In my early 30s. Redundancy. Two young kids at home, bills to pay and a future that suddenly felt terrifyingly uncertain. The news hit without warning, and I felt completely worthless. Like everything I’d worked for had been stripped away.
If you’re reading this because you’ve just been handed your notice, I see you. I know exactly where you are right now.
I’ve been watching a wave of redundancies sweep through the marketing world recently, and it’s brutal. End of year approaches, budgets tighten, and marketing is always first on the chopping block. It’s a pattern as predictable as it is devastating for those caught in it.
The timing makes it worse. While everyone else is planning Christmas and looking forward to the new year, you’re wondering how you’ll pay January’s mortgage. Your LinkedIn feed is full of people celebrating year-end wins while you’re quietly updating your CV and trying to explain to your kids why you’re home in the middle of the day.
It’s scary. Really scary.
The advice I wish someone had given me….
But here’s the one piece of advice I desperately wish someone had told me back then, when I was sitting at my kitchen table feeling like my career was over:
“This isn’t an ending. It’s the start of a new beginning“
I know, I know. When you’re scared and angry and wondering how you’ll make ends meet, the last thing you want to hear is someone spouting motivational nonsense.
But stick with me, because this matters.
What you’re actually taking with you
When you walk out that door for the last time, you’re not leaving empty-handed. You might feel like you are, but you’re not.
You have years of hard-earned experience that nobody can take away from you. Every campaign you’ve run, every crisis you’ve managed, every lesson you’ve learned, that’s yours. It’s in your bones now.
You have a network of people who respect your work. Those colleagues who’ve seen you in action, who know what you’re capable of, who’ve relied on you when things got tough – they don’t forget that just because your contract ended.
You have skills that are transferable and valuable. The market might be tight right now, but good marketers who can think strategically, communicate clearly, and deliver results? We’re always in demand. Always.
You have relationships that don’t end with your employment. This is the big one that nobody tells you about when you’re being made redundant.
Your network is yours
Those colleagues who are staying behind? They won’t be there forever. They move companies. They get promoted. They start their own businesses. And when they do, they remember the people who were good at their jobs. They remember you.
That network becomes your safety net and, more importantly, your future opportunities. Some of my best work has come from people I worked with years ago, who thought of me when an opportunity arose.
The truth about moving forward
I won’t pretend redundancy doesn’t hurt. It absolutely does. The knock to your confidence is real. The fear is valid. The anger and sense of injustice – completely justified.
But I’m here today, running my own successful business, because I eventually chose to see redundancy as a reset rather than a rejection. It forced me to take stock of what I really wanted, to back myself in ways I never had before, and to build something on my own terms.
Would I have chosen that path if I hadn’t been pushed? Probably not. I was comfortable, even if I wasn’t entirely happy. Sometimes we need the universe to give us a shove in a new direction.
To anyone navigating this right now
Take a breath. Feel whatever you need to feel, the anger, the fear, the unfairness of it all. Those feelings are valid.
But then, when you’re ready, ask yourself this: What’s the one skill or connection you’re taking with you into whatever comes next?
Because you’re taking more with you than you realise. And sometimes, the best chapters of our careers start with the words, “We need to talk about your position.”
This isn’t the end of your story. It’s just the plot twist you didn’t see coming.
