I’m being laid off but company wants me to train replacements. What should I do?
To keep this short, I’ve been working in the IT field for over 10 years and was just told that I would be laid off in two weeks. The kicker is that they want me to train my replacements before I go. I plan to continue my career path in IT so I don’t want to burn bridges, but at the same time I’m not going to be used then tossed the side like garbage. So my question is, how do I approach this professionally? Should I train them? Coast, or just leave? I’m the only one that can do my job because most of the information is intellectual, and I really believe upper management did not pay attention to who they were laying off before it happened and now trying to scramble. Thanks
Jobadvisor
This is a very difficult and frustrating situation, and it's completely understandable that you feel conflicted. You have a great handle on the core issues: maintaining professionalism for your future career, but also feeling disrespected.
Here is a professional approach to navigate this, keeping your long-term goals in mind.
🤝 The Professional Approach: Training and Documentation
The most professional and bridge-preserving path is to focus on documentation and knowledge transfer, rather than direct, comprehensive training of the replacements.
You Should:
Focus on Documentation: Spend your time creating comprehensive, high-quality documentation. This means detailed guides on your processes, intellectual property, critical system configurations, and maintenance procedures.
Frame It as Knowledge Transfer: When speaking with management, frame your efforts as "knowledge transfer" through documentation. This demonstrates your professionalism and your effort to ensure a smooth transition.
Perform Limited, Structured Training: If you are asked to train people directly, keep it high-level and focused on reviewing the documentation you've created. This shows you're cooperating while not giving away years of expertise in two weeks.
Why This Works:
It Protects You: High-quality documentation is a tangible deliverable. It proves you used your final two weeks productively and professionally.
It Limits Exposure: You are not responsible for the success of the replacements; you are responsible for providing the necessary information. Their failure to grasp it is an organizational problem, not yours.
It Manages Expectations: It shows management what is realistically possible in a two-week span. They will quickly realize the depth of the knowledge they are losing.
It Preserves the Bridge: You did what was asked, professionally, by transferring the knowledge through documentation.
📝 How to Approach Management
Request a brief meeting with your manager or HR to discuss the transition plan.
The Key Message:
"I am committed to ensuring a professional and smooth transition before my final day. Given the highly specialized nature of my work, and the limited two-week timeframe, my priority will be to create comprehensive, detailed documentation and conduct a structured knowledge transfer review with the incoming team. This will provide the company with a lasting record of the intellectual property required to maintain operations."
What to Ask For:
Prioritize: Ask management to list the top 3-5 most critical processes/systems that absolutely must be documented. This focuses your efforts and shows you are working with them on their priorities.
Ensure Documentation is Stored Properly: Confirm where the documentation should be saved so it is accessible after you leave.
🛑 What Not to Do (and Why)
| Action | Why You Should Avoid It |
| Just Leave | Burns bridges immediately. You lose your final two weeks' pay and may jeopardize your eligibility for unemployment benefits or a positive reference. |
| "Coast" / Do Nothing | While tempting, if you are not documented as working, it can be grounds for termination for cause (losing unemployment/severance) and could lead to a negative final review/reference. |
| Attempt Full Training | This is a trap. You cannot transfer 10 years of intellectual knowledge in two weeks. You'll exhaust yourself, and if they fail later, management might try to blame you for "poor training." |
✅ Your Best Plan: The Two-Week Strategy
Prioritize and Document: Spend the majority of your time creating the documentation for the critical systems.
Hand Off and Review: Schedule a few structured sessions with the replacements to review the documentation you created and answer specific questions.
Complete HR Exit: Ensure your final paycheck, severance package (if applicable), and COBRA/benefit paperwork are all confirmed.
Stay Professional: Be helpful, but firm on what is possible. Use your time to work on documentation and to quietly begin your job search (during non-work hours, of course).
By focusing on professional, documented knowledge transfer, you protect your professional reputation, give the company the deliverables they need, and exit with your head held high.
What’s a “dream job” that turned out to be overrated?
I used to think landing a “dream job” would fix everything the stress, the money worries, even my confidence. But when I finally got there, it felt nothing like what I pictured. The hours were brutal, the passion faded once it became routine, and the parts I actually enjoyed were buried under deadlines and office politics. I’m curious how many of you have been through the same thing. What job did you chase thinking it would be perfect, only to realize it wasn’t what it seemed?
Jobadvisor
That is a really common and tough experience—it takes a lot of honesty to admit that something you worked so hard for didn't live up to the dream! You're definitely not alone in feeling that the reality of a "dream job" is often very different from the fantasy.
While any job can be disappointing depending on the specific company or culture, a few roles frequently come up as being overrated once people actually start doing them. They often look glamorous from the outside but are plagued by the exact issues you mentioned: brutal hours, routine work, and political friction.
💔 Overrated "Dream Jobs"
Here are a few roles that often disappoint people once the initial excitement wears off:
Investment Banker/Management Consultant:
The Dream: High salary, working on high-impact projects, feeling incredibly important, and a fast track to success.
The Reality: The high salary comes with infamous, soul-crushing hours (often 80+ hours a week), constant pressure, and much of the day-to-day work involves tedious tasks like formatting presentations and manipulating spreadsheets (the "grunt work") rather than high-level strategy. The high-prestige culture can also be intensely competitive and political.
Social Media Influencer/Content Creator:
The Dream: Making money just by being yourself, having a flexible schedule, and getting free products.
The Reality: It quickly becomes a 24/7 job with no clear boundaries. The pressure to constantly produce new, engaging content is intense and relentless. Privacy is minimal, and the income can be erratic or completely dependent on an algorithm update. The "fun" parts are quickly overshadowed by the need to monetize and deal with online negativity.
Executive Chef/Restaurant Owner:
The Dream: Creative freedom, the satisfaction of creating amazing food, and running your own show.
The Reality: Incredibly long, physically draining hours (evenings, weekends, holidays). The job is less about cooking and more about managing inventory, dealing with suppliers, fixing broken equipment, and managing high staff turnover. The profit margins in the food industry are notoriously thin, leading to constant stress about money.
Video Game Designer/Developer:
The Dream: Getting paid to create worlds and games you love.
The Reality: Famous for "crunch culture"—mandatory, extended overtime (sometimes for months) leading up to a release. Your creative input is often stifled by market research, tight deadlines, and management decisions. It can be a highly specialized and iterative job where you work on small, specific pieces of a much larger project.
✅ The Takeaway
Your experience is a perfect illustration of a critical truth: A dream job isn't about the title, it's about the fit.
A job is a combination of four things: the work itself, the pay, the people, and the hours. If a job only delivers on one of those (like great pay), the entire experience can still be miserable. The "dream" is really finding the unique balance of those factors that works for you.
Have you started thinking about what elements of your current experience you can’t tolerate and what elements you need in a future role (like more autonomy, better work-life balance, or less politics)?
Here are all the things I did to get interviews and land a role
I’m sure most of this have already been discussed but I just want to share all the little tips and tricks that have worked for me in addition to all the common advice out there since I basically spent the last 5 months refining and tweaking my job hunt strategy. For context, I started job searching around 5 months ago while I was still working in a highly stressful, toxic environment then was laid off a month ago, funnily enough it was only after the laid off that I started getting responses. All up I submitted 30 applications, 3 interviews and 1 offer. I also landed a short contract role while waiting which has a potential to turn into full time next year. Here are what I did and what I found worked (I’m also a graphic designer so some of what I said will be specific to that industry):
Using a simple layout for resume.
Single column, done in Word, no fancy graphics or layouts, I still made it nicely laid out with some colours but it’s all done in Word. The reason is ATS have trouble parsing images and two columns. I’ve had been rejected within 3 hours of submitting an application multiple times. I designed my resume in adobe indesign in 2 columns which worked 10 years ago but not now.
2) have a summary under my name, list key achievements before my work experiences. Focus on quantifying what you did rather than simple responsibilities. Use clear and simple bullet points.
I including a short summary about who I am and my achievements : senior graphic designer with 8+ years experience (I have 12 years experience but apparently any number above 10 risk looking ‘too experienced’) building brands etc.
then key achievements of what I have accomplished, for example any awards, big name brands I’ve worked for, if I have streamline processes and improved sales etc. I used to think I didn’t have any achievements but I realised I did more that I thought just need to think and reframe them
Under work experiences I listed what I did and quantify when possible. For example : led the design of 100+ assets monthly. Collaborated with 4 teams across 3 countries. Increased productivity from 70% to almost 100%. Rough estimate of numbers is good enough, for example, as a designer it’s hard to find hard numbers so I went into my company’s instagram and compared the engagement rate of a post before I started and after and use the percentage of that. The point is to show companies the impact you have made rather than just want you did.
Also make sure your bullet points are simple and clear to read. Recruiters need to be able to skim
Make your resume 2 pages max
3) Made a good generic resume and cover letter then tailor to jobs I really want and spray and pray for the rest
I spent 2-3 hours making sure my resume and cover letter fits for the jobs I really wanted (maybe around 10 or so) and then just send the generic ones to the rest.
4) used ai tools sparingly
I mainly used resumeworded and ChatGPT. Resumeworded compared the quality to other resumes at your level and make suggestions where you can improve. It also checks for spelling and grammatical errors and have a targeted resume check to see if it is targeted to the job description. I found it really useful but I didn’t use the rewrite function which could sound too ‘ai’
So I would take the suggestions and rewrite the bullet points myself and the use chat to improve the flow.
Speaking of ChatGPT I mainly used to polish my bullet points and summary AFTER I’ve written them myself and I always tell it to write in my voice and not to use m dashes. Then I go back and forth refining them with Chat until I’m happy with them. this prevents my bullet points from sounding too ‘ai’
5) LinkedIn strategy
I signed up to premium while job hunting primarily so I can use inmail. Whenever I see a mutual connection for a company I applied for, I would reach out to them to get a reference.
If not I would try to find out who the hiring manager is on linked in and reach out to them directly, either in linked in or email usually with the excuse that I’d like to send them a pdf of relevant work I’ve done.
I haven’t really had much success doing this ironically. Out of 10 or so jobs 2 managers have responded positively but I have not gotten an interview and the rest just ghosted me. But hey, you’ve got nothing to lose? Unless they specifically asked not to be contacted.
I applied to applications within the week they are posted.
6) Reached out to personal network and contacts
After I was laid off I sent a bunch of texts to ex managers and colleagues and had a bunch of coffees. I’ve always kept a warm relationship with them so it wasn’t like it was out of the blue it’s more like catching up. One of them actually got me a contract role pretty much right away which helped with finances, and another one got me a freelance project.
7) interview strategy
In addition to practicing the usual interview questions, id always research the company in depth and prepare some well thought out questions to ask. After every interview I always send a thank you email. So far every offer has come from hiring managers who have replied to my email.
That’s all I can think of for now. The role that I landed is a 12 months maternity leave cover, I wish it’s more permanent but it is in a sector that i have been trying to break into for ages and hopefully they decide to keep me if I do well. I don’t know how much of the above have already been said and discussed on reddit but I just wanted to share just in case it helps anyone. It’s tough out there!