[greenspot]

1. You must reframe the situation as quick as possible. Don't think, 'shit, why me, what happened, am I not good enough?' Such thoughts bring you a vicious cycle. You must treat this situation as the best thing ever happened, you must be happy about it. And I promise you, heck I bet $10,000 that you'll tell us in one year that this lay-off was the best thing ever happened and led you to x, y and z. So, basically it's not reframing or lying to yourself—no, what happened was really the BEST what could have happened (so, I just did the reframing for you). Change is always good and rarely gets triggered by oneself.

2. Reach out to as many people as possible, preferably people outside the company. Most people from the company won't help you and even if they did, they just remind you of the company again, what happened and this brings you again to a bad state and you need to start at zero and reframe again. Just let them go, all of them, really. So, look for prior peers, old friends. Further, write applications or just plain emails to many CEOs and tell them that you are out. You don't have to write that you look for a job. Just get into conversations with as many people as possible. It's more about staying connected and keeping a social context (after you lost the one of the company) than finding the next job.

3. Work on a pet project with a technology you always wanted to work with, get into flow and put it online. This will be the most fun and will give you tons of self-confidence in a very short time.

You should spend 30% of your day on 2 and 70% on 3 and 0% on thinking about the past.

Sounds good?

[alistairSH]

* Work on a pet project with a technology you always wanted to work with, get into flow and put it online. This will be the most fun and will give you tons of self-confidence in a very short time.*

In addition to the personal mental benefits, as a hiring manager, I would look favorably on this. It shows initiative. It shows that you aren't wasting your time between jobs. Should your unemployment extend to a few months or more, if you can show you were doing something useful, that's a huge plus.

[jkchu]

This is great advice. I'd like to add emphasis to the importance of creating something that is tangible and complete. The extra effort it takes to actually host and launch a web application or to release an app to the app store will go a long way to greatly improve the weight and impact of your project to your next potential employer.

[alistairSH]

While that's certainly true, I wouldn't be put off if you just had the app side-loaded or webpage/DB hosted locally.

Having anything functional will put you ahead of the majority of candidates I see (DC area, enterprise software, so def. not the same market as SV/NorCal or start-ups in general).

[AnimalMuppet]

I don't know about "reframing". I've been laid off twice, both due to company politics/direction issues that had nothing to do with me. It's not "reframing", it's recognizing the reality of the situation, rather than ascribing reality to how I felt about the situation. In my case, I permitted myself to cry and moan about it, for about 15 minutes. Then it was time to put that behind me.

You got four weeks pay? Then don't work 30% on 2 and 70% on 3. Work at least 30% on 2, and as much more than that as you can usefully do in any given day. Treat it like a job. Don't stop unless there's really nothing more you can do that day. Fill up the remaining time with 3 (don't do make-work on 2).

[thekaleb]

I can confirm your sentiment. I got laid off from a job. It turned out to be fantastic.

[brock_obama]

Good advice. I fell into a vicious cycle my first layoff and it wasn't fun. Turns out it was a great thing that happened.

[gdulli]

> 1. You must reframe the situation as quick as possible. Don't think, 'shit, why me, what happened, am I not good enough?' Such thoughts bring you a vicious cycle. You must treat this situation as the best thing ever happened, you must be happy about it. And I promise you, heck I bet $10,000 that you'll tell us in one year that this lay-off was the best thing ever happened and led you to x, y and z.

Positivity that isn't based on logic is wrong, just like negativity that isn't based on logic is wrong.

It's better to be honest with yourself about any given situation. Accept what you could have done better at without feeling inadequate. Recognize what you did well at without feeling complacent. You grow in response to your failures, not your successes.

Recognize what was good about the job and what you'll miss, so you can factor it into your next search. And obviously avoid the bad parts. If making yourself believe the job was only bad in an effort to save face and stay positive leads you to seek out the opposite, that's likely counter-productive.

These situations are rarely black and white. Everyone has a combination of failures/micro-failures, successes/micro-successes at every job whether they get fired/laid off or not. So there's plenty of logic to refraining from beating yourself up. Seeing a situation clearly and learning lessons from it happens more easily in hindsight than when you're stuck in it. So there's a lot of value in thinking about the past, if it's for the right reasons.

Staying dispassionate is more important than staying positive.

[greenspot]

Your message is basically 'learn from your mistakes' which would be usually a good advice. But in this special situation he just shouldn't.

Why:

- You don't have the time and the energy to do so; the risk of getting depressed or apathetic in such situations is quite high (once you are depressed you have another problem you don't want and can deal with); so discipline is the most important thing; to stay disciplined you MUST stay positive, 100%; thinking about 'micro-failures' doesn't help your mood; and btw, every situation can be seen positive or negative, you remember when people say the glass is half-full?

- Maybe the OP didn't do anything wrong, how do you want to know? Maybe it was the financial situation of the company, or they changed the product strategy over night or, or, or...; he might never find out the real reason, so any time spent on such thoughts is wasted time he could use for new endeavors

- Maybe in a year he can think back and learn from failures; but you know what, he doesn't have to sit down, think and learn from potential failures now: I am pretty sure that when he faces similar situations in future where he did mistakes in the past, he will remember and will act accordingly and automatically without the need to prepare himself

[gdulli]

The glass half full metaphor doesn't apply, it's about deciding the overall balance of a situation. This is different, it's about recognizing both the good and bad aspects of a situation. They're equally important and it's not about deciding between them. Being honest about both, right now, not a year from now, tells me what I need to adjust in my life so I make the best decision about what to do next.

When things are difficult is the most important time to be starting to build and have access to robust coping skills. Otherwise, when would you?

It's rare in life to get honest and blunt feedback about mistakes and you can either take the opportunity or ignore it. Building up criticism or rejection as such scary things that they have to be faced with denial is just another way of giving them too much weight and letting them control you.

If clinical depression is involved, by all means get professional help and don't get it through HN.

[PascLeRasc]

Regarding 2, should these be CEOs OP knows directly already or just cold emails? Can you give an example of what one of these emails would look like?

[greenspot]

It's of course always better if you know the CEOs in person or can get in touch via intro.

If you don't know them but there is some connection to them or to their company and if it's just that you like their product or brand, just write them. People say that cold mails are bad. I think they are only bad if you could have reached the person via intro. Otherwise they are better than doing nothing. And at the end, it's just a number game.

Re the emails and how they should look like: there is really no right and wrong. The best advice I can give: Just imagine if you were writing a good friend. Then your email will be balanced: not too needy or too formal. Keep it short, tell him who you are, why you write him and suggest a next step.