3 Steps to Take ASAP if YOU are Worried about Layoffs

Are you ready if you got laid off tomorrow? 3 steps to take ASAP

In this episode, Dr. Joan Palmiter Bajorek discusses being in 2 layoffs and actionable steps to take if you’re feeling fear  

Learn 3 Steps to take ASAP if you are concerned about AI layoffs... and 50% of Americans are experiencing layoff anxiety according to Harvard Business Review research. 

Are you experiencing the anxiety??

Let's take action!

Resources:

• 💵 Emergency Fund: SoFi High Yield Savings Account (HYSA) that pays you 3.8% APY, Get $325 that you can put towards your Emergency Fund!
• 💰Joan's recommended Money Tools
• ❤️Brand Builder 101 Course: 8 Templates for your Personal Brand and Networking Skills Today ($27)
• 📘Your AI Roadmap Book: Actions to Expand Your Career, Money, and Joy was an INSTANT Amazon Bestseller and has been featured in Forbes!

👀 Check out Joan's LinkedIn with over 16k followers

✅ Takeaways

🤝 70% of people found jobs through introductions after layoffs after COVID according to LinkedIn research. People people people
🌟 Building a personal brand is essential for career resilience.
💰 An emergency funds today need to cover 12 months of expenses.
🧘 Mental and physical health are crucial during job uncertainty.
🔗 Networking is a continuous effort, especially during layoffs.
💼 LinkedIn is a powerful tool for job searching and networking.
📝 Regularly update your online professional presence.
🤝 Invest time in building relationships within your industry.
❤️ Take care of your emotional and physical well-being during stressful times.
🙌 You are not alone. Many are facing similar challenges.

She emphasizes the significance of relationships and personal branding in navigating the modern job market.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Layoff Anxiety
• 1:29 Building Financial Stability
• 7:10 Prioritizing Mental and Physical Health
• 10:05 Enhancing Career Resilience and Personal Branding
• 12:07 The Power of Networking in Job Search
• 15:00 Building Your Personal Brand
• 17:54 Financial Stability and Career Resilience
• 21:07 Building Resilience in Uncertain Times

Transcript

0:02

Hey folks, welcome back to another episode of Your AI Roadmap. I'm so excited to talk to you today about a relatively sad topic, it's true. I've been doing so many podcast recordings and recent TV spotlights and they've been asking me a lot about what are quick action steps, like people who are worried about AI layoffs, what do they need to do? And I thought, oh gosh, I'm answering all these questions on other people's podcasts, on other people's TV shows, whatever. But I haven't yet shared my three top action steps with you to take as soon as possible to prepare for layoffs. Maybe you see an AI layoff coming to your company. In the news right now, I'm recording this in February 2025, Meta just did a huge layoff. Starbucks is rolling out layoffs. The government is doing huge layoffs. It's hard to miss it in the news. if you are like the 50 % of Americans, according to Harvard Business Review, who are experiencing layoff anxiety, quote unquote, layoff anxiety, anxiety around layoffs, I have some action steps for you. So as many of you may know in my story that I tell publicly, I have been in not one but two AI layoffs. 30 % of the company let go in one day. really, really painful and I gotta tell you the first time, I wasn't ready. I wasn't as ready as I could have been. I knew the company wasn't doing as well as it could have been, but I really wish that I had taken these three steps that I'm gonna recommend to you today so that you can be in a way better position to write out volatile times and be more resilient. So let's jump into it. What are the three steps I would recommend to start right now if you can? So the number one thing that I'd recommend is working on your financial stability, specifically something called an emergency fund. Now, an emergency fund is money set aside for emergencies, yeah? And you may have heard phrases like, you know, set aside three to six months of living expenses. And that can sound so vague. And I actually recommend during this time, sadly, I have a friend who he has spent on the job search for 20 months. 20. So a six month emergency fund is not going to be sufficient. These days I really recommend 12 months of living expenses if you can. You know this is the ideal scenario but I'm just sitting out there. So what are you talking about? Emergency fund? What are you talking about monthly expenses? So if you don't already know you I recommend you go to your credit cards, your debit cards, all of your money that you spend on rent and food and childcare per month, and you find out the average number across a year. Usually the holidays, wherever you are in the world, are gonna be more expensive. Maybe you're buying gifts for people or yourself. But let's imagine a world where you look across your living expenses, your monthly expenses, and it's roughly $4,000 per month. I know that can vary widely around the world, but let's pretend it's $4,000. And if we multiply that by 12, that's $48,000. Let's imagine, let's just round up to 50, so that makes it a little bit easier for our math. So we're looking at a safety emergency fund of $50,000, okay? And I'm gonna recommend, so maybe you have $50,000 sitting around, you're like, okay, great, I've got this money or whatever. I'm making up this example, okay? You're putting that emergency fund potentially this $50,000 in a special fund just for emergencies That number may be really small that number may be really big compared to the numbers I'm talking about but just match it in your mind Okay, and and instead of just putting that in any place or under your mattress or wherever I recommend putting it in a high-yield savings account an HYSA and the reason I recommend that is because banks that offer high yield savings accounts will pay you to leave your money in this special savings account. That's fantastic, right? It doesn't just sit there, it actually is making money for you while it sits there. And I personally use SoFi. SoFi pays me 3.8 % APY to leave my emergency fund with them. So instead of... maybe paying fees, there aren't fees, they pay me potentially hundreds of dollars per month to have my emergency fund there. Now, this is really, really important in the layoff where if you potentially lose your job overnight, you have a buffer, you have some protection to sleep okay at night knowing that you are not in a really, really bad place. Excuse me if this is, but this is the advice I wish I'd had, okay? So you have this money set aside. and emergency funds can be used for more than just layoffs. For example, sadly, truly, my water heater died the other day. It just stopped working and I had no hot water. It was not fun. Cold showers, Cold showers though, but not by design. And I needed to pay the people to remove the water heater. to set up the new water heater and the insurance on setting up the correct things with the city. I don't have experience in water heaters. I needed to pay somebody else. And it was roughly $2,000 in Seattle. And I was like, man, I don't really want that. But the good news is I had money set aside that $2,000 wasn't gonna bankrupt me, right? I had that money for emergencies ready to go that I could spend if needed. And I'm really, really grateful. I have hot water now, again. Woohoo! Okay, so this financial cushion of this emergency fund can help you with peace of mind, it can help you with finding the next job or building other income streams, but that number one step I recommend is making sure you have that emergency fund set aside. If you're interested in SoFi and looking at high yield savings accounts, you can go to yourairoadmap.com/money-tools slash money tools, I'll link it in the show notes, and you can open up a SoFi account if you'd like to. It also helps you track your monthly spending. There's all kinds of other awesome things about SoFi, but specifically this high yield savings account with 3.8 % that they're giving you back. No account fees. If you use my link, I've talked to SoFi, I hope it's working correctly. You get $325 for setting up an account. Woohoo. So check it out if you want to. Okay, so that's step number one. Step number two that I recommend. And this may seem really obvious or otherwise. You need to take care of your mental and physical health during this time. If you're really scared about a layoff, you may not be in a really good emotional place right now. And that's totally understandable. I really, really recommend taking care of yourself. I talk about it in my book, I talk about it publicly, I go to therapy. I struggle with stress and anxiety and my therapist has been amazing to work with me to identify places where I need to put boundaries in place with people in my life, identify opportunities for me to take care of myself better, limiting beliefs. My therapist is amazing and I feel such a weight off my shoulders after speaking with her. So therapy might be something you wanna look into. Moving your body, physical health is so important depending on what kind of physical activity works for you. Maybe you love biking, maybe you love yoga. I love dance cardio. I dance it out almost every week, getting super sweaty, moving my body, flushing stress through me. During the pandemic, I committed to a 10 minute daily walk outside. It was hard some days. I don't know if you remember the hardest parts of the pandemic. It was allowed in my neighborhood to go on short walks, but even to get outside, rain, snow. heat, whatever, spend 10 minutes walking outside around your block, around your neighborhood can definitely help with your mental health. I strongly recommend it. I was listening to this research that even a three minute walk, probably just walk around your block is, you know, clinically validated to help throughout your day for your mental and physical health. You do what works for you. If your thing is yoga, if your thing is Pilates, if your thing is swimming. Whatever your version of physical and mental wellbeing, I recommend doing it. I have been really enjoying recently non-sleep deep rest, NSDR, where you do lots of long exhales and you focus on visualizing different parts of your body. There are tons of different apps that can help you do that. There are apps like Headspace, there are apps like Calm. You figure it out what it is. I know someone who does art therapy and loves painting, like I'm saying, but... especially during these really intense times, taking care of your mental and physical health is so important, so important. So please, if you're experiencing these types of things, prioritize this. Ask your friend to go on a walk with you, talk to your family member about art therapy you can do together, whatever it is, okay? Yeah, great. Now the third one I'm gonna recommend is all about your career. So I recommend really thinking about your personal brand and your career resilience through your network. So, yeah, let's try to be strategic about it. Do you have a personal brand set up online? If people type in your name to Google or they find you on LinkedIn, what do they find about you? Does your headshot, does your portrait look like you today? Okay? Do you have a headline of what you do and the job positions that you're interested in? Do you have relevant keywords? on your LinkedIn. Now LinkedIn is a platform I've invested in in the last decade and it has paid dividends. LinkedIn has worked for me. But maybe for your industry it's Discord. For maybe your industry it's Twitter, it's X. I don't know. But wherever your professional community is, I recommend you really invest in time there. Just for LinkedIn, I'm gonna talk about LinkedIn. If you want more engagement, if you want to stay top of mind for people in your industry about the next job, about the work you do, I recommend posting at least twice a week. I recommend posting pictures of your face. I recommend posting pictures of things you're actively doing in your industry. So what are those active things? Maybe you're networking. Maybe you're going to industry events. Maybe you're doing a new tutorial in your field. I recommend going to those events in person if you can in your local city. I recommend maybe there's Zoom events, maybe there are online events you can go to. Whatever it is, keep going to them, take pictures, post about it, tag the people you meet, follow up with the people you meet, keep that flywheel of your network going, especially during this time. And in my book, I give lots of research that I found about modern networking and careers that... blew my mind about the power of relationships to support and future-proof our career. For example, one of my favorite pieces of research I found was LinkedIn did research about after COVID layoffs, the way people landed their next job. And the way people landed their next job, do you wanna guess? It was introductions. 70 % of people landed their next job after COVID layoffs based on an introduction. So it wasn't that everyone was sending, know, CVs and that's how most people, you know, into job applications got their job. No, no, 70%. got their next job through an introduction based on someone they knew. So it's not the side route, it's not the sneaky route, it's the main route. So do yourself a favor, meet new people, reinforce your relationships with the people you know, follow up, build and flywheel your network in your field. Yeah? So if you're like, let's get back to nuts and bolts, if you're like, Joan, ugh, personal brand, I don't know what to do. I, how do I set this up? well, enough people have asked me this question in my DMs that I've actually made a course. It is called Brand Builder 101 Course, things I was not taught in school. You can find this course at yourairoadmap.com/brand slash brand. It is $27, it's all online. It has eight modules, eight templates and step by step guidance on how to build your brand. It has networking scripts. So if you say, don't even know what to send to people, great. I have copy that I've literally written and sent to people that has worked that I copy and pasted into these templates for you. It has tons of testimonials. I might even be willing to read out some of these testimonials. Anyway, I want to make it so easy, so obvious for you if personal branding is not something that's currently in your wheelhouse. This isn't something I learned in school. Gotta tell you, of all my years of school, through my master's degree, my PhD, we didn't really go into personal branding, okay? It's a true fact. So if you're like, feel really uncomfortable or I don't know what to do, here we go. So in the Brand Builder 101 course, they've got goals. So defining the goal to make sure it matches up with your personal brand, your personal versus your professional personal brand. I know, it's a weird. Personal brand is actually a professional brand online. I have a 12 step template to walk you through exactly what I do with people to help them set up their brands when I do coaching. There's an excellent LinkedIn profile checklist. If you were going with me and I'd be like, okay, change this and change this and upgrade this, there's a checklist that you can go through and check each box of that list. I've got the star method of storytelling techniques of how to structure long form posts, an example of a. highly effective LinkedIn post with real analytics and metrics, coffee chat magic, effective networking strategies with a spreadsheet, LinkedIn outreach text like I just mentioned, and my five step LinkedIn booster plan that helped me grow my LinkedIn following 160 % in 2023. So you can get this. Here are some testimonials. I saw results in days says Patrick five stars. This is amazing and exactly what I need motivating and easy to listen to says Grace. Great lessons, powerful message, excellent worksheets to hone in how you personally show up says Tim. Great course, vibrant speaker. Thank you, Ziv. Course is easy to follow and actionable. Gives great practical advice, specific tools. Okay, Paula. Point being, you can get this for $27 today, yourairoadmap.com/brand slash brand. Okay, let's get back to the goals. But point being, you don't have to do this alone. This actually takes work and effort. You don't just wake up like Beyonce and like, boo, I have a fantastic brand. Ta-da! No, work has to be done. So that is what I recommend about your personal brand. I recommend for your network, I mentioned at least posting twice a week, updating stuff, but basically, I want your face, your story, your expertise to be top of mind to people who can hire you. I want you to follow up with those things. want, you see this, the personal brand of you and your strongest professional sense of who you wanna be. and being known in your community to help you with that introduction to the next amazing opportunity unlock. Yeah? And I'm not just saying this as like, here's some research or here's some advice. I have lived this out. Yeah? So after my first layoff, I got my next job based on posting loudly, like, hey, I'm looking for the next thing. Here's the expertise that I have. You can find these posts. I optimize things. I went around so many coffee chats. I had a spreadsheet. I documented who I was talking to and followed up with them. Then I met people and they hired me. And from there, I got even more traction and was able to close my first six figure contract through entrepreneurship for Women in Voice and actually began hiring a team and scaled that. you know, it's not for some people, it might be about landing your next job. and I totally get that. For me, it was about how I build my wealth, how I build my career, how, I mean, if you have the ability to close six and seven figure contracts like I have, you can build your wealth and build your income streams and a day job may not be necessary. Yeah, I am currently about to close my first eight figure contract, knock on wood, and I am. While I'm doing that, it takes a long time. It is very hard to close an eight figure contract. It's okay. I am comfortable with my mortgage because I have other income streams coming in. In my book, I actually have 22 income streams I talk about. You can read them all in my book. But point being, there are lots of different ways to be financially stable and to future proof your finances outside of a nine to five day job. Okay, so you're like, okay Joan, you kind of went off the rails. Yeah, I've got lots of advice for you. I've got lots of different ways and things that have worked for me and that are data driven and I want to express to you. Overall though, if you listened to this far in the episode, I want to remind you that you are not alone, right? Thousands of people are being laid off daily here in the United States. It's really volatile. It can be really scary. So. Let's just go back, if you didn't hear anything else from me, let's go back to those top three things. Number one, financial stability and emergency fund. And ideally, that emergency fund in a high yield savings account, making you money set aside so you can sleep okay at night and know that you can be financially stable with that emergency fund. Number two, taking care of your mental and physical health. doing that yoga, moving your body, maybe going to therapy, working out, talking to your friends, messaging your bestie, whatever it is, mental, physical health that is for you. Number three, your personal brand, your networking, future-proofing your career, getting that modern flywheel going for you, navigating your modern career journey effectively. So I believe if you do these three steps, you are gonna be in a really a much better place than if you're just sad and groveling and eating ice cream. Okay, some of us do that and take time to grovel. But if you take those three action steps, you're gonna meet a way better place to prepare for layoffs if they come to you, if they come to your partner, your family, whatever the case may be, you're gonna be in a better place. Emergency fund, mental, physical health taken care of, and third, personal branding networking career stuff. Yeah? Okay. So if you're interested in this material, if this type of topic is interesting to you, so you're hearing me on the podcast of Your AI Roadmap, you also, I hope, know that I have the book, Your AI Roadmap, that really, really goes into detail about careers and future-proofing your career and future-proofing your income. I have 57 ideas for income streams for you to try out in my book. The book can be found on Amazon. Right now it's just 25 bucks, okay? yourairoadmap.com/book slash book can lead you right there. I also will have links in the show notes. If you have listened to the end of this episode, I really, really hope that this helps you through your anxiety, through potentially your layoff, through supporting your friend, your family member, your partner in this world of seemingly perpetual layoffs. Okay, and that rounds out this episode of the three steps to take ASAP to prepare for layoffs. You got this, I've been through them, it's been hard, but you can do this, and frankly, you can do this better than I did this, okay? You're in a way better place to prepare, I bet, and I am cheering you on. Okay, well, I'll see you on another episode of Your AI Roadmap. Have a wonderful rest of your day.