Navigate a layoff from the news to your next role
The first week after a layoff sets a tone that's hard to recover from if it's spent purely in shock rather than moving deliberately.
- Outcome
- A clear-headed handling of the immediate practical steps, a genuine and current read on what you're actually looking for next rather than defaulting to the same role out of momentum, and a job search running on a sustainable rhythm instead of either paralysis or frantic scattershot applying.
- Time
- The first steps take days; the job search that follows spans weeks to months
This workflow is part of PromptKit Pro
A handful of prompts and workflows stay free for everyone — Pro unlocks the full library, including this one, plus the guided runner.
A layoff often gets handled in one of two unhelpful ways: paralysis that delays practical necessities (benefits, finances, notifying your network), or a frantic scattershot job search applying to anything immediately out of anxiety, without pausing to check if the same role is even still what you want. This playbook moves through it deliberately: handle the immediate practical steps clearly, get an honest current read on what you're actually looking for, and then run the search at a sustainable pace.
When not to use this
If you already have a clear plan and are handling this well, this structure may just add overhead — use whichever parts are actually useful to you right now.
Did this work?
You've handled the immediate practical steps clearly, have an honest current read on what you actually want next, and are running a job search at a sustainable pace rather than either frozen or scattershot.
Tested on claude-opus-5. Evidence status is draft; it moves to battle-tested only on recorded runs, never by hand.