What do you do when you and your spouse are laid off from 3 companies within 9 months , once while expecting their 4th child, and searching for a job while pregnant?
In this episode I chat Liz and Bryan Day. They discuss with me the realities of job loss and how it impacted their family being laid off multiple times in less than a year. We talk about the challenges with dealing with job seeking while pregnant, losing a home, and finding new hope to retain their livelihood throughout this process.
Follow the podcast on Instagram: @rebootloadingpodcast
Interested in becoming a guest? Email me: rebootloading@gmail.com
Connect with TalentWise Consulting here: https://www.linkedin.com/company/talentwise-solutions/
https://talent-wiseconsulting.com/
Connect with Bryan and Liz here:
Bryan.Day@talent-wiseconsulting.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethdaypm/
Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to follow along and hear more engaging conversations.
What do you do when you and your spouse are laid off from 3 companies within 9 months , once while expecting their 4th child, and searching for a job while pregnant?
In this episode I chat Liz and Bryan Day. They discuss with me the realities of job loss and how it impacted their family being laid off multiple times in less than a year. We talk about the challenges with dealing with job seeking while pregnant, losing a home, and finding new hope to retain their livelihood throughout this process.
Follow the podcast on Instagram: @rebootloadingpodcast
Interested in becoming a guest? Email me: rebootloading@gmail.com
Connect with TalentWise Consulting here: https://www.linkedin.com/company/talentwise-solutions/
https://talent-wiseconsulting.com/
Connect with Bryan and Liz here:
Bryan.Day@talent-wiseconsulting.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethdaypm/
Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to follow along and hear more engaging conversations.
00:09
Hi, welcome to the Reboot Loading Podcast. I'm your host, Stephanie.
00:33
And one of them happened while Liz was pregnant and Brian just basically said, screw it. And I'm going to start my own thing. I'm excited to talk to you guys about that. I think we, uh, we want some kind of award there. And we're all understanding they have four kids. So if you guys hear kids in the background, this is real life. So, and we are, we are just rolling with it. We love it. Let's do it. Yeah. Brian, talent acquisition is your specialty.
01:03
That is correct. Yes, yes it is. So tell me a little bit about how you ended up to the point where you decided, I'm just going to go ahead, create my own business. I don't want to deal with all that's out there right now. Yeah. So I've been in Palinac Resnition for 10 years. Anybody that's worked in it, it really is. It's a grind. I started off in staffing. I was there for three years and then...
01:29
did corporate recruiting for three years and I got caught in three layoffs in the last three years. Through COVID, a company that they were bought out by another company and they let go of the TA team and then last one was with government roles and that just didn't, you know, it was the layoffs there too. Three in three years, you know, you go from, you know, I think I'm good at this to, oh my goodness, what has happened? What has turned in the market? Like, I don't know why I've become obsolete. So after, you know,
01:59
three months worth of searching and going on LinkedIn and seeing job posts where there's a thousand candidates. You can't get interviews. And even the interviews you do, it's hard because you just know, like, okay, I already, you're talking to 20 other people. Like there's, I'm hoping at this point. So we're at the point where we both were laid off within nine months, three times. I heard this thing a long time ago that you're always three months away.
02:28
from losing everything. And that's kind of where we were. We never got a chance to really catch up when Liz was laid off. And then I was immediately laid off after that. And then she was seven months pregnant and then laid off. We lost her home. We had to go live with her parents. In your mid thirties, after being successful in your career, it's just not something that you would ever, in your wildest dreams think of. There are times where it's like, yeah, I could.
02:54
I may be late on some bills or it might get a little bit weird with student loans, but you never think like, well, my livelihood is about to be taken away. So when we hit that reality, it was, okay, this is an opportunity. Let me try to create something. I've done this for a long time and I've been successful at it. And the only thing that's going to be different is I have to find my own clients. Looking at it, it's not the same risk that you would take if we have our home still. So
03:23
The mindset behind that was if we're going to have to do this, we're going to have to adapt or it's going to keep happening. You know, we lost our home this time. If history's starting to tell us something, it's going to happen again. So I can't just keep going to companies and in this field that really is volatile, you know, you can look on LinkedIn at any point and just see thousands of recruiters that are looking for work. And if you're, if you're in this field long enough or any field that you work in and you're starting to see patterns like that, it's time to adjust. You got to do something different.
03:53
Yeah, that's what led to that. It wasn't some like light bulb that went off. Like, oh, I could do this myself. It was more of a necessity of, okay, if we want to survive and, you know, we have all these kids now, we've got to do something different. You touched on about the three month thing where I think back before, maybe pre-COVID, I don't know if it maybe dates back a little bit further than that, but I feel like it would have sufficed at that point. But the way that the market is now.
04:21
I feel like it's more like six months to a year. As far as you need to have a savings built up for that much because, and I feel like as far as the three months of, you know, where you're going to lose everything, that's been brought up to maybe like a month and a half. It just seems like everything was either accelerated or you have to have more of a cushion to fall back on because you just don't know what's going to happen. With what we've experienced the last three or four years. Yeah. I mean, like you said.
04:50
I would bet most people are two months away, especially if you've got a family. It just seems to be where we're at in the market right now. I think it was, did you say, let me make sure I have it correct. So were was Liz laid off first and then you were laid off after when she was pregnant? Yeah. So just to give you the timeline of what would that have been? 2023? Yeah. So I found out I was pregnant in February. Yeah. So we were laid off. Yeah. Just to kind of give you.
05:19
an idea of where we were at thought wise. Lily, our three year old bundle of anger. He was finally too and we went through, you know, we went through the pandemic of working from home with a newborn. And that's a unique experience in itself. And she was one and a half or two and we were like, all right, we're going to go on vacation. We've gone through this storm of beginning of COVID where
05:47
I would work with people that don't have kids and they would be like, your kids are screaming in the background. Okay, do you want me to muzzle them? I honestly don't know what you want from me. Yeah, I can acknowledge that they're there, but not much I can do. So going from that experience and having lived through that, we were so ready to take a vacation. So we did February of 2023, went on a cruise.
06:16
three weeks later, she was laid off. Oh wow. And we were- And we were weeks pregnant. Yeah, so we're trying to catch up from that. It took her- That was really quick. I got a job within like two weeks from there. So that was a super quick turnaround. That was great. I didn't really even miss a paycheck, I don't think. So I got in at that second location and I was there until I was eight months pregnant. And then I was laid off from there. Yeah. And then I was laid off in May of-
06:45
20, 23. So, April, May, late March, early April, May, and then September. Wow. Yeah. I'm really interested and curious to see what the long-term... I don't want to say damage, because that's not the way to put it. But yeah, of having to go through this, especially living through that, I've had to let people go, right? It's not a good thing. It's not a...
07:13
fun experience. But whenever I've had to lay people off, I have, since I work in tele-acquisition, I have the unique position of saying, hey, send me your resume. I work with a lot of different companies. I can work on helping you out. And when I was laid off, there was none of that. I had one manager that the night before made us get on a 7pm meeting to talk about, you know, just normal work stuff. And then I was laid off the very next day.
07:41
What was wild about that is, you know, my manager at the time was, you know, it was a zoom meeting, she said, Hey, HR is going to take it from here. And then they disconnected my zoom. She blocked me on LinkedIn. I never even got an answer from her. Like what happened? I was never paranoid about anything. Like I was never at this, you know, working on pins and needle that this has brought. And my very last job that I had, like the whole time it was like, okay, when's it coming? When's it coming? I know it's going to come.
08:11
Like I'm definitely going to get laid off. And then sure enough, you get laid off. Yeah. I went through a company prior to this layoff that they had so many rounds of layoffs that I survived through. It changed the way that I would look at my jobs because I saw people around me just dropping out, like flies, and I'm thinking, when am I next? So I kind of had some trauma there just wondering when am I next? And then fast forward to last September.
08:40
signs were kind of there, but at the same time, you're wondering, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm misreading things. But when it actually happens, I feel like I'm a totally different person than I was six months ago. I've had to learn how to live with a lot of uncertainty that is comfortable to do. I am in that mindset of like, there's some scarcity going on. I'm pinching pennies. I'm
09:09
make my dollar stretch longer. And I honestly feel like even if I found something, I would still be in that same mindset. Like I don't feel like that is going to go away anytime soon. And I think honestly, what I like about, it's kind of like politics, where it swings one way and then it swings the other way. This job market's cyclical. And one of my biggest things that I remembered from when I started my career was,
09:38
don't forget what this feels like. I worked for a really toxic company and as I was working there, don't forget what it feels like to be ridiculed in front of the team or whatever, because at some point, always I guess I had some kind of vision, like this is just a vessel so I can learn this skill set and I can start my own thing. On the flip side though, like thinking about being laid off, I mean, you were talking about how like you had a company who completely cut you off.
10:07
But on the flip side, and Stephanie has experienced this as well, because we're really awesome, the same place. We have a huge community from where we work. And people have been so good. And people just reaching out out of nowhere, offering referrals. I'll never forget that. And I will always put myself in that position to do that for other people too, just knowing how that feels. What I like about what we're learning with this
10:37
I don't want to say trauma is necessarily not a bad thing, but when you're going through this, you're not going to be that. I don't really care that you've got a ping pong table and you have pizzas. Your culture sucks and there's nothing that you can do that's going to make me want to go into an office. And kind of it's absurd. Like my job specifically, you can shoot me to the moon. And as long as I've got internet access, I can do my job. And it's let's get away from this.
11:06
Why do I have to dress up for you same 20 people that I see every day? And why do we have to have this fake like rah rah culture and you know, let's just, let's just be real. Let's be honest and you know, I want to do this job and I want to go home and see my family. That's what's really important. And pizza, Brian, what about here? That's fine. We can make pizza at home. We can, uh, we can order. We, we do that real well. We're real good at it.
11:35
I agree with you though. I think switching gears a little bit about like the return to office and something that you now have the freedom to choose not to do with becoming an entrepreneur, doing your own thing is that you don't have to go into an office. You're not really a, another number, another employee. Yeah. On the flip side though, some people will say, you know, you have
12:02
a lot more bosses now. You have a lot more managers out there because you're kind of having to sell what you're doing. Let me try to think of the best way to answer that because the ability to not have this weight hanging over you that at any point someone can cut this off and you can say for me it's just been worth its weight in gold not have that weight hanging over your shoulders. Yeah, I do have a lot of people that I have to report to but also going through this...
12:32
you know, you learn how to work in a completely different capacity. Yeah. Like, you thought that I was a hard worker and it completely changes when it's like, okay, you think you are cool. You now have to work for your own livelihood. How are you going to manage that? And I think it's just, it's, it's different. I think if you're really good, what you do for a career, you can figure out how to manage that. Right. It's not so much stressful from a work capacity. It's stressful because.
13:02
you know, this is kind of your livelihood now. And this is. Yeah, I agree with you there because I've always trying to make the case that I understand if I'm going to go into business for myself, I will have a lot more bosses or a lot more people to answer to. But it's mine. And you don't have to worry about you know, when it'll close down, you know, when it's going to be shut down, you know, when you're laid off from it, because you hold the power there. Yeah. So you basically have your own way.
13:29
about doing things, you have your own priorities that you can set. So with the clients that you work with now, is that something that's important for you to work with clients that kind of share the same values that you do? Oh, 100% of course. You know, there's, without getting too into the weeds, there's definitely companies I wouldn't consider working with in any capacity. So I do like that. You know, I've been...
13:56
One of the things kind of that you can hit on is that you hit on is we can get who we want and being able to work with like green energy companies and not working with, you know, chemical companies or companies that make products that are harmful to your body. You know what I mean? So I definitely like having that freedom. You know, when you first start, you're kind of like, please just hire me.
14:24
candidates like I definitely go on their LinkedIn and I want to know like, okay, cool. Like, you know, you say that you're in diverse culture. Let me let me look at your C suites. Let me look at people that are in key managerial positions. I see that it's just a bunch of old white dudes. Like, come on. Like you, you know what you're about? Like you don't. Yeah, let's not let's not advertise something that you're not. So
14:48
Yeah, there's also that freedom of being able to work with companies that kind of share the same values as you. And I've also run into companies that don't have necessarily the same work style. So you guys were laid off multiple times with your kids. I know you have varying ages there. And I know with mine, you know, we struggle with trying to figure out like the budgeting and you have to cut back on some things. And how was it or how do you think it impacted them?
15:16
in whatever capacity? Like, did you have to have hard conversations with them or? Yeah, yeah. So every parent knows you have to say no sometimes. But I want I'm sure every parent feels like this too. I want to give them everything. So that was really tough. Like we went, I think Brian said we went from position to where we could pretty much say yes, about most things, we could take trips and we could
15:40
go to, you know, Target for a toy or whatever. We could go to McDonald's for a snack just because because we wanted to. Yeah. So we went from there to significantly cutting down. Like I mentioned, we moved in with my parents and they were obviously just amazing. And we're so thankful. But, you know, that's tough. We went from everyone had their own rooms to me and Brian. And the two girls are sharing a room and and the boys have their own rooms, which was, I mean, thank goodness they had that.
16:09
You know, just like no space. You can't, no, you can't have Robux just because you want to today, you know? They were, of course, they're amazing children. You know, they weren't like fussy about it or throwing fits or anything like that. For the most part, they understood, but I'm sure that led to like uncertainty for them too, you know, which I hate because I never want them to feel like that because I want to give them everything again. Yeah. But as much as I could, I've always tried to like shield that from them.
16:37
At the end of the day, we have a place to live. We have a place to sleep. We have food to eat. You're going to school. We have a car to drive. We have the necessities. We're all together. We'll get through it. Things will be good again. Yeah. I mean, that's a good way to put it because you don't know what the impact is going to be on the kids. Right. And you know that they feel it. When you have tension in the house, when they're the layoff, you're gonna have tension. They're gonna feel it. Whether you're trying to, we can try to mask it all we want, but it... Right.
17:05
it'll come out in some way. And kids are, they're very smart. They pick up on things. I don't wanna over or under, oh my God, what's the word I'm looking for? I think you're trying to say like it is traumatic. You don't wanna like oversell it, like saying something is something that it's not, but it is traumatic. It has changed the way that we react about things. We might not get Robux every single day, even if I have a job now, but we might not go back to that. We might make some,
17:35
was continue with the cut because you just never know what can happen. I mean we maybe we'll get really a great great place where we have tons of savings and everything's amazing but you don't know what can happen. That's kind of what this whole thing has taught me is like you just don't know. Going back to pre being laid off versus post being laid off. Yes. Especially with the number of times you guys have it changes you. You have different you start having different priorities you start
18:05
You are dreaming and I know that you're recently into a new position and I know that has to be a huge weight off your shoulders, but have you found yourself still wondering, is this true? Am I dreaming this? Is this my reality now? Yeah, 100%. So a little bit of background with the job I had with my second layoff, I already had been laid off one time. I had already gone down that road. My...
18:33
boss's boss at the time on a Friday afternoon, put a first thing Monday morning call on my calendar. I saw it come through and I immediately was like, shit, I'm getting laid off. And I showed my husband he was like, Yeah, you definitely are. So remember, I'm like eight months pregnant at that time. I'm going the whole weekend freaking out. Knowing Yeah, yeah, we're living with my parents because we'd already had to lay out three, I don't know, some some number of layoffs and we were not doing well.
19:02
So we're living with my parents. I'm eight months pregnant with three children. And, um, I have this call that I just know is going to be, I'm going to get laid off. Sure enough, I did. Um, and, but it's those little things like, um, I'm a new position and they're hiring several people for the role that I'm in and I'm already thinking, well, like, are they doing that just so they can let us go later on for the ones that they don't like, or if I don't do good on XYZ project, does that, does that mean I'm going to get laid off? So no, I mean, I think that's going to be with me forever.
19:31
I think that's an inevitable thing now because it reminds me of, I don't know if you had grandparents like this, but like my grandmother, she lived through some tough times and she was, I don't want to say hoarder, but she would want to make sure she had enough bread, she had enough groceries. And so when she would get things, I mean, coffee creamer was one for her that she just had to have bottles of it in the refrigerator at all times. But
19:59
It was that scarcity that if she didn't have it, or if she didn't have enough of it in there, it wouldn't be there. And I feel like I'm going through a lot of that myself, being laid off and wondering what's next. And I feel like, like I had said earlier, I don't know that getting another job is going to give me the peace of mind. I think in order for me to get to a place where I'm like super comfortable, I would have to just inherit millions.
20:28
I just have it. I don't think any job that I'm gonna get is gonna make me feel security. Well, I was gonna say like lottery, but you know, there's always horror stories around that too. So right. I like the inheritance part. That sounds good. Maybe we'll find some wealthy relatives we didn't know about. What I can say though on the flip side of that is appreciation of having stuff. Just the small, this is gonna sound
20:56
just ridiculous, but just being able to walk on the side of my bed, because we were in such a small room for so long and being able to do just that small thing was just this incredible, like, wow, what a, what a luxury. So it's never good to go through those kinds of situations. But like, I think this is fundamentally changed who we are as people. And you know, I don't, I don't want to say beforehand, we were
21:25
We were never vain people, you know, but going from both of us having six figure salaries and being able to do for the most part what we wanted within reason, you know, we're not flashy or anything. I don't know the best way to put that, but to go from that and then to living in a space, you know, that's going to fundamentally change who you are. And I think for us, I'm not happy that it happened, but I'm glad that we went through that experience because it's...
21:55
I'm glad we have gone through that experience. Coming up on your side and with starting a business and with seeing success from it, it's like, all right, we weathered literally another storm. And on a personal standpoint, on our relationship, just in general, going through COVID and then having a child through COVID and then both of us working from home through COVID and then moving to a city that we don't know people.
22:24
And then going through this and living with her parents, we never fought at all about any of the situation. There was never any finger pointing or anything. It was just, okay, this really sucks. Let's have, you know, our day to freak out, but let's, this is our new reality right now and what do we have to do? What's the next step forward? And being able to navigate that with someone that I think the best thing about us, we know that we're just normal humans that have emotions.
22:53
You know, we had, that was a lot to go through and you know, we went through it and it was like, cool, we did it. We're an awesome couple. I'm glad we did this. That's great though. I feel like though in some ways if you're looking on or trying to look for the bright side of things, going through a layoff in any capacity, it is a very humbling experience. Yeah.
23:19
the fact that you were able to, it sounds like you were both able to kind of just come to the conclusion that, okay, this is what it is, we're accepting it. That's one of the things that I think a lot of people have a hard time with is accepting the reality of where you are. Yeah. You've accepted it and then you've learned on the flip side to appreciate those small things that maybe before, it didn't seem like such a big deal. Exactly, exactly. The room on the side of the bed that you can walk there.
23:49
Yeah. It puts a lot of things in perspective for sure. With your business and what you're doing now, are there particular types of clients you're working with? Are you open to working with larger companies? Is there a particular profile that you're looking for? No. I don't like the idea of siloing what you're going after or having a region that you go after. So you're just open to any and all opportunities? Yeah. I work.
24:17
So we've got a couple of clients like they, we've got one that's a civil engineering firm. I have a client that is a construction firm. I have a, another one that is in the IT space. We have a real estate company that we work with. They're diverse. Exactly. If you're thinking of starting a business, don't silo yourself. Don't stick to a certain region. Go for everything. Go for literally everything you can. That's good advice.
24:47
I'm used to seeing recruiter. There's very few that I get that are more open to working in other industries. So I'll usually get one that's more just, oh yeah, I'm tech logistics. And that's kind of all we need. Hi, Liz. One question I've been dying to ask you is, when you were out there looking for a job pregnant, did you feel like you encountered a lot of bias? Was that there for you that...
25:16
you know, you're eight months pregnant looking for a job and come might not be so open to accepting you. Obviously, it's illegal to discriminate. But you know, there were I want to say three or four different times where I would get to final rounds, everything had gone well, I felt really good about it. And then I got rejected or even ghosted. And just I mean, it's weird. Like I know what happens especially like in the early rounds of applying for a job. I know.
25:45
I get that like no, no problem. You're not going to apply or you're not going to reply to thousands of people that applied just to say you're not moving on like whatever. But after you've done three or four or even five rounds and you get to that final round, you expect to hear something say you're, you know, you're going with someone else. Yeah. So, so like I said, I got a bit of final rounds on with several different companies. And at first I was like, well, I have to be honest. Um, I'm having a baby in like a week, you know, I have to say something.
26:13
Because a lot of times they would be, we would get to the final rounds and they would be like, Hey, we just want to confirm that you would be able to do on XYZ date. And I would be like, well, you know, actually, that's my due date, you know, I felt at first, I was like, I have to be honest, I'm not this person who could be a little bit deceitful. So I would tell them. And then it would that would just be like the end of the conversation. Maybe maybe I just like totally bombed interviews, I don't know. But it was very discouraging because at the time, you know, emotions are high and
26:43
you're thinking, oh my god, I'm about to have another kid, how am I supposed to provide for these children? And I can't even get a job. So but I typically now I don't bring up family at all. I and in the past, it had been something like, you know, I would I would mention, you know, my kids, blah, blah, blah. But now I don't even want to talk about my kids because you just never know what someone else's bias is going to be being a woman being a mother.
27:07
and being in this job market, then there's a lot of bias that is built into a lot of these interview processes. It's unfortunate that we have to do that still in this day and age, but that's really the reality of it. Is that we're so afraid to be open about it and say certain things. But that sucks because we deserve to take our kids to their dentist appointment. Right. Bare minimum.
27:35
Right, like no work I'm doing is more important than what my kids are doing. Like logistics moving boxes or whatever, whatever you're doing, like, unless you're literally out there saving lives, it's just not that important. And I don't want to pretend that it is. Yeah. That made me think of this. I think it was on Instagram. I saw someone saying like, you hear, and I never heard this until I got into logistics, but people were referring to like saying we need boots on the ground. And it's like, we're not, it's not that serious.
28:04
Right. It's going to war. We're not going to war. Liz, Brian, I want to say thank you so much for joining me today talking with me. I know you guys have a very busy schedule with kids and now jobs, your own business, so it really means a lot to me that you took this time to chat with me. And I just want to give a shout out to Brian's business, TalentWise Consulting. I will link everything in the show notes to ways that you can get in contact with Brian.
28:34
Take a look at his website. Liz made the logo, so shout out to Liz for making that. All the kudos to you. Thank you so much for letting us do this. This was really cool, really fun. So we appreciate it. If you're interested in becoming a guest on my show, all the information on how to contact me is available in the show notes. Would love to speak with other laid off individuals, mental health professionals, recruiters, business and career coaches, and resume writers. Also,
29:03
If you're enjoying the content and would like a shout out in an upcoming episode, a link in how you can support this podcast is available in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening and until next time.