhythm
The search should look like a part-time job with fixed hours, not an all-day vigil over a laptop. Twelve to fifteen hours a week is a full search; beyond that, application quality falls and you interview worse.
A workable week: Monday to shortlist four to six roles worth real effort; Tuesday to Thursday for two targeted applications a day plus outreach; Friday for follow-ups and one conversation that is not about a specific vacancy.
Keep one sheet with company, role, date, channel, contact and status. Its only job is to show you what is older than ten days.
What to tell your network, and when
Tell close contacts in the first week, by direct message, one at a time. Say plainly that your role was cut, what you are looking for, and what help is useful — an introduction, a view on a company, a name.
Post publicly once you can describe what you want. A vague "open to opportunities" generates sympathy; "I am looking for operations roles in logistics or manufacturing, ideally in the north of the country" generates introductions.
Say it once and let the post work. Reposting weekly reads as distress rather than availability, and the people who can help you saw it the first time.