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Ask HN: Laid off today for the first time, anything to be wary of? Advice?

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Re: Ask HN: Laid off today for the first time, anything to be wary of? Advice?

#51

Post by LordKano »

alistairSH wrote: post #46
LordKano wrote: post #43

First thing's first. Sign up for unemployment benefits. I was laid off last April and my employer gave me a severance package in exchange for a similar confidentiality agreement. It took me several months but I was able to secure a new job with better benefits but with a lower salary. Update your profile on LinkedIn. Update your résumé. Talk to lots of recruiters. If you have friends in the industry, ask them if thei…

Unemployment benefits - YES YES YES! Too many people view this as "welfare". It's not, at least not in the negative sense. You have been paying taxes into this system your entire career, for just this eventuality - in a sense, it's your money.

If you've been working and paying taxes for years when times were good, taking a little back in a time of need is not at all shameful.

I am not sure if it works the same way in every state but in mine, we pay for Supplemental Unemployment Insurance (SUI) with every paycheck. You'd file a claim if you had a car accident, so why not file a claim when you lose your job through no fault of your own?

Re: Ask HN: Laid off today for the first time, anything to be wary of? Advice?

#52

Post by edw519 »

Truth be told I was planning on quitting at 3pm during my bi-weekly one-on-one with the CTO, so I'm taking it in stride/happy.

Happy? You should be ecstatic. You just won the lottery!

What you would have received if you had quit at 3pm: nothing.

What you will receive because they beat you to it: 4 weeks pay, 5 weeks benefits, 26 weeks (potentially) unemployment. I dunno, something like $10,000 to $20,000.

Count you lucky stars and enjoy your lottery winnings. I wish I could figure out how to do that.

Re: Ask HN: Laid off today for the first time, anything to be wary of? Advice?

#53

Post by ghaff »

yoctonaut wrote: post #30

A lot of good advice here. Whenever I was laid off, I tried to send out a minimum of ten new contact emails a day. (Longest layoff, two months. Shortest was 14 days.) Make sure that you sign up for unemployment compensation immediately--sign up before you need it. If you're in the US, there's (often?) a waiting-week period you won't be compensated for; if you sign up immediately, you can get that out of the way first…

It probably varies by state. You probably also won't get unemployment until after the severance pay and/or paid-off leave period ends but you should absolutely start the process.

Re: Ask HN: Laid off today for the first time, anything to be wary of? Advice?

#54

Post by bogomipz »

alistairSH wrote: post #46
LordKano wrote: post #43

First thing's first. Sign up for unemployment benefits. I was laid off last April and my employer gave me a severance package in exchange for a similar confidentiality agreement. It took me several months but I was able to secure a new job with better benefits but with a lower salary. Update your profile on LinkedIn. Update your résumé. Talk to lots of recruiters. If you have friends in the industry, ask them if thei…

Unemployment benefits - YES YES YES! Too many people view this as "welfare". It's not, at least not in the negative sense. You have been paying taxes into this system your entire career, for just this eventuality - in a sense, it's your money.

>"Too many people view this as "welfare". "

Right, and it's anything but welfare. That is "your" money, you pay into that every week. There's no shame in claiming it when you need to. And the fact that they were laid off rather than quit(as they mentioned doing.) means that they should have no problems getting it.

Re: Ask HN: Laid off today for the first time, anything to be wary of? Advice?

#55

Post by falcolas »

snarfy wrote: post #31

Since you were laid off and didn't quit or were fired, you should head down to the unemployment office so you can start collecting. You don't know how long it will be before you find a new job, and the bills will keep coming in. You may have savings, but there is no need to blow through it when you've been paying into the safety net.

I agree with this recommendation. It's easy to do, has simple ongoing requirements (that you are applying for jobs), and while it's not going to be a lot of money, it's fairly dependable money. Set up an alarm to submit your weekly reports, and that's it.

Re: Ask HN: Laid off today for the first time, anything to be wary of? Advice?

#56

Post by erichurkman »

chiph wrote: post #47
cmdrfred wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the US but I've had employer's hold on to final paychecks out of spite and refuse to payout vacation time. My state department of labor took care of it after a few months.

Regarding accrued vacation time - when a firm offers "unlimited" vacation, that means they no longer have that on their books as a liability (since the employees aren't building up a balance). So you don't get it paid to you when you leave. If your firm converts to unlimited vacation and you have a balance at the time, talk to them about being paid for it. Either lump-sum right then, or offer to let them pay it to yo…

Also note that being paid out for earned PTO is as state-specific thing. A fair number of states do not require this.

Re: Ask HN: Laid off today for the first time, anything to be wary of? Advice?

#57

Post by ghaff »

jzwinck wrote: post #12

If you are not hard up for money you should immediately look for a nice trip somewhere. Be flexible with location instead of time to get a good price. Take three weeks off. Nice places this time of year might be Cuba, Thailand, Costa Rica, Florida, or Big Sky. Polish your resume on the plane.

Be careful. Especially if you have some money, it's really tempting to go "Wow, I have some time off for the first time in ages."

On the one hand, you may come back and land a job in two weeks and you might kick yourself for jumping right back in. However, just as possible--and it's easy to get a distorted view from sites like this--the process could take quite a few months. And, if that's the case, you might regret adding a month to the process, especially if events happen in the interim that make finding a job harder for whatever reason.

You absolutely can take some time off and work on projects, go hiking etc. For technical professionals, it's probably not that useful to make direct job hunting an 8 hr. per day task.However, there are advantages to making it a continuous process even if it's only part time. (Also, as someone else mentioned, there may be reasons to make it continuous because of unemployment benefits.)

If one is comfortable financially, I certainly wouldn't say you can't take off on a modest vacation. But it is a bit of a gamble.

Re: Ask HN: Laid off today for the first time, anything to be wary of? Advice?

#59

Post by softawre »

lucozade wrote: post #22

As your being made redundant, there's nothing untoward about their reason. 1 month for each year served is fairly normal so again, nothing untoward. Signing a release is also fairly standard. Under these circumstances I would always recommend showing the release to an employment lawyer. For me, peace of mind is worth a couple of hundred dollars but YMMV. Also, in the UK at least, there are tax breaks on some of the r…

1 month for each year served? That is common?

I've heard 1 week per year is common.

I have been with my company for almost 10 years. You're not really suggesting they'd pay me almost a year if they laid me off.

Re: Ask HN: Laid off today for the first time, anything to be wary of? Advice?

#60

Post by camiller »

softawre wrote: post #59
lucozade wrote: post #22

As your being made redundant, there's nothing untoward about their reason. 1 month for each year served is fairly normal so again, nothing untoward. Signing a release is also fairly standard. Under these circumstances I would always recommend showing the release to an employment lawyer. For me, peace of mind is worth a couple of hundred dollars but YMMV. Also, in the UK at least, there are tax breaks on some of the r…

1 month for each year served? That is common? I've heard 1 week per year is common. I have been with my company for almost 10 years. You're not really suggesting they'd pay me almost a year if they laid me off.

Usually there is a cap, my first lay-off I'd been with the company for 17 years. The severance policy was 1 month per year served, capped at 6-months. With six-months pay coming I actually turned down the first offer I got, Still ended up accepting an offer at about the two month mark and ended up with near four months overlap.
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