So you got fired.

NickK · 7 Apr 2022 at 07:32

You're not alone and I thought I would create a thread with some helpful pointers.

People get fired everyday and not always down to their performance, here's a couple of examples from my history:
* Two companies merged, board room politics meant one country office was undermining the other. I highlighted the fact indirectly in a CEO/CTO during a product review due to being told to use under performance outsourced staff vs home grown experienced staff. The now other office line management was giving them the mushroom treatment. Fireworks ensued and my work became unacceptable as I was frogmarched out of the HR system in following couple of months. Prior to that 15+ years of experience and consistent high performance!
* Company change in management, again work appeared to become unacceptable as did others. I was terminated via video the Tuesday after closing the largest deal they had, the next week they closed my old base office (rented off one of the people they also fired) and sold the company. So dismissal under short-term employment (<2 years) is cheaper and faster than redundancy packages. The company agreed to pay my sales bonus for the quarter I'd qualified for - something you don't get if your performance was bad.

So - the biggest piece of advice you can give is: leave it at the door (unless there's illegality), don't take the baggage forward to the new job and get out to build enthusiastic self belief back up. It will feel like the end of a relationship - it will take a period to mentally move on so don't feel guilty about it. Take a day or a week, make a note of your value and awesome stuff and qualities you bring then get back on the bike. You may have even moved on during the last weeks of your employment but the emotions of being "terminated" can leave you feeling self doubtful.. I'm writing this thread to snap you out of it like a good mate down the pub!

The first is this: 7-false-narratives-about-being-fired-to-reject-today

The next is this with respect to cover letters and covering breaks: https://www.myperfectresume.com/car...-the-perfect-cover-letter-after-getting-fired

paradigm · 8 Apr 2022 at 13:48

I’ve never been fired, but have signed a settlement agreement in the past.

New IT director really didn’t like me, we rarely saw eye to eye and I was more than happy to directly disobey daft or downright dangerous requests he’d put to me. Ultimately taking the settlement agreement netted me a healthy payout plus the statutory redundancy payment for my 10 year’s service. I was happy, he was happy and the company went under within 18 months, so bullet dodged there.

I took the opportunity to move into a much higher paying role (due to 10 years worth of nothing really beyond inflationary rises and the odd performance related increase).

Every cloud (can) have a silver lining.

MrRockliffe · 8 Apr 2022 at 13:51

Also, may I add - sometimes, you’re fired for a valid reason.

When you’re ready to, reflect on why and use it as an opportunity to change, as hard as it is

Lartyconshayo · 8 Apr 2022 at 14:23

Remember the company doesn't really care about you. You are expendable/replaceable so play the game and be on the look out to move jobs and improve pay and conditions every couple of years for a while. They have no loyalty to you. And HR is there to protect the company. Join a union.

Terminal_Boy · 8 Apr 2022 at 14:28

Lartyconshayo said:
Remember the company doesn't really care about you. You are expendable/replaceable so play the game and be on the look out to move jobs and improve pay and conditions every couple of years for a while. They have no loyalty to you. And HR is there to protect the company. Join a union.

This excellent advice. I’d add “Never trust your colleagues as they are not your friends.” as I’ve seen people throw their colleagues under the HR bus to improve their chance of promotion.

NickK · 8 Apr 2022 at 18:44

paradigm said:
I’ve never been fired, but have signed a settlement agreement in the past.

New IT director really didn’t like me, we rarely saw eye to eye and I was more than happy to directly disobey daft or downright dangerous requests he’d put to me. Ultimately taking the settlement agreement netted me a healthy payout plus the statutory redundancy payment for my 10 year’s service. I was happy, he was happy and the company went under within 18 months, so bullet dodged there.

I took the opportunity to move into a much higher paying role (due to 10 years worth of nothing really beyond inflationary rises and the odd performance related increase).

Every cloud (can) have a silver lining.

That's basically what I had for the first occasion. A healthy payout as part of a settlement.

I agree you can get fired for a valid reason. Own it and move on, and use it to grow. Usually it's a bit of everything as to fault.

malachi · 8 Apr 2022 at 21:58

Lartyconshayo said:
Remember the company doesn't really care about you. You are expendable/replaceable so play the game and be on the look out to move jobs and improve pay and conditions every couple of years for a while. They have no loyalty to you. And HR is there to protect the company. Join a union.

Yep, learn that lesson back in 2005. Been in teams where they "fire" you then outsource everything.

HangTime · 9 Apr 2022 at 01:56

I've never been fired but I was put under threat of redundancy once (ironically, we found out via the intranet of our parent company that our department was being closed before being notified in person). My advice is don't waste energy 'arguing' about it, it was a stupid decision and one the company ultimately backed away from, but I'd left and moved on to better things by the time it dawned on them they couldn't just close the department anyway. Remember that you are just a number on a spreadsheet to the decision makers, they have no idea what you actually do and it's not realistic to expect that they should do. You might be adding huge amounts of value, you might have lots of tacit knowledge, they might be wasting 10x your salary in other areas - none of this matters, just accept it and move on.

NickK · 11 Apr 2022 at 08:55

I see failure as being part of the path. It's trendy being called a "Growth Mindset" rather than "Fixed Mindset" (which often overlaps with "Results Orientated").

malachi said:
Yep, learn that lesson back in 2005. Been in teams where they "fire" you then outsource everything.

I had this in 2005, I moved sideways after being bored with development into business development as a product specialist. Harrowing to see all the development staff made redundant. The old head of the unit made a consultancy of it, hiring the staff and then subcontracting. Literally a year or so later they asked if I would TPM the product because I had both the understanding of the customers and the product technicals - because they'd lost the staff. Then the "problem" members of the org chain tried to outsource the development team, causing a complete loss of technical capability. That meeting that set me down the exit route was me making that point and the CEO loosing his **** with the problematical members of the org chain (who just so happened to be my bosses). The CEO turned to the CTO in that meeting and asked "Why did we make them redundant only to hire them all back in because the outsourced staff were so bad?"..

The reality is there will always be a commercial slope. It moved from the UK, to Poland/Estonia, to India and now moves to other locations. How far that slope will carry seems to be limited by the skillsets required in IT and the timescale obsolescence of technology. Perhaps the speed of change is an IT developers best weapon.