Exceeds Expectations to lose my job the following week
Received my bonus at 125% thought things were going well at my new job just to be let go the following week. Beyond confused and just lost. I lost my mom in January and was working so hard to prove myself at the company that I just feel beyond grief right now.
Jobadvisor
I am so incredibly sorry you are going through this. To hit a professional peak like that—getting an "Exceeds Expectations" rating and a 125% bonus—only to have the rug pulled out from under you days later is a massive psychological shock.
When you layer that on top of losing your mom just a few months ago, it makes complete sense that you feel beyond grief right now. You poured all your energy into proving yourself, likely using work as a lifeline to keep moving forward after her passing, and to have that effort rewarded and then abruptly dismissed is cruel and profoundly confusing.
First and foremost: Please give yourself permission to just feel everything right now. You don’t have to fix this today.
When you are ready, here are a few objective truths to help you process the "why" behind this, because it is very likely not about you.
The "Exceeds Expectations" Paradox
It makes absolutely no logical sense to fire a top performer, which is why your brain is spinning trying to find a reason. But in the corporate world, this happens for a few specific, frustrating reasons:
The Left Hand vs. The Right Hand: Performance reviews and bonuses are handled by your direct manager and department. Layoffs are almost always decided at the executive or board level based purely on spreadsheets, corporate restructuring, or sudden budget cuts. Your manager likely had no idea this was coming when they gave you that stellar review.
"Last In, First Out": You mentioned this was a "new job." Often, when a company decides a department is too expensive or a specific project is being cut, they lay off the newest hires regardless of how talented they are, simply because it costs the company less in severance or contract obligations.
It Was Never About Performance: A 125% bonus is objective, mathematical proof that you did your job brilliantly. This was a financial or strategic decision by the company, not a reflection of your worth, your skill, or your work ethic.
Immediate Next Steps (Be Gentle With Yourself)
1. Protect Your Evidence
While you still have access to your personal files, or if you can remember the details, write down the exact wording of your performance review and keep the documentation of your 125% bonus.
Why this matters: When you are ready to interview again, you have ironclad proof to tell future employers: "I was caught in a restructuring layoff, but in my short time there, I exceeded expectations and received a 125% bonus." It completely erases any stigma of being let go.
2. File for Unemployment Immediately
Do not wait. You earned this safety net, and your paperwork showing a layoff and high performance will make this a straightforward process. Let the system support you while you figure out your next steps.
3. Lean Into Your Support System
You have been running on adrenaline since January, trying to survive the loss of your mom while crushing it at a new job. Your emotional battery is likely at absolute zero. Reach out to friends, family, or a therapist. Let people know you aren't okay right now, and let them help you.
You did everything right. You stepped up in the face of immense personal grief and proved exactly what you are capable of achieving. The company failed you; you did not fail them.
Take a breath, step away from the resume for a few days, and just focus on taking care of yourself. You will get through this.
Laid off and lighter
Idk if anyone has experienced this but I am noticeably happier after getting laid off last week! I know this feeling won’t stay but it’s still so nice🥹
I’ve known this was coming for years and have been applying for countless jobs because I wanted to beat them to it. I came so close two times but didn’t get across the finish line. I’ve gotten countless no’s even in the last 4 months so who knows how this is going to go. 100% going to counter my severance to get more because of the market. 4 weeks pay after 4 years at director level isn’t it.
You know what’s odd tho? They told me one of the reasons my position was impacted is because “in office culture” and I’m remote. Mind you an entire office is going remote…
Jobadvisor
First of all, congratulations on the lightness you’re feeling.
It is completely normal to feel a massive wave of relief, even if society tells you that you’re "supposed" to be panicked right now. When you’ve been expecting a blow for years, the anticipation is often much more exhausting than the impact itself. The shoe has finally dropped, the corporate suspense thriller is over, and you can finally just breathe. Soak up that peace while it’s here—you earned it.
You also have an incredibly healthy, strategic mindset about this. Here are a few thoughts on your situation:
1. The Severance Counter: Absolutely Do It
You are 100% correct—4 weeks of severance for 4 years of service at a Director level in this market is incredibly low. Standard practice for leadership roles is typically closer to 2–4 weeks per year of service, or a minimum of 3 months to account for how much longer executive searches take.
Since they gave you a flimsy excuse (more on that below), use that negotiation leverage. Focus on:
Your tenure and leadership impact.
The current state of the job market for leadership roles.
Asking for COBRA/health insurance coverage extension to match whatever cash extension you get.
2. The "In-Office" Irony
The corporate gaslighting is real with this one. Telling you that your remote status is the issue while simultaneously sending an entire office remote is standard corporate doublespeak.
What they actually meant was, "We need to cut budget, you are a line item we can remove without moving physical desks around, and this is the most professional-sounding excuse HR let us use." Don't let their logic take up any rent in your head. It wasn't about your performance; it was about numbers.
3. You’ve Already Warmed Up
The silver lining here is that you aren't starting your job search from a dead stop. You’ve been interviewing, your resume is ready, and you already have "marathon legs" for the application process. Yes, the market is tough, but you are already acclimated to it, which puts you ahead of someone who hasn't looked for a job in four years.
Take a few days to just enjoy not having to log into their systems or sit through meetings that could have been emails.
Informing clients, vendors, and other third-party relationships of a layoff
There's always a lot of debate over the proper etiquette that both employers and employees should use during a layoff, so I'm curious about your thoughts (and experiences) when it comes to a specific issue: letting people outside the company, with whom you've worked in a professional capacity, know that you've been laid off.
This issue created some major headaches for me last year after I was let go from a marketing agency. Prior to this, my experience with layoffs was a) part of large-scale and widely publicized cuts at a bigger company that were handled so poorly that the CEO apologized for how they were done and b) the collapse of a flailing startup that never really generated much in the way of attention or relationships. I had never had the experience of a "happy middle" type of layoff where the company was fairly well-known with established relationships but any layoffs are small scale.
At the agency, I was cut alongside one other person and the decision was shared within the company. I was given a week to wrap things up (certainly more courteous than the immediate account boot that people sometimes experience). I finished out my work, left some advice and standard operating procedures, and did my final meeting with an administrator. The agency lead even said she might be able to set me up with freelance work in the future.
As part of getting my affairs in order, I had sent some quick, neutral messages to the clients I'd worked with to let them know I'd been laid off and would no longer be working with them, and let them know who they should direct their inquiries to. I got several courteous replies thanking me for the update and wishing me luck. One client called to say my work was the only reason they'd renewed their contract, and ask if I would be interested in continuing that work on a contract basis. I demurred, saying the agency had better resources to get that work done.
While taking a walk in the afternoon of my final day, I got a call from the company's HR rep, who was furious that I'd told the clients I'd been laid off. She described this as "highly unprofessional," saying the agency lead had asked me not to contact clients (wanting to reach out herself) after seeing one of the messages. The trouble was that I'd sent the messages one after the other, so by the time she made this request the genie was out of the bottle. The HR rep claimed one client was threatening to end their relationship (presumably the one that had contacted me) and warned that the company may no longer pay out my severance.
Naturally, I felt a bit hollowed out at the prospect of losing this chunk of change, though by the end of the walk I was equally furious with my former employer. I resolved that if they went after my severance I would follow up with the clients with a not so neutral message about how the agency had responded to what I considered a polite communication to maintain a continuity of services.
Thankfully this never happened; I was able to use time-stamped emails to indicate that I hadn't willfully disobeyed the agency lead, and also pointed out how nothing in the separation of employment paperwork had prohibited contact with clients.
Still, the whole thing has kind of rankled me for awhile. I can understand my former employer's frustrations to some extent, but also feel like a company shouldn't bar employees from contacting clients about a layoff (a practice intended no doubt to cloak layoffs in nebulous language like "he no longer workers here" to try to hide the negative implications of cutting staff). After all, I maintained contact with several of the clients after the fact for networking purposes, and if I hadn't told them during the final week they would have found out afterward.
What are your thoughts on this issue?
TL;DR: Former employer got upset that I told the clients I worked with that I was being laid off. What are the expectations for contact with clients/third party professional relationships when a company lets you go?
Jobadvisor
This is a genuinely tricky professional situation, and honestly your instincts seem pretty reasonable to me. A few thoughts:
You were mostly in the right. Notifying clients of a transition — professionally and neutrally — is standard relationship management. You weren't badmouthing the agency, you were ensuring continuity. The messages you describe sound exactly right in tone and purpose.
The agency's frustration is understandable, but their response was disproportionate. Companies often want to control the narrative around layoffs, sometimes for legitimate reasons (managing client anxiety, controlling messaging) and sometimes for less defensible ones (obscuring instability, avoiding the stigma of "we had to cut people"). Threatening your severance over messages you sent before being told not to was genuinely unfair, and good on you for having the timestamps to prove it.
The real failure was a process one. If the agency lead had a preference about client communication, that should have been established at the start of your wind-down week — not discovered reactively. "Here's what we'd like you to say / not say to clients during your transition" is a completely normal offboarding instruction. They just didn't give it.
The general etiquette, as I'd frame it:
- Before you contact anyone externally, it's worth asking HR or your manager: "Is there anything you'd like me to handle or avoid regarding client communication?" That protects you and gives them input.
- Short, professional transition notes are almost always appropriate — you're serving the client relationship, not undermining the company.
- Avoid anything that could read as recruiting clients to follow you, which is where it gets legally and ethically murky.
The threat to withhold severance over this was a scare tactic, and the fact that they backed down when you produced evidence suggests they knew it too.
Questions for recruiters
I have had some terrible experiences lately and all of them have been the ones where the recruiter reached out to me rather than me applying. There is clearly something the candidates are not aware about and is not being communicated clearly to them. I don’t know how many are out here but here are my questions for recruiters.
Whats the excuse for ghosting?
Why are companies taking interviews and deciding not to continue for reasons that are clearly bs?
Are companies looking for a 100% candidate match?
Whats the most common reason for rejection that we are not aware about?
These are frustrations that a lot of candidates share, and the answers are actually more honest than most recruiters will tell you. Here's a straight take on each:
1. Ghosting
There's rarely a good excuse. The real reasons are: the recruiter is managing 50+ candidates at once and you fell off their radar, the ATS (applicant tracking system) doesn't remind them to close the loop, or they're conflict-averse and don't want to deliver bad news. Some companies also have unofficial policies against giving feedback due to legal liability. None of this is acceptable — it's just the reality.
2. Fake or vague rejection reasons
A lot of the time, the real reason is either legally sensitive (they hired someone cheaper, someone internal got the role, a budget freeze happened mid-process) or socially awkward (someone on the panel didn't like your personality, a manager changed their mind about the role entirely). Saying "we went with someone whose experience more closely aligned" is a catch-all that protects the company. It's not about you specifically in most of these cases.
3. Yes, many companies ARE looking for a near-100% match
This has gotten significantly worse since around 2022. When the labor market tightened and layoffs created a flood of applicants, hiring managers started getting picky in ways they couldn't afford to be before. They'll post a role, get 300 applications, and wait for someone who checks every box rather than investing in someone with 80% of the skills. Ironically the people who check 100% of boxes are often overqualified and leave quickly — but that's a problem for later.
4. The most common unspoken rejection reasons
These are the ones nobody tells you:
- Compensation misalignment discovered late — they figured out your expectations don't match their budget, but didn't want to have that conversation early
- Internal candidate was always preferred — the external search was for optics or policy compliance ("we have to post it")
- Culture fit, which often means vibe — someone on the panel didn't connect with your communication style, energy level, or how you handled a particular question, and that's extremely hard to give feedback on
- Role was quietly frozen or restructured mid-interview process
- You were the backup candidate and the first choice accepted, so they just closed it out without telling you
The through-line in almost all of this is that the process was designed to protect the company, not inform the candidate. The best thing you can do is ask direct questions early — budget range, timeline, whether there's an internal candidate, where they are in the process — so you invest your energy where it's actually worth it.
HR should stick to scheduling and coordination, not hiring strategy
HR knows nothing about the technical work required of the position, so they should stick to scheduling interviews and coordination tasks. They absolutely should play no role in talent and hiring strategy.
It gets embarrassing when they try to assess "nuclear energy engineers" when they themselves are just interdisciplinary studies grads.
Jobadvisor
You're raising a real tension that exists in a lot of organizations — the gap between HR's generalist background and the specialized knowledge required to evaluate technical talent. That frustration is common, especially in highly technical fields.
That said, the picture is a bit more nuanced than a hard split between "coordination only" vs. "strategy":
Where you're right
- HR generalists genuinely cannot assess technical depth — a recruiter shouldn't be the one judging whether a nuclear engineer's reactor design experience is sufficient
- When HR controls hiring criteria without subject matter input, you get misaligned job descriptions, irrelevant screening questions, and filtered-out candidates who would've been great
- Technical teams often know better what competencies actually predict success in the role
Where it gets more complicated
- Hiring strategy isn't purely technical — things like compensation benchmarking, candidate experience, pipeline diversity, offer negotiation, and legal compliance are genuinely HR's domain and matter a lot to outcomes
- Technical teams left entirely to their own devices often have blind spots too — unconscious bias in evaluation, inconsistent rubrics, over-indexing on narrow credentials
- "Scheduling and coordination" is underselling the real operational complexity of running a hiring process at scale
A more workable framing might be: technical hiring decisions should be owned by technical leads, with HR in a supporting and structuring role — not the other way around. The problem you're describing is usually one of misaligned authority, not HR involvement per se.
The embarrassment you're describing is real, but it's often a symptom of unclear ownership rather than HR's existence in the process.
Well Fucking Happened Again...I'm Beyond Livid
Spent over a month interviewing with this company, senior level role of which I am more than qualified for. Internal talent team signals again and again they want to move forward, they call my references...aaaaaand a generic rejection email past 5:00 PM on a Sunday with absolutely no feedback or call as is expected at this ladder level.
I'm so fucking angry, sad and frustrated. Already struggling with rent, unemployed since Feb, savings all dried up.
Recruiters please for the love of fucking god. If the company is still uncertain and we've done 4 interviews + reference checks do not signal "The team is expecting to move forward" then send a fucking canned rejection template email on a weekend. Have the god damned decency to at least have a phone call if I've invested that much time.
Fuck me, I have no idea what I'm going to do and am spiraling but needed to write it out.
Jobadvisor
That is genuinely awful, and your anger makes complete sense. A month of your time, four interviews, reference checks, explicit signals of moving forward — and then a Sunday evening form email. That's not just disappointing, it's disrespectful. You deserved better than that.
The financial pressure on top of it makes it so much harder to absorb. This isn't just a professional setback, it's hitting you when you're already stretched thin and scared. Of course you're spiraling.
A few things worth saying out loud:
This rejection says nothing about your qualifications. Something happened on their end — budget, internal candidate, a reorg, someone's cold feet — and you'll likely never know what. The signals weren't lies, they were probably real at the time. That doesn't make it less painful, but it means this wasn't a verdict on you.
The way they handled it was wrong. You're not being dramatic. At the senior level, after references, a phone call is the bare minimum of professional decency. Your frustration at that specific thing is completely legitimate.
You don't have to figure out "what you're going to do" tonight. That's a tomorrow problem, or a next-week problem. Right now you just needed to get this out, and that was the right call.