Finding Yourself Again After A Layoff

Designed by Sarah Healy

Layoffs Are Difficult to Cope With

If you’ve been recently laid off and find it hard not to take it personally, you’re not alone. Unexpected layoffs can introduce a host of negative feelings about your value, future in the industry, and pre-existing insecurities. Although the decision of who to lay off in many cases is not inherently personal, it’s a fairly rational response to take it to heart when you, unfortunately, fall in that category. 

Being laid off can feel like an attack on your value. The long hours you spent at work that often bled into time that could be spent with friends and family suddenly feel like sacrifices for nothing. The effort you put into perfecting projects and improving your workplace now seems trivial and embarrassing. You gave so much of yourself to a company that disposed of you without warning and a proper goodbye. And now, as you scroll job boards in search of a new position and revisit a resume you haven’t touched in years, you find yourself doubting whether you are competent enough for a career in your industry anymore.  

For many people, “work-life balance” is a myth.

Your career is not just the primary source of income that enables you to provide for yourself and your family, but for many, it is often the symbolic culmination of the education, experiences, and hard work that you define yourself through. When you are one of the employees who lose their job in a layoff, you might feel like a failure or worthless.

This acute self-doubt can become a psychological barrier in your professional career, often preventing you from pursuing jobs, projects, and other opportunities you think you’re not qualified for. However, with interventions such as practicing self-advocacy and seeking out resources that can help you find your footing in the industry again, you can drastically reduce the adverse effects of imposter syndrome in your career and personal life. 

What is imposter syndrome?

The APA defines the imposter phenomenon (more commonly known as imposter syndrome) as “the situation in which highly accomplished, successful individuals paradoxically believe they are frauds who ultimately will fail and be unmasked as incompetent.” People who experience imposter syndrome feel a troubling cognitive dissonance between the reality of being skilled and competent and a distorted, negative self-perception. 

58% of tech workers feel like imposters at the workplace and feel inadequate and unworthy of their position despite their expertise and achievements. This percentage is even higher in tech workers on the receiving end of a layoff, as the random elimination of their role can spur a sudden shift in their self-concept. The feeling of being discarded can become a pipeline for an array of insecurities, such as fearing that you’re not knowledgeable, not a skilled worker, and generally not good enough.

The Relationship Between Tech Layoffs and Imposter Syndrome

Though imposter syndrome may appear to be an individual issue, in many instances, it’s provoked by systemic environmental and cultural practices that amplify or create feelings of insecurity, isolation, and inadequacy. The likelihood of experiencing imposter syndrome intensifies in workers with high levels of ambition who, in many cases, face even greater levels of adversity standing between them and their goals. It is even more likely to happen when layoffs occur, and you have to confront unexpected job insecurity that can bring forth complex emotions such as shame, disappointment, and fear.  

Perfectionism Fuels Low Self-Esteem

The tech industry is known for its expectation of workers to be perfect. Many technologists excel in this industry because, like you, they strive for extreme perfectionism, which is linked to the popular notion that the most successful people are the ones who exceed expectations and do everything right. If you identify as a perfectionist, being laid off can make you feel like you’re not working hard enough or that your very best work is still not enough to protect your job. 

Engrained personal pressure to succeed in tech is amplified by high-stakes performance metrics that measure revenue, growth, and efficiency to determine your unique workplace “value.” A standard of this data-oriented industry, numbers are used to draw many conclusions about performance which can be skewed or impacted by factors beyond your control. Data also doesn’t possess the ability to consider the nuanced totality of your contributions as a team member, thus not drawing the complete picture of your total value. And though decisions about who gets laid off when a company downsizes are often due to fiscal reasons, perfectionists and diligent workers perceive their job loss as the result of the value of their work being discounted and insufficient. It can seem that you have been rendered valueless by your former employer. But layoffs aren’t about merit; they’re about money. When you embrace this understanding, you can start to find closure and separate your worth from a business decision.  

Women and People of Color Are Hit Hardest By Layoffs

Women and Latinx workers represent 46.64% and 11.49% of all the tech layoffs from September to December 2022. Technologists from historically underrepresented and marginalized communities are not just hit the hardest during layoffs, but they are also the most likely to experience imposter syndrome in their careers as well. 

Though women constitute half of the global workforce, the tech industry is 75% men. And of that 25% of women working in tech, women of color make up less than 10% (specifically, Asian women represent only 5%, Black women 3%, and Hispanic women 1%). In workplace environments where you confront gendered and racially biased mistreatment such as mansplaining, exclusion from promotions and projects, and other forms of discrimination, you are far more likely to feel incompetent and develop imposter syndrome. 

When you belong to a workplace minority, talks of layoffs in the industry not only raise anxieties about your employment prospects but also pose a threat to the industry’s demographics. Layoffs can feel like the progress made to create room for diversity and equity in tech has been undone, further exacerbating existing racial divides and your sense of belonging in the field.  

Social Media Doesn’t Show The Ugly Truth 

Social media and the practice of performative career success contribute to the stark contrast between the reality of tech and the highlights of peers in the workplace. Being laid off can be a sore subject that you might want to avoid being public about or sharing with industry peers who have retained their jobs. It’s normal to fear that your connections will see your update and think the same things your insecurities have been screaming at you–“Of course they got rid of them. How embarrassing.”   

Seeing peers posting about their success can be disheartening when your experience may be entirely different. Resume rejections, tech layoffs, and struggles to keep up with the ever-evolving tech space are all valid and widespread issues that millions of tech workers experience. But when these issues are seen as too taboo to discuss on the platforms that are supposed to provide connection, it’s not hard to internalize these setbacks as a reflection of something “wrong” with just you. 

That’s why it’s important to find spaces where you can be comfortable being vulnerable about your experiences and seek professional support from mentors. You can attend events such as the CONNECT Empower 2023 conference, where there will be a panel about navigating the recent tech layoffs. You will connect with other peers in the industry who have also been laid off, struggled to navigate the field, and believe in sharing access to career resources with you. Finding the right community can help you realize that not only are your experiences far more common than you think, but you can also learn from others who have bounced back from being laid off about how to move forward. 

Connection is Key to Reducing Imposter Syndrome 

If your imposter syndrome is tied to feeling like you lack knowledge, technical skills, or guidance in the workplace that would set you up for success, one way to improve these feelings is to seek support from a trusted and experienced industry professional.  Though it may sound counterintuitive that owning your self-doubts can be the key to leveling up your career, it couldn’t be more accurate. Negativity thrives in the dark. By sharing the drivers behind your imposter syndrome, you can receive technical resources and, in many cases, validation that can help round out your perspective. 

Leverage platforms like Linkedin to strategically look for people in your field with the skills and experience you seek and introduce yourself. It may seem daunting at first, but you will find that many seasoned professionals enjoy sharing their knowledge and discussing resources that helped them achieve their success – they also benefited from mentorship in their careers. 

Join the Women Who Code community and attend events and workshops designed to connect you with other technologists seeking support, community, and technical resources to excel in the field. By sharing your experiences in a diverse, large group, you will see how pervasive many of the issues you struggle with are, and it can eliminate a lot of the shame that drives imposter syndrome.